Lately, I've noticed a change in how I step...into an elevator.
OK, bare with me here, this is going to range further than Viggo Mortenson's Strider the Ranger character in LOTR. But we'll come back to this in the end.
You know what scares me more than WMDs? Weapons of Mass Destruction are indeed scary, but I may never be in the vicinity of one. Right? Actually if you look at the odds, and consider that I worked near, around, under and on nuclear weapons all through the last half of the 70s, odds are I should never run into them again. Hey, these are MY odds, so...shut up! Anyway, if I ever am around them again, I'm sure they won't be so benign and be handled by such law abiding citizens and it may not matter. I mean, I may never know it.
Boom! Story over.
I have an "office" (artistic license) on the 12th floor of a sixteen story building in Seattle. Lately, just as I step into the elevator, even without thinking about it, my foot hesitates as I lower it to the rug in the VMB (Vertically Moving Box; if it also went other than vertical, then it would be a Wonkavator, but sadly, or happily, it doesn't, or isn't, whatever....). I have also noticed, that depending upon whether or not it is going down or up, my hesitation is imbued with either a greater or lesser sense of trepidation. There's a weight, to its weight.
What is that?
You know, years ago there was a Dutch horror film called, "The Lift". Its tag line was: "Take the stairs, take the stairs. For God's sake, take the Stairs!!!" When it came out I thought, how stupid. I haven't seen a movie idea I thought was that stupid until I recently heard about, "The Human Centipede - First Sequence" (No really, check YouTube for it). But The Lift was actually pretty good, pretty scary. Too scary. I haven't thought about it for years now. Maybe I'll watch it this weekend.
Before I get started, allow me to say here, I'm not the scary type. Not really. I spent the first part of my life, proving myself to myself, facing my fears, "abandoning hope all ye who entered there", and went forward anyway.
I fell out of airplanes, I dangled off of cliffs, learned mountain search and rescue where they would drop you and say, "OK, see you, uh, if you get back to base camp, if not, we'll come look for you" (they never had to), I frequently went SCUBA diving alone (even after being Treasurer of our High School SCUBA club and hey, Mike Nelson when diving alone all the time!), I backpacked alone in the Cascades and with friends in the Olympics, I've supplied personal (armed) protection for pay (and for free) over the years, I walked down the streets and alleys of a city once with $20 bills literally hanging from my pockets trying to get mugged (that was Bill Cosby's idea). Testing, testing, testing, learning my limits.
On the other hand, I'm still afraid of my parent's quarter basement in the house I grew up in. I snuck in there just last weekend, and really, no kidding, it does still scare me. And they don't even live there anymore. Not for decades.
On the other hand, maybe because of all that, I don't have any problem dealing with fear, should I ever have any. You just deal with it and move on. Fear is good, it means you're smart. Unless you fear something that you shouldn't, like your front door at home, or your toothpaste, then you do have a problem. Or other people do.
On the other hand, if you are too scared of your front door to leave and too afraid to use your toothpaste, then maybe no one really has anything to worry about.
But back to the elevator? I don't know. I just don't know.
Look, I've tried hard to Be, to Become, "Enlightened".
Is that it? I'm Enlightened? If so, then I'm seeing, feeling, that there is a chasm below, twelve floors of chasmness, of vacuous emptiness; I'm visualizing it, without even visualizing it; I'm sensing it, experiencing it. And its making part of me, nervous. But what part?
True Enlightenment would allow me to see also that this SVMB (Scarily Vertically Moving Box) is regularly checked, inspected and examined closely by certified individuals they call technicians, who are experts at making sure this is a SVMB (Safe Vertically Moving Box).
So perhaps I'm not so Enlightened.
On the other hand, I can also see that these individuals are Human. Sometimes I'm sure, they have a bad day. Or their certifications don't cover today's cold; or their wife having kept them up all night about something important (or otherwise), so that their examination that day isn't quite as thorough as it should be.
And so, the box could be defective. Then when I step into it, it could, suddenly drop away, plummeting into the depths of darkness. Perhaps, if I place my foot on its floor, gingerly, it will be just the right amount of pressure to release its defective controls to allow it to drop, and so I will have enough time to pull my foot back (or lose my foot), but not to fall to my death.
Then take another elevator down to the Paramedics.
The trouble is, this feeling seems to be in my foot. So, losing the foot, well, isn't really an option. I notice my hand doesn't seem to be affected by this. Leading with my hand tells me nothing, but still, its not scared.
What if its not my foot at ALL? What if, its the concrete far below that's having an attitude and my foot is picking up on it? But that's stupid. What if its the air in the shaft and its really sick to death of being beat up, with this box all day long going up and down and up and down and....
But perhaps I'm just being foolish and this is some irrational fear and I'm really not Enlightened, after all. Or maybe its a fear of losing something before I can correct all that needs to be corrected in my Life.
"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" the Shadow used to ask (its dark in that shaft, all shadows and hidden parts). Could it just be my foot? Could it be the Air (note the capitalization, I'm trying to treat it with respect here, man. No, really, think about it, if the Air suddenly left that shaft, wouldn't the elevator weigh a lot more or at least descend a lot faster? 14.7lbs/sq ft at sea level, remove that and....whoosh)?
So, is it Fear of Karma.
Or, Fear of the Elevator God(s).
Or, Fear of not being Fearful.
I'm afraid I really don't know.
But still I'm thinking, maybe I'll just work from home.
Tomorrow's Blog: Big Government/Appropriate Government
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
Is God too important? Why come first in Religion?
When listening to the news, terrorism, genocides, etc., do you ever get the feeling that maybe God is what's too important to religious fanatics, and NOT people?
I consider myself a Buddhist. But that is a Western creation. Being a "Buddhist". So I would have to say, in a Western way, that I am an unreformed Buddhist.
But that would also be wrong.
I study the Buddha Dharma.
I am part of the World Sangha, though some would discount that.
But, just what is the problem with world religions?
This won't sound right, it may seem counter-intuitive. But here it is....
People, in the words of most religions, don't have respect for God's children. The "children" of the "God" of the World's religions, are not held in very high esteem. Why is that? And....
What is?
God.
But, should He be?
Sounds ridiculous right?
But think about it for a minute.
Look around you. How are people treated in the world. How are people treated by people who believe in religion? Are ANY of them treating their fellow religious adherent's extremely poorly? Have they killed any of them? And do they revere God?
Take Muslim terrorists as an example. They strongly profess a belief in God. They believe so much that they will kill you over it. They will kill you over being profane over drawing images of Mohammad. Kill. They will KILL God's children. Over an action, an attitude, a comment, perhaps a look.
Really?! Seriously?
So, have any Buddhist's killed anyone? Considering their main tenet is to not kill living things? Yes, of course. And that is a good point. Because, if even a Buddhist can be a killer, when they are held to such a high degree of non violence and not harming living things, then how can the other world religions live up to their own beliefs?
I found an interesting website:
http://www.buddhabook.org/
"This book and website are devoted to exploring the Buddhist heart, mindset and culture from a native Christian perspective. Having grown up in a household of Buddhists, Catholics, Methodists, and Muslims, all of whom Steve loved, he chose to become a Christian."
It is an interesting site if you are Western, learning about Buddhism. but it is basically a Trojan Horse, professing one thing and delivering another. I disagree with many things he says, but he does make you think, and that is what's important. He points out parts of the Buddha Dharma that make about as much sense as Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. And those may be the more rational ones.
If God were standing in front of you, then of course, you should give Him His Due.
But if He's not, then why treat those in front of you as lower beings. Why not revere them? Place them ABOVE God? Perhaps not. But bring them to the forefront at the moment? Why not? Are you forgetting about God? Not, if you are revering his Children (in Western parlance, of course).
If these Muslim terrorists from the example above, were to revere God's children as they do God, then they wouldn't be killing them, would they. The problem as I see it is in the ability of some religious zealots to be able to profess God wants them to kill people, innocent or not. I do not believe that killing is never justified, on the contrary, there are times I think that is it not only needed, but necessary.
But that is in those cases of protecting society, and individuals. In protecting the innocents, not in killing the innocents, and certainly not, in the name of a God.
So, perhaps, people should come first, at least in dealing face to face with one another. Perhaps God, should be a more private thing. What was it that was said about not being showy about your faith in God? He who professes loudest in church, mosque or temple, is not to be trusted?
Its possible, that we have religion all wrong. Its much like the telephone game. Only here it is religion, and its passed along and subverted through the centuries until here we are. How many men in charge of religions have had their own politics and agendas, leading us to, where?
Here.
Ask yourself. We have religion. The world is screwed up. How much good has religion done over all? Has it healed us? Will it? Ever? Is it the answer?
No. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. It means, we need to think, change our orientation. Try to do it right. Pay people respect. And consider, that when we pay God so much respect, and others so much less, perhaps we are on the wrong track?
So, the next time you see someone, think about it. Treat them with the respect you would God. See how it affects them. Think about what it could do, if everyone shifted their orientation.
Maybe, God would appreciate his children finally, being treated with the respect they deserve, and he will pay it back accordingly.
Tomorrow's Blog: The Elevator: Scarier than WMDs?
I consider myself a Buddhist. But that is a Western creation. Being a "Buddhist". So I would have to say, in a Western way, that I am an unreformed Buddhist.
But that would also be wrong.
I study the Buddha Dharma.
I am part of the World Sangha, though some would discount that.
But, just what is the problem with world religions?
This won't sound right, it may seem counter-intuitive. But here it is....
People, in the words of most religions, don't have respect for God's children. The "children" of the "God" of the World's religions, are not held in very high esteem. Why is that? And....
What is?
God.
But, should He be?
Sounds ridiculous right?
But think about it for a minute.
Look around you. How are people treated in the world. How are people treated by people who believe in religion? Are ANY of them treating their fellow religious adherent's extremely poorly? Have they killed any of them? And do they revere God?
Take Muslim terrorists as an example. They strongly profess a belief in God. They believe so much that they will kill you over it. They will kill you over being profane over drawing images of Mohammad. Kill. They will KILL God's children. Over an action, an attitude, a comment, perhaps a look.
Really?! Seriously?
So, have any Buddhist's killed anyone? Considering their main tenet is to not kill living things? Yes, of course. And that is a good point. Because, if even a Buddhist can be a killer, when they are held to such a high degree of non violence and not harming living things, then how can the other world religions live up to their own beliefs?
I found an interesting website:
http://www.buddhabook.org/
"This book and website are devoted to exploring the Buddhist heart, mindset and culture from a native Christian perspective. Having grown up in a household of Buddhists, Catholics, Methodists, and Muslims, all of whom Steve loved, he chose to become a Christian."
It is an interesting site if you are Western, learning about Buddhism. but it is basically a Trojan Horse, professing one thing and delivering another. I disagree with many things he says, but he does make you think, and that is what's important. He points out parts of the Buddha Dharma that make about as much sense as Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. And those may be the more rational ones.
If God were standing in front of you, then of course, you should give Him His Due.
But if He's not, then why treat those in front of you as lower beings. Why not revere them? Place them ABOVE God? Perhaps not. But bring them to the forefront at the moment? Why not? Are you forgetting about God? Not, if you are revering his Children (in Western parlance, of course).
If these Muslim terrorists from the example above, were to revere God's children as they do God, then they wouldn't be killing them, would they. The problem as I see it is in the ability of some religious zealots to be able to profess God wants them to kill people, innocent or not. I do not believe that killing is never justified, on the contrary, there are times I think that is it not only needed, but necessary.
But that is in those cases of protecting society, and individuals. In protecting the innocents, not in killing the innocents, and certainly not, in the name of a God.
So, perhaps, people should come first, at least in dealing face to face with one another. Perhaps God, should be a more private thing. What was it that was said about not being showy about your faith in God? He who professes loudest in church, mosque or temple, is not to be trusted?
Its possible, that we have religion all wrong. Its much like the telephone game. Only here it is religion, and its passed along and subverted through the centuries until here we are. How many men in charge of religions have had their own politics and agendas, leading us to, where?
Here.
Ask yourself. We have religion. The world is screwed up. How much good has religion done over all? Has it healed us? Will it? Ever? Is it the answer?
No. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. It means, we need to think, change our orientation. Try to do it right. Pay people respect. And consider, that when we pay God so much respect, and others so much less, perhaps we are on the wrong track?
So, the next time you see someone, think about it. Treat them with the respect you would God. See how it affects them. Think about what it could do, if everyone shifted their orientation.
Maybe, God would appreciate his children finally, being treated with the respect they deserve, and he will pay it back accordingly.
Tomorrow's Blog: The Elevator: Scarier than WMDs?
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Time Compression - How old age affects the memory
After the last few posts, I thought some lighter reading would be good.
Recently (OK not so recently, a few months ago, I broke up with the gf in question), I was talking to my girlfriend (like I sad, after more than a year and a half we've stopped being a thing and now we're just a thought) about how things have changed over the years (ibid).
I had just turned fifty-four and she was forty-eight (and looking so good for it) and we are both pretty active individuals. One day we were talking and got into the area of how reality seems different now from when we were younger. And so the concept of Time Compression as an element of subjective experience came up.
OK, really, this is going to be lighter reading; or shorter, anyway.
First let me say, I don't party that much anymore. I kind of got that out of my system years ago. Well, OK, sometimes its fun to get a little wild, but now I want a day or two for recuperations. Reparations?
The perception of Time compressing at certain times is for anyone. During say, a traumatic event, Time appears to change the speed at which it appears to pass. Doesn't it? Haven't you noticed that? Or could consider how athletes say that during a competition they experience a slowing down in their experience of the event, allowing them to make decisions more quickly, or to experience the event more clearly as it unfolds.
It would seem the same kind of thing happens as you get older. Only instead of things slowing down, they appear to speed up. Seems backward doesn't it? When I was younger, all I wanted was for time to fly past. Now that I'm older, I would have little problem with things slowing down. Not really interested in getting to the end of this ride so much anymore. Weeks that used to drag by when I was a youth, seem to speed by now in a flash and for me are most noticeable by the rapid passage of weekends: its Monday, its Monday again, now its Monday yet again! Damn! Where'd that weekend go!
As a post high school youth, my friends and I were always dying to get to Fridays and the weekends' partying. Sometimes we were so anxious to party that we'd go out on a Thursday night, then suffer through Friday at work, and not really want to go out once Friday night actually hit (this was after some serious Thursday night partying).
Friends would stop by Friday night saying, "OK! Let's go, we're ready!"
And sometimes I'd just have to say, "No! No more! I can't party tonight, I'm so burned out from suffering through all day today at work!"
All this was a little foreign to my girlfriend's experience as she didn't have this kind of party mentality growing up in Vietnam and because she had children so young at eighteen right after arriving in the US. So she never got to experience the single lifestyle in her late teens and through her twenties.
But for me, being the crazy white boy I was, in those years I'd have days where I would be down, or feel bad, usually it seemed, as we neared the week's end. I had no kids or spouse to tie me down back then (so barring Thursday night stupidities), I would go out with my friends. We'd set prefunction at home, hit someone's place, hit a bar (when we were old enough to, or found a bar that would take our fake IDs) and just go out to get drunk (or nearly so anyway, or as close as possible, or as my older brother likes to say, "Getting drunk is all too much fun, but Being drunk, not so much").
Then of course, I'd feel bad the next day (a bad syndrome known as a hangover for the uninitiated and for the initiated, well, pretty sure you really aren't interested in even talking about it). But it was always a kind of "feel bad" that was far away from that next Friday night's partying.
Thoughts of, "I'll feel bad tomorrow, just didn't seem to matter to me as much". And as always, that hangover made my life seem so much better because, anything is better than this stupid hangover! Very life affirming in some ways.
So now that I'm older and although have those same bad feelings (emotive crap) from time to time, getting drunk just isn't as much fun for some reason as it once was and regarding that, time really does seem somewhat compressed to me. Perhaps, because I've lived so much of it by this time in my life. Or perhaps because the ensuing hangover, at least in my mind, seems always to come much too quickly. Its simply seems too close to the "getting drunk" so that the "having been drunk" just doesn't really make it worth even doing anymore.
Still...once in a while, it certainly IS worth it to go out, have fun with friends or new acquaintances and maybe have one too many drinks. Then its such bliss to sleep in the next day and if affected with the appropriate partner, it can be somewhat enjoyable (OK it was ALWAYS that way); then to get up and wander around blearily in your bathrobe, grinning and groaning through the morning's coffee.
Yes, Life is good sometimes.
I guess my only complaint at such a time, would be that your bathrobe is simply too small for me to fit into.
Tomorrow's Blog: God or People: Should God come first in His Religion?
Recently (OK not so recently, a few months ago, I broke up with the gf in question), I was talking to my girlfriend (like I sad, after more than a year and a half we've stopped being a thing and now we're just a thought) about how things have changed over the years (ibid).
I had just turned fifty-four and she was forty-eight (and looking so good for it) and we are both pretty active individuals. One day we were talking and got into the area of how reality seems different now from when we were younger. And so the concept of Time Compression as an element of subjective experience came up.
OK, really, this is going to be lighter reading; or shorter, anyway.
First let me say, I don't party that much anymore. I kind of got that out of my system years ago. Well, OK, sometimes its fun to get a little wild, but now I want a day or two for recuperations. Reparations?
The perception of Time compressing at certain times is for anyone. During say, a traumatic event, Time appears to change the speed at which it appears to pass. Doesn't it? Haven't you noticed that? Or could consider how athletes say that during a competition they experience a slowing down in their experience of the event, allowing them to make decisions more quickly, or to experience the event more clearly as it unfolds.
It would seem the same kind of thing happens as you get older. Only instead of things slowing down, they appear to speed up. Seems backward doesn't it? When I was younger, all I wanted was for time to fly past. Now that I'm older, I would have little problem with things slowing down. Not really interested in getting to the end of this ride so much anymore. Weeks that used to drag by when I was a youth, seem to speed by now in a flash and for me are most noticeable by the rapid passage of weekends: its Monday, its Monday again, now its Monday yet again! Damn! Where'd that weekend go!
As a post high school youth, my friends and I were always dying to get to Fridays and the weekends' partying. Sometimes we were so anxious to party that we'd go out on a Thursday night, then suffer through Friday at work, and not really want to go out once Friday night actually hit (this was after some serious Thursday night partying).
Friends would stop by Friday night saying, "OK! Let's go, we're ready!"
And sometimes I'd just have to say, "No! No more! I can't party tonight, I'm so burned out from suffering through all day today at work!"
All this was a little foreign to my girlfriend's experience as she didn't have this kind of party mentality growing up in Vietnam and because she had children so young at eighteen right after arriving in the US. So she never got to experience the single lifestyle in her late teens and through her twenties.
But for me, being the crazy white boy I was, in those years I'd have days where I would be down, or feel bad, usually it seemed, as we neared the week's end. I had no kids or spouse to tie me down back then (so barring Thursday night stupidities), I would go out with my friends. We'd set prefunction at home, hit someone's place, hit a bar (when we were old enough to, or found a bar that would take our fake IDs) and just go out to get drunk (or nearly so anyway, or as close as possible, or as my older brother likes to say, "Getting drunk is all too much fun, but Being drunk, not so much").
Then of course, I'd feel bad the next day (a bad syndrome known as a hangover for the uninitiated and for the initiated, well, pretty sure you really aren't interested in even talking about it). But it was always a kind of "feel bad" that was far away from that next Friday night's partying.
Thoughts of, "I'll feel bad tomorrow, just didn't seem to matter to me as much". And as always, that hangover made my life seem so much better because, anything is better than this stupid hangover! Very life affirming in some ways.
So now that I'm older and although have those same bad feelings (emotive crap) from time to time, getting drunk just isn't as much fun for some reason as it once was and regarding that, time really does seem somewhat compressed to me. Perhaps, because I've lived so much of it by this time in my life. Or perhaps because the ensuing hangover, at least in my mind, seems always to come much too quickly. Its simply seems too close to the "getting drunk" so that the "having been drunk" just doesn't really make it worth even doing anymore.
Still...once in a while, it certainly IS worth it to go out, have fun with friends or new acquaintances and maybe have one too many drinks. Then its such bliss to sleep in the next day and if affected with the appropriate partner, it can be somewhat enjoyable (OK it was ALWAYS that way); then to get up and wander around blearily in your bathrobe, grinning and groaning through the morning's coffee.
Yes, Life is good sometimes.
I guess my only complaint at such a time, would be that your bathrobe is simply too small for me to fit into.
Tomorrow's Blog: God or People: Should God come first in His Religion?
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
How to become a better person
I have long wandered and wondered, searched and contemplated the best way to move through life on our city streets, in my culture and neighborhood, among my fellow citizens. Violence follows the unsuspecting. Bad things happen during good times. One should be prepared for anything and should pay some degree of one's waking life to become better prepared for whatever may befall you.
You have to know, that's the truth. Yes? To ignore it, is to delude oneself. To pretend it does not exist, does not make it go away.
In pursuit of that, and having studied Martial Arts most my life since childhood, I finally fell into the study of Aikido my first quarter of college. It is one of the few Martial Arts that has a real philosophy (some say a religion but I disagree).
In point of fact, its philosophy is so basic to its concept, that it is woven through all of itsthe teachings and techniques. The philosophy can be transmuted into the movements and vice versa.
Aikido has been called "The Art of Peace" for many years now. For good reason.
There is a black belt at Kitsap Aikido, in Poulsbo, Washington, our dojo (Martial Arts school, actually a legal 501c non profit school). This black belt is our lead Sensei (Teacher), second only to our Head Sensei.
Lew Sensei is probably the best Aikido partner I've ever had. They say that a great "Uke" makes for a good "Nage". "Uke" (Oooo Kay) is the one thrown (Aikidoists do not have attackers, even someone trying to kill you on the street, is considered a partner, as you can both learn from the interaction); and a "Nage" (Nog Aay) is the one throwing or receiving the technique (or what other martial arts would call, the attacker).
In Aikido however, we do not consider an attack on the street or anywhere, as an attack, or even one carried out by an enemy. To an Aikidoka, or Aikidoist, its always just another opportunity to practice; albeit in this case, with a total stranger who is having evil thoughts about another's safety. In Aikido, we only want to show them the error of their ways and offer them a better way to think, to be and to act. With no desire to harm them, their person or their psyche.
There are no enemies in Aikido, there are no opponents, only potential practice partners in life.
O'Sensei, the founder of Aikido, Morohei Ueshiba, was one of Japan's greatest swordsman and Martial Artists. By the end of WWII he felt that Aikido could bring Peace to the world, if only everyone or most everyone, would simply practice it. He refused to be involved in WWII, as he has lived in Mongolia through the Japan/China war years before that. He came to believe that Love was the key element in our survival. Competition was a negative, especially, as in Aikido, someone could be hurt or killed. He as well did not believe in opposition to force; one should blend with the environment, become one with nature and others and show by example how to convert negative energy to positive and good energy, in order to make it more productive.
Let me give you an example of all this.
Many years ago, I was attacked while walking down a street in Tacoma, Washington. I no longer remember why, or if I ever really knew why. We were just two guys approaching each other on a sidewalk, when suddenly this man came right at me with quite obvious violent intentions. He did not try to hide it. He just came at me, perhaps to at first intimidate and unbalance me.
Having already had years of Martial Arts experience behind me, having fought in Karate tournaments before, and having had hundreds of fights in the dojo and more than one or two out of it, I didn't react with fear, but movement. It was natural. It wasn't that I'm brave or anything like that, but when you are trained how to handle something, and it suddenly is right in your face giving you no choice about how to act, your automatic reactions take over and hopefully, you were trained properly and you react appropriately.
Perhaps this threw him a little off his game.
The whole thing lasted, as most fights like this do, less than perhaps ten seconds. We went back and forth a few times trying to gain control of one another, then I tired of it and slammed him backward and down, hard, into the sidewalk. Had I wanted him dead, at that moment there would have been little more to do. His head would have hit the concrete with smashing force and it would have been over. He may have survived to get to the hospital but I doubt recovery would have been complete.
At this time in my life, I had taken only a single college quarter's worth of Aikido training. I had taken classes from a tiny Japanese lady who always smiled. She had gotten her black belt from a Japanese gentleman who had studied under O'Sensei himself in Japan.
In Aikido, there are two colors of belts: white, and the much desired, black.
Up to that point, I had studied Okinawan Isshinryu Karate and a few others. Isshinryu was a form that came to be because of the Japanese evasion of the island of Okinawa. It had pitted small Okinawan farmers against their impressive invaders, the Japanese Samurai. Samurai had weapons, the farmers had farm implements. And so they learned to use what they had as weapons. Farm tools and an empty hand. In event of a confrontation with a possibly fully armored Samurai, they had to learn to kill quickly, instantly, or they themselves would be killed.
Having studied Isshinryu Karate from a young age, all of my life I had known only one way to fight, and that was to fight toward the inevitable conclusion of very likely killing my opponent. This was such a possibility that our Sensei, had instructed us to give up to three verbal warnings (if possible) to indicate that they were about to fight against someone who didn't believe in fighting, and who was trained only to kill in a fight, using a deadly martial art.
"I know Karate, I know Karate, I know Karate," spoken fast, could suffice in a pinch. If possible, just talk it out. Talking it out worked for me on many occasions. But not always.
Our Sensei, Steve Armstrong Sensei, was a red-white belt when I knew him, which was one belt from the singular, top red belt in this style of Martial Arts, in the world. Armstrong Sensei, eventually earned a red belt before his death at a respectable age. He believed that any opponent of his students, in this style of Martial Arts, deserved fair warning to inform them that they didn't know what they were getting into. I found many of the tenets of Aikido were familiar to me from Isshinryu and Armstrong Sensei, a former Marine Drill Instructor.
This style, of Isshinryu has many philosophical elements similar to Aikkdo, with the clear and primary exception that one was designed to kill and one to convert death into life and a better way: to Love this other. The Founder's of both styles even had similar elements in their lives: both refused to fight in WWII for reasons of ideals and a belief that killing was simply, wrong; especially as was true in that case, since Japan was the aggressor.
Now, getting back to that street fight...at the time my "partner" in this impromptu practice, was about half way on to his path to permanent head trauma. I suddenly realized what was going to happen, in a flash I saw the conclusion. In a fight, your mind is racing, fueled by adrenalin and fear, and it wasn't so much as things went into slow motion, as things were processed so rapidly and without thought, that it merely seemed like time slowed.
I grabbed the "gentleman" (which in this case, really was a misnomer) and pulled him back up very hard, so hard that his body and head stopped their downward motion in a snapping jerk, about two inches from the very hard surface. At that point, he realized what I had done and perhaps he also realized how the fight had been going, and how it was going to end.
He looked up at me in some amount of amazement and asked,
"Why did you stop me? I attacked you."
I told him:
"If I hadn't, you could have been killed. I have no right to kill you. Not if I can avoid it. Perhaps I even knew you couldn't win. I do have the training to kill quickly, which gives me a responsibility that I can't ignore, even for you, even for someone trying to hurt me."
He just stared quietly at me. We stood there staring at one another.
This was not bravado on my part, it was not ego. I appeared to be able to counter his moves. It wasn't that he was a bad fighter, but I'm sure that he was used to taking people down quickly and was not used to his moves being neutralized so easily, or at all. This is why people say that muggers are cowards, because they take the advantage, they cut the odds as best they can, to be in their favor as much as possible, no matter what their victim has to experience.
When I threw him back as I had, we were up against one another very close and it was only a simple matter for me to shift my weight and apply pressure at a certain point on his body and thus he flew back with force. My movement, my application of this technique, was out of a desire to end the situation, as I had found it disgusting to be involved in it at all. And I knew someone could get hurt. Perhaps I was thinking in the back of my mind, that it could also be me suffering the damage. A small thought on my part at that time.
So I didn't think, too much was happening too quickly for much thought, and I simply executed the appropriate moves at and for the appropriate moment, doing what would most quickly end the fight one way or another. It was at that point that I realized that I had a split second to comprehend how the fight was about to end. I realized that I could not let things end in such a way, with such responsibility laid squarely at my feet. Even though he had initiated things, had been the one to contemplate them ahead of time, had obviously done this sort of thing before to others and would have again if things all stayed the same for him. I still didn't have the right to take his life over this.
And this is where the primary difference between many Martial Arts and Aikido comes in. Aikido gives you options. Isshinryu by design and necessity, did not.
When I had helped him up there was no question about continuing. He didn't say much, and after our words, he but walked away. He was obviously quite shaken and I hoped that the experience had made a point. There may have been a few words more spoken before he walked off, but I can no longer remember as those words are lost forever in the ripples of time.
What I do remember saying, was: "Don't do this again."
If you look at this tale on the surface, you may wonder why, or how this could have affected a "thug" like this, so much. I would argue, that it was in the detail as the devil always is. It could have been my body language, our eye's watching each other and gaining meaning, or in how I handled myself physically, in relation to him, and beyond our fighting interactions.
But something got through to him, and it was obvious. I do not know if he quit his life of crime that day, maybe he didn't. But maybe he got a wake up call and shifted his crime from violence, to something non or less violent. I had no way at the time of calling the police, and further violence would have lead to someone getting hurt, I'm sure. But in times like this, where its kill the criminal, or do nothing and allow him to go on unchanged, I think this was a good alternative. I didn't set out to change him, but in my actions, in my desire to live my life a certain way, following a certain philosophy, I think it lead to the right thing happening.
One can only hope.
The point of all this is this: violence begets violence and in most instances, just showing someone their misunderstanding in life, can be a lesson and a practice of a possible new habit.
And so we should be in our daily life. In order to lead by true example, just as real life happens around us and to us, so we should consider our actions and make them an integral part of our very Being.
It cannot but pass from one to another.
So, pass it forward my friend.
Share the love.
Tomorrow's Blog: Time Compression: How old age affects the memory
You have to know, that's the truth. Yes? To ignore it, is to delude oneself. To pretend it does not exist, does not make it go away.
In pursuit of that, and having studied Martial Arts most my life since childhood, I finally fell into the study of Aikido my first quarter of college. It is one of the few Martial Arts that has a real philosophy (some say a religion but I disagree).
In point of fact, its philosophy is so basic to its concept, that it is woven through all of itsthe teachings and techniques. The philosophy can be transmuted into the movements and vice versa.
Aikido has been called "The Art of Peace" for many years now. For good reason.
There is a black belt at Kitsap Aikido, in Poulsbo, Washington, our dojo (Martial Arts school, actually a legal 501c non profit school). This black belt is our lead Sensei (Teacher), second only to our Head Sensei.
Lew Sensei is probably the best Aikido partner I've ever had. They say that a great "Uke" makes for a good "Nage". "Uke" (Oooo Kay) is the one thrown (Aikidoists do not have attackers, even someone trying to kill you on the street, is considered a partner, as you can both learn from the interaction); and a "Nage" (Nog Aay) is the one throwing or receiving the technique (or what other martial arts would call, the attacker).
In Aikido however, we do not consider an attack on the street or anywhere, as an attack, or even one carried out by an enemy. To an Aikidoka, or Aikidoist, its always just another opportunity to practice; albeit in this case, with a total stranger who is having evil thoughts about another's safety. In Aikido, we only want to show them the error of their ways and offer them a better way to think, to be and to act. With no desire to harm them, their person or their psyche.
There are no enemies in Aikido, there are no opponents, only potential practice partners in life.
O'Sensei, the founder of Aikido, Morohei Ueshiba, was one of Japan's greatest swordsman and Martial Artists. By the end of WWII he felt that Aikido could bring Peace to the world, if only everyone or most everyone, would simply practice it. He refused to be involved in WWII, as he has lived in Mongolia through the Japan/China war years before that. He came to believe that Love was the key element in our survival. Competition was a negative, especially, as in Aikido, someone could be hurt or killed. He as well did not believe in opposition to force; one should blend with the environment, become one with nature and others and show by example how to convert negative energy to positive and good energy, in order to make it more productive.
Let me give you an example of all this.
Many years ago, I was attacked while walking down a street in Tacoma, Washington. I no longer remember why, or if I ever really knew why. We were just two guys approaching each other on a sidewalk, when suddenly this man came right at me with quite obvious violent intentions. He did not try to hide it. He just came at me, perhaps to at first intimidate and unbalance me.
Having already had years of Martial Arts experience behind me, having fought in Karate tournaments before, and having had hundreds of fights in the dojo and more than one or two out of it, I didn't react with fear, but movement. It was natural. It wasn't that I'm brave or anything like that, but when you are trained how to handle something, and it suddenly is right in your face giving you no choice about how to act, your automatic reactions take over and hopefully, you were trained properly and you react appropriately.
Perhaps this threw him a little off his game.
The whole thing lasted, as most fights like this do, less than perhaps ten seconds. We went back and forth a few times trying to gain control of one another, then I tired of it and slammed him backward and down, hard, into the sidewalk. Had I wanted him dead, at that moment there would have been little more to do. His head would have hit the concrete with smashing force and it would have been over. He may have survived to get to the hospital but I doubt recovery would have been complete.
At this time in my life, I had taken only a single college quarter's worth of Aikido training. I had taken classes from a tiny Japanese lady who always smiled. She had gotten her black belt from a Japanese gentleman who had studied under O'Sensei himself in Japan.
In Aikido, there are two colors of belts: white, and the much desired, black.
Up to that point, I had studied Okinawan Isshinryu Karate and a few others. Isshinryu was a form that came to be because of the Japanese evasion of the island of Okinawa. It had pitted small Okinawan farmers against their impressive invaders, the Japanese Samurai. Samurai had weapons, the farmers had farm implements. And so they learned to use what they had as weapons. Farm tools and an empty hand. In event of a confrontation with a possibly fully armored Samurai, they had to learn to kill quickly, instantly, or they themselves would be killed.
Having studied Isshinryu Karate from a young age, all of my life I had known only one way to fight, and that was to fight toward the inevitable conclusion of very likely killing my opponent. This was such a possibility that our Sensei, had instructed us to give up to three verbal warnings (if possible) to indicate that they were about to fight against someone who didn't believe in fighting, and who was trained only to kill in a fight, using a deadly martial art.
"I know Karate, I know Karate, I know Karate," spoken fast, could suffice in a pinch. If possible, just talk it out. Talking it out worked for me on many occasions. But not always.
Our Sensei, Steve Armstrong Sensei, was a red-white belt when I knew him, which was one belt from the singular, top red belt in this style of Martial Arts, in the world. Armstrong Sensei, eventually earned a red belt before his death at a respectable age. He believed that any opponent of his students, in this style of Martial Arts, deserved fair warning to inform them that they didn't know what they were getting into. I found many of the tenets of Aikido were familiar to me from Isshinryu and Armstrong Sensei, a former Marine Drill Instructor.
This style, of Isshinryu has many philosophical elements similar to Aikkdo, with the clear and primary exception that one was designed to kill and one to convert death into life and a better way: to Love this other. The Founder's of both styles even had similar elements in their lives: both refused to fight in WWII for reasons of ideals and a belief that killing was simply, wrong; especially as was true in that case, since Japan was the aggressor.
Now, getting back to that street fight...at the time my "partner" in this impromptu practice, was about half way on to his path to permanent head trauma. I suddenly realized what was going to happen, in a flash I saw the conclusion. In a fight, your mind is racing, fueled by adrenalin and fear, and it wasn't so much as things went into slow motion, as things were processed so rapidly and without thought, that it merely seemed like time slowed.
I grabbed the "gentleman" (which in this case, really was a misnomer) and pulled him back up very hard, so hard that his body and head stopped their downward motion in a snapping jerk, about two inches from the very hard surface. At that point, he realized what I had done and perhaps he also realized how the fight had been going, and how it was going to end.
He looked up at me in some amount of amazement and asked,
"Why did you stop me? I attacked you."
I told him:
"If I hadn't, you could have been killed. I have no right to kill you. Not if I can avoid it. Perhaps I even knew you couldn't win. I do have the training to kill quickly, which gives me a responsibility that I can't ignore, even for you, even for someone trying to hurt me."
He just stared quietly at me. We stood there staring at one another.
This was not bravado on my part, it was not ego. I appeared to be able to counter his moves. It wasn't that he was a bad fighter, but I'm sure that he was used to taking people down quickly and was not used to his moves being neutralized so easily, or at all. This is why people say that muggers are cowards, because they take the advantage, they cut the odds as best they can, to be in their favor as much as possible, no matter what their victim has to experience.
When I threw him back as I had, we were up against one another very close and it was only a simple matter for me to shift my weight and apply pressure at a certain point on his body and thus he flew back with force. My movement, my application of this technique, was out of a desire to end the situation, as I had found it disgusting to be involved in it at all. And I knew someone could get hurt. Perhaps I was thinking in the back of my mind, that it could also be me suffering the damage. A small thought on my part at that time.
So I didn't think, too much was happening too quickly for much thought, and I simply executed the appropriate moves at and for the appropriate moment, doing what would most quickly end the fight one way or another. It was at that point that I realized that I had a split second to comprehend how the fight was about to end. I realized that I could not let things end in such a way, with such responsibility laid squarely at my feet. Even though he had initiated things, had been the one to contemplate them ahead of time, had obviously done this sort of thing before to others and would have again if things all stayed the same for him. I still didn't have the right to take his life over this.
And this is where the primary difference between many Martial Arts and Aikido comes in. Aikido gives you options. Isshinryu by design and necessity, did not.
When I had helped him up there was no question about continuing. He didn't say much, and after our words, he but walked away. He was obviously quite shaken and I hoped that the experience had made a point. There may have been a few words more spoken before he walked off, but I can no longer remember as those words are lost forever in the ripples of time.
What I do remember saying, was: "Don't do this again."
If you look at this tale on the surface, you may wonder why, or how this could have affected a "thug" like this, so much. I would argue, that it was in the detail as the devil always is. It could have been my body language, our eye's watching each other and gaining meaning, or in how I handled myself physically, in relation to him, and beyond our fighting interactions.
But something got through to him, and it was obvious. I do not know if he quit his life of crime that day, maybe he didn't. But maybe he got a wake up call and shifted his crime from violence, to something non or less violent. I had no way at the time of calling the police, and further violence would have lead to someone getting hurt, I'm sure. But in times like this, where its kill the criminal, or do nothing and allow him to go on unchanged, I think this was a good alternative. I didn't set out to change him, but in my actions, in my desire to live my life a certain way, following a certain philosophy, I think it lead to the right thing happening.
One can only hope.
The point of all this is this: violence begets violence and in most instances, just showing someone their misunderstanding in life, can be a lesson and a practice of a possible new habit.
And so we should be in our daily life. In order to lead by true example, just as real life happens around us and to us, so we should consider our actions and make them an integral part of our very Being.
It cannot but pass from one to another.
So, pass it forward my friend.
Share the love.
Tomorrow's Blog: Time Compression: How old age affects the memory
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
"What has sex got to do with it"
Recently, I read an article where a female author discussed the reasons why she wouldn't walk around the house naked, just because her husband thought it would be sexy for her to do so. She discussed such things as his shallowness, his lack of imagination, how the internet is degrading our conceptions of sexuality, and the need for "one's brain to outrun one's libido". Nice phrase.
She opened humorously, saying, "I don't do naked, it's cold out there!" But then she went on to point out not only her own fears, but that of many women who feel just the same: "I'm a bit overweight, and the shallow men who say that if the wife does not walk naked around the house [then] she would [quickly] be elsewhere. Well, then they are in love with a shallow surface image and not with the real individual whom they married."
I quite frequently hear differing forms of this argument up against topics such as this. Let me just say, I simply have to disagree. Allow me to use this case as a way to help you think differently about your relationship, with your lover, or husband, or wife.
People who think that having a concept of beauty is a shallow thing, or that what one finds desirable or erotic, should be of no concern to one's partner or "significant other", I would conjecture that they are themselves being quite shallow. Not to mention selfish.
If you are one of the many who think this way, understand that this is not meant to be an attack on you. Please, for your own sake and that of the solidarity of your relationship and its own sexual identity, its own evolving character, attempt to take this as a neutral statement.
In fact, consider, just for a moment, that everyone in this argument, is being shallow in some way, shape or form.
I think the misperceptions along the lines of this argument come in the different levels of a relationship, some levels being non-sexual, and in how one reacts to these levels. There is a dynamic between the sexual and the non-sexual in a relationship that is typically given little consideration or value. We are all so wrapped up in who WE are as individuals, that we simply ignore the synergy of the third entity in the situation: that of "the couple" itself and of its own sexuality, which frequently is never allowed to evolve within itself.
People wonder why a relationship "dies". Its much like Woody Allen said in "Annie Hall", "A relationship is like a shark. If it doesn't keep moving forward, it dies." So try looking at your own relationship as if it is a living thing, as a third entity within your own relationship.
Discussing this part of one's relationship also has to do with the differences in the types of logic being used between the individuals, the different layers of sexuality involved and the self-perceptions of, as with this topic, both, (1) the subject who would be viewed (the woman as in this case) and (2) the viewer (the man). This could easily be a reversed situation, but the case in point, would usually be different, but the dynamics remain the same.
Any man saying he'd dump his woman because she won't walk around the house naked, in my opinion, certainly IS being shallow, quite shallow indeed; I would fully agree with that. However, a woman who says (and I use woman here because that was the subject of the original topic, but it does go both ways), for her to say that she wouldn't do it "out of hand", is dealing singularly with her own selfish and therefore "shallow" (if you will) desires and needs. Or more succinctly, her own fears about herself. Fears about her looks, fears about how she will be perceived, fears about how she has been perceived in her past, and not infrequently by others and not by her current partner.
There really are many more layers to this topic. More than are usually discussed, as this is a subject that is usually discussed emotionally, passionately, and therefore, rather shallowly. And too often in the heat of the moment. When these types of things pop up, its usually beneficial to later talk about them under calm and relaxed moments. But seldom does that ever happen. People generally can't get past their own blindness on topics like this and are too concerned with putting an end to the subject than in wanting to deeply examine the complete situation and therefore give their relationship the attention it needs and deserves.
The woman, typically, is afraid of how she will be perceived, naked in this case; she does not take into consideration what the actual affect will be on one of the most important people in this discussion, that of her lover; her lover being the person who she conceives may perceive her poorly.
The woman in the article was pointing out how the media was degrading our perceptions. What I believe she meant was that men have too high of expectations for what they want their women to look like. What she may actually be saying is, that a woman's expectations are too high for how they think they need to appear for their lover.
There are several levels to this alone.
For one, the man may not care that she look perfect, but that he admires that she will do what he asks, or that she will do it and he will find it arousing and therefore be more erotically bonded to her. Again, this is something that the woman may find ill conceived; that he shouldn't require such a thing for her to be erotically charged in his mind; a false perception on her part, as he will indeed require her doing "some" thing, for that bond to be initially created, regularly strengthened, and therefore, perpetuated.
For him to admire her for doing what he wants, may appear to the woman as in the nature of subservience. Yet another false perception, as that is something that exists whether you like it or not, and within both individuals, regardless. Finally, if she does not look perfect, it might be her own self perception and realistic fact, that she is out of shape, that she could be in better shape and that she should do something about it. Preferably, before she finds herself in a situation requiring her to "show some skin".
Let me mention again here, this goes both ways. A guy that is out of shape, has just as much responsibility to his partner, to entice her in all the more ways possible. Relationships are complex and difficult to maintain long term. They require all the help and enticements they can receive. To consciously or unconsciously, take away any of those possible enticements, its asking to make things more difficult on one or the other, or both people involved.
Its not only important for the man to be realistic about himself ("get in shape, dude"), but also if it is the woman who wants to walk around naked, and it is the man who doesn't WANT her to, perhaps even for the same considerations as were mentioned in the original article (because more is better left to the imagination), then for the opposite desired affect to occur. He could become turned off.
Although, if this is her erotic desire, then perhaps he needs to find his way to seeing the positive side of the situation. On the other hand, if she truly is unattractive because of being overweight or out of shape, then she should take on the responsibility to actually do something about it. A compromise is a responsibility that falls to all individuals, not just the one.
In the end it all really depends on the sexuality of the individuals involved; but also of the sexuality of "the couple" that is created by their relationship, what emerges from the dynamics of their relationship. That is, if it is even allowed to evolve. For in many relationships, it is not.
The issue here is really this: what exactly IS the sexuality of "the couple"? If the individuals involved allow it to Be, to become, to give acknowledgment to its existence of and beyond themselves as individuals, then giving themselves up to the dynamics of their relationship; along with their love for one another; and with less consideration for themselves as selfish individuals than for their partner and their dedication to the relationship; then and only then, does something quite "beyond" themselves, begin to happen.
That's a mouthful.
This is not to say that you should give up who you are, to completely lose yourself in the relationship, but you should allow yourself to become a part of the something more that can be, and allow the Gestalt that the relationship can grow and evolve into.
I realize this may all sound somewhat radical as a way of viewing relationships, certainly it will to some; but give it a moment's consideration anyway. Remember that communication is paramount in one's relationship and in building something that can be healthy and dynamic, it can free you from your fears and can also make you more healthy in the end. Not to mention, increase the health of your relationship.
There is a great power in accepting something outside of one's self in life, be it God, spirituality, or being fully involved in your relationship. Fully involved, does not mean, ignoring or discounting important parts of it.
Perhaps, this may be the one key element in keeping relationships together longer than they ever seem to last anymore. Try to imagination just what it could mean to your experience within your relationship, to set aside some of your fears and to allow yourself to be involved in who you are together with your partner, as WELL as who you are within the relationship, individually.
She opened humorously, saying, "I don't do naked, it's cold out there!" But then she went on to point out not only her own fears, but that of many women who feel just the same: "I'm a bit overweight, and the shallow men who say that if the wife does not walk naked around the house [then] she would [quickly] be elsewhere. Well, then they are in love with a shallow surface image and not with the real individual whom they married."
I quite frequently hear differing forms of this argument up against topics such as this. Let me just say, I simply have to disagree. Allow me to use this case as a way to help you think differently about your relationship, with your lover, or husband, or wife.
People who think that having a concept of beauty is a shallow thing, or that what one finds desirable or erotic, should be of no concern to one's partner or "significant other", I would conjecture that they are themselves being quite shallow. Not to mention selfish.
If you are one of the many who think this way, understand that this is not meant to be an attack on you. Please, for your own sake and that of the solidarity of your relationship and its own sexual identity, its own evolving character, attempt to take this as a neutral statement.
In fact, consider, just for a moment, that everyone in this argument, is being shallow in some way, shape or form.
I think the misperceptions along the lines of this argument come in the different levels of a relationship, some levels being non-sexual, and in how one reacts to these levels. There is a dynamic between the sexual and the non-sexual in a relationship that is typically given little consideration or value. We are all so wrapped up in who WE are as individuals, that we simply ignore the synergy of the third entity in the situation: that of "the couple" itself and of its own sexuality, which frequently is never allowed to evolve within itself.
People wonder why a relationship "dies". Its much like Woody Allen said in "Annie Hall", "A relationship is like a shark. If it doesn't keep moving forward, it dies." So try looking at your own relationship as if it is a living thing, as a third entity within your own relationship.
Discussing this part of one's relationship also has to do with the differences in the types of logic being used between the individuals, the different layers of sexuality involved and the self-perceptions of, as with this topic, both, (1) the subject who would be viewed (the woman as in this case) and (2) the viewer (the man). This could easily be a reversed situation, but the case in point, would usually be different, but the dynamics remain the same.
Any man saying he'd dump his woman because she won't walk around the house naked, in my opinion, certainly IS being shallow, quite shallow indeed; I would fully agree with that. However, a woman who says (and I use woman here because that was the subject of the original topic, but it does go both ways), for her to say that she wouldn't do it "out of hand", is dealing singularly with her own selfish and therefore "shallow" (if you will) desires and needs. Or more succinctly, her own fears about herself. Fears about her looks, fears about how she will be perceived, fears about how she has been perceived in her past, and not infrequently by others and not by her current partner.
There really are many more layers to this topic. More than are usually discussed, as this is a subject that is usually discussed emotionally, passionately, and therefore, rather shallowly. And too often in the heat of the moment. When these types of things pop up, its usually beneficial to later talk about them under calm and relaxed moments. But seldom does that ever happen. People generally can't get past their own blindness on topics like this and are too concerned with putting an end to the subject than in wanting to deeply examine the complete situation and therefore give their relationship the attention it needs and deserves.
The woman, typically, is afraid of how she will be perceived, naked in this case; she does not take into consideration what the actual affect will be on one of the most important people in this discussion, that of her lover; her lover being the person who she conceives may perceive her poorly.
The woman in the article was pointing out how the media was degrading our perceptions. What I believe she meant was that men have too high of expectations for what they want their women to look like. What she may actually be saying is, that a woman's expectations are too high for how they think they need to appear for their lover.
There are several levels to this alone.
For one, the man may not care that she look perfect, but that he admires that she will do what he asks, or that she will do it and he will find it arousing and therefore be more erotically bonded to her. Again, this is something that the woman may find ill conceived; that he shouldn't require such a thing for her to be erotically charged in his mind; a false perception on her part, as he will indeed require her doing "some" thing, for that bond to be initially created, regularly strengthened, and therefore, perpetuated.
For him to admire her for doing what he wants, may appear to the woman as in the nature of subservience. Yet another false perception, as that is something that exists whether you like it or not, and within both individuals, regardless. Finally, if she does not look perfect, it might be her own self perception and realistic fact, that she is out of shape, that she could be in better shape and that she should do something about it. Preferably, before she finds herself in a situation requiring her to "show some skin".
Let me mention again here, this goes both ways. A guy that is out of shape, has just as much responsibility to his partner, to entice her in all the more ways possible. Relationships are complex and difficult to maintain long term. They require all the help and enticements they can receive. To consciously or unconsciously, take away any of those possible enticements, its asking to make things more difficult on one or the other, or both people involved.
Its not only important for the man to be realistic about himself ("get in shape, dude"), but also if it is the woman who wants to walk around naked, and it is the man who doesn't WANT her to, perhaps even for the same considerations as were mentioned in the original article (because more is better left to the imagination), then for the opposite desired affect to occur. He could become turned off.
Although, if this is her erotic desire, then perhaps he needs to find his way to seeing the positive side of the situation. On the other hand, if she truly is unattractive because of being overweight or out of shape, then she should take on the responsibility to actually do something about it. A compromise is a responsibility that falls to all individuals, not just the one.
In the end it all really depends on the sexuality of the individuals involved; but also of the sexuality of "the couple" that is created by their relationship, what emerges from the dynamics of their relationship. That is, if it is even allowed to evolve. For in many relationships, it is not.
The issue here is really this: what exactly IS the sexuality of "the couple"? If the individuals involved allow it to Be, to become, to give acknowledgment to its existence of and beyond themselves as individuals, then giving themselves up to the dynamics of their relationship; along with their love for one another; and with less consideration for themselves as selfish individuals than for their partner and their dedication to the relationship; then and only then, does something quite "beyond" themselves, begin to happen.
That's a mouthful.
This is not to say that you should give up who you are, to completely lose yourself in the relationship, but you should allow yourself to become a part of the something more that can be, and allow the Gestalt that the relationship can grow and evolve into.
I realize this may all sound somewhat radical as a way of viewing relationships, certainly it will to some; but give it a moment's consideration anyway. Remember that communication is paramount in one's relationship and in building something that can be healthy and dynamic, it can free you from your fears and can also make you more healthy in the end. Not to mention, increase the health of your relationship.
There is a great power in accepting something outside of one's self in life, be it God, spirituality, or being fully involved in your relationship. Fully involved, does not mean, ignoring or discounting important parts of it.
Perhaps, this may be the one key element in keeping relationships together longer than they ever seem to last anymore. Try to imagination just what it could mean to your experience within your relationship, to set aside some of your fears and to allow yourself to be involved in who you are together with your partner, as WELL as who you are within the relationship, individually.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Special Ed. - Life in the military, what can it "really" be like? Suicidal?
Years ago, back in the late 70s, I was in the Air Force stationed at Strategic Air Command (SAC) base at Fairchild AFB in Spokane, Washington. We supported the pilots, as all Air Force did, they were the God's, we lived for them, everything revolved around them. I had a secret security clearance for Nuclear weapons.
At that base, we worked on or in some way, supported the B-52's that the pilots flew, and the KC-135 fuel tankers that refueled them and other birds. We could launch from the Alert Facility, three B-52s or BUFs (Big Ugly Fuckers, and don't let them tell you it stood for Big Ugly Fellow, because it didn't), and one tanker, up in the air during an alert, within 12-15 mins. That was what our job was, we all supported that. Well, I also supported the PJs (parachute jumpers), the ParaRescue guys. Those guys rock! If there is a firefight and guys are down, these crazy bastards will fly, jump, swim, SCUBA, run, whatever, to rescue those downed airmen.
There was a guy we all knew who lived in the barracks, what we called, "The Zoo". The job, the shop where we worked, was called, "The Farm". And I may or may not have been a part of a group known as, "The Brotherhood".
But enough of that. That, for another time.
Back to this guy, let's call him, Dick. Dick was much like the rest of us. Just a guy. A guy who had to work every day, who had to take orders, follow rules, do "the job". Some of the rules seemed rather banal to us. Mind numbing. The job was mind numbing. But that was on a normal day. Sometimes, changes came down from management, from the Squadron level, or the base level from "White House", where the base commander worked, or higher up at headquarters SAC, or from the President, our Commander in Chief.
Sometimes those new rules, regulations, orders, were far beyond the pale for us. But we lived to get through the day, to do our job, to party when possible, to count our days to the end of days; to become a "two digit midget" (under 99 days to get out); to actually, see civilian life again; to experience, freedom. We thought, jail was better, because then, you were restrained by bars, laws, armed guards. But we, we had to go back each day, voluntarily; we had to leave, knowing we would have to come back the next day. And they next morning, we would indeed get up, get ready and go back to the Farm and do it all over again.
Most of us handled it. Some of us couldn't. Like the guy that waited till his wife went to work that day, then sat in his living room and set up a shotgun and blew off the top of his head. She found him that was, when she returned with groceries.
Or the guy that entered the back gate one night, drunk, was getting hassled by the gate guards until he snapped and started beating the crap out of one of them and the other shot him, killing him.
So, some of us apparently couldn't take it. I did. It wore on me too though.
We had a commander of our squadron, who happened to be black. It didn't really matter one way or another, except, we all thought he was an idiot. As isn't really unusual, we liked the second in command better. But he didn't seem to be kind of an empty vessel. To us anyway. But we managed, we put up with it.
So one day I go to work. I'm in the shop and mid morning, we hear, that everyone needs to stay at work, no one is to leave. Lock down. It would seem that Dick, finally lost it. He was in his room on the 3rd floor of the barracks, someone said he was playing with his 9 shot .22 cal revolver. His door was open, he was just hanging out, drinking, fooling with it. Then something got to him and he went to the barracks "day room". The barracks is separated, a hall on either end, and in between its got a large room usually with TV, maybe pool, or other games and chairs, overstuffed ones frequently.
Dick walked into the day room and there were two guys, kicked back, watching TV. Dick raised his gun and put two bullets into the set, then walked out and went back to his room. It turned into a "thing". They cleared the barracks. The SP's (Security Police) were called out, the LE's (Law Enforcement) were called out. Dick, stayed in his room.
When we heard about it, none of us could believe it. But we knew Dick, and knew he wasn't a killer, just tired of all the bullshit like the rest of us. We all wondered all the time just who would snap next, or when it might happen. There seemed to be a high rate of suicides at the base and we just assumed it was part of the package.
It was a high stress place. We were the "Best in the West" of the bases and we were going to keep that rating. The job itself was stressful. We were under constant surveillance. They said even our home phones downtown would be intermittently monitored. National Security. We had to go to "Golden Flow" (urine testing) once a month.
We were under the HRP or PRP programs (Human, or Personal, Reliability Programs). To do our job, you had to have two people who knew the job, had the clearance and the rank necessary. If anyone asked you a question, even a General, you could tell them to go to Hell if they didn't have, the need to know, the security clearance, and proper credentials. Something I did, at least once to a very pissed off General. When he told my boss, a Tech. Sgt. at the time, he told the General to go to Hell too, politely, and that, was the end of it. Interesting life.
In talking to my coworker and friend, Craig (his real name because names have been changed only to protect the innocent), we realized, if we could just go talk to Dick, we could talk him down. But we weren't allowed to leave the shop.
Then we got the news that our Commanding Office had called him on the phone in his room. He tried to talk Dick down, but his reply was, "Fuck you, you stupid, black bastard!" Then slammed down the receiver and shot the phone several times. Now really, we didn't take this much as a racist comment, but rather an accurate one (he WAS black after all) and as for stupid, well, again it just seemed accurate. We actually laughed about it at the time, because, well, we all agreed, he WAS a stupid bastard, in our opinion and we cheered that someone actually had the brass ones to call him on the carpet about it. But then we started to really get worried.
It was getting on about 11am by this time and we heard that the City Police of Spokane, the city SWAT team, the Sheriff's office and the professional hostage negotiators from downtown had arrived and had set up shop in the ground floor of the barracks. I asked, why the bottom floor, and was told, that's where the pool table is. I was also told that base security, who had no experience with this king of talk down, negotiating kind of stuff, would not let the professionals who knew how to handle this kind of thing, any where near Dick. Who really needed them to be near him.
At this point, Craig, our friend and coworker, Dan and I were all getting upset because we knew Dick could be talked down. Now we were pissed off, because we knew where this was headed. You could feel that they wanted this to end badly. That was our feeling at the time anyway. Otherwise, why wouldn't they let hostage negotiators in?
We tried not to think too much about it, but news was buzzing all through the squadron. Then, about 1:30pm we got the word, it was over. At first, we felt elated, but the silence erased that pretty quickly.
It seems the base waited long enough, they wanted to move. The off base Pro's were still on the first floor, playing pool, being pissed off themselves from what I heard, when the base sent two SPs up the outer staircase. Its made of a metal frame like a fire escape but we all used it daily. Well, I didn't as I lived downtown with my wife, but Craig and Dan did. Craig was down the hall from Dick.
So it seems that when the two SPs were going up the stairs, just at that time Dick had decided to come out the top floor. When he saw two fully geared SPs heading up the stairs at about the second flight, he panicked and pulled off a few shots. He hit one SP in the wrist and the other, squeezed the trigger on his M-16. It was in full auto mode. He emptied the clip in an arc across the path where Dick was standing, hitting him in the head and chest. The event was over.
We got this news, and we just stood there. The guy that came into the shop to tell us, just stood there a moment, then turned, opened the door and walked out. Our Shop Supervisor, Pete, turned disgusted and said, "They didn't need to kill that boy! If he'd have wanted to hit someone, he would have, he was a crack shot with that gun. He wasn't trying to hurt anyone!"
A little later Pete just told us all to take the rest of the day off. So Craig and I headed over to Craig's room in the barracks. He was going to get some things and spend the night at my house. He didn't want to sleep in the barracks that night. When we got there, we got out of the car and walked over the grass to the stairs out side as we always did. About the second floor up, we realized, when we saw how the wall looked so different, that this was where the standoff ended. We had known that, we just were so wrapped up in our thoughts, it didn't occur to us until we saw it.
We could see the arc of bullet holes. The blood, pieces of bone, brain. Not a lot, but enough. We never slowed down, but went in, got his things and headed back out down the inside stairs.
And that, is the story of another kind, about a guy named Dick, another kind of hero. Just a guy. Just a guy who couldn't take it anymore.
We have those now, today, happening in the military. People who are living in harsher more difficult situations. And they can't take it either.
The New York Times said in January 2009: "Including the deaths being investigated, roughly 20.2 of every 100,000 soldiers killed themselves. The civilian rate for 2006, the most recent figure available, was 19.2 when adjusted to match the demographics."
American troops are taking their own lives in the largest numbers since records began to be kept in 1980, several years after the story I just told happened.
According to the Air Force times in March 2009: "The Air Force lost 38 airmen to suicide in 2008, a rate of 11.5 suicides per 100,000 airmen. From 1987 to 1996, there was an average of 13.5 suicides for every 100,000 airmen. Of the airmen lost in 2008, 95 percent were men and 89 percent were enlisted."
This story was for those who didn't survive. Who possibly didn't even fight. Who just couldn't handle it. We talk a lot about the heroes, but sometimes we forget tot think about the others, who served, who couldn't survive, and took another way out.
But in the end, here is to all those who served, in whatever capacity.
They ALL deserve our humble thanks, gratitude and support.
At that base, we worked on or in some way, supported the B-52's that the pilots flew, and the KC-135 fuel tankers that refueled them and other birds. We could launch from the Alert Facility, three B-52s or BUFs (Big Ugly Fuckers, and don't let them tell you it stood for Big Ugly Fellow, because it didn't), and one tanker, up in the air during an alert, within 12-15 mins. That was what our job was, we all supported that. Well, I also supported the PJs (parachute jumpers), the ParaRescue guys. Those guys rock! If there is a firefight and guys are down, these crazy bastards will fly, jump, swim, SCUBA, run, whatever, to rescue those downed airmen.
There was a guy we all knew who lived in the barracks, what we called, "The Zoo". The job, the shop where we worked, was called, "The Farm". And I may or may not have been a part of a group known as, "The Brotherhood".
But enough of that. That, for another time.
Back to this guy, let's call him, Dick. Dick was much like the rest of us. Just a guy. A guy who had to work every day, who had to take orders, follow rules, do "the job". Some of the rules seemed rather banal to us. Mind numbing. The job was mind numbing. But that was on a normal day. Sometimes, changes came down from management, from the Squadron level, or the base level from "White House", where the base commander worked, or higher up at headquarters SAC, or from the President, our Commander in Chief.
Sometimes those new rules, regulations, orders, were far beyond the pale for us. But we lived to get through the day, to do our job, to party when possible, to count our days to the end of days; to become a "two digit midget" (under 99 days to get out); to actually, see civilian life again; to experience, freedom. We thought, jail was better, because then, you were restrained by bars, laws, armed guards. But we, we had to go back each day, voluntarily; we had to leave, knowing we would have to come back the next day. And they next morning, we would indeed get up, get ready and go back to the Farm and do it all over again.
Most of us handled it. Some of us couldn't. Like the guy that waited till his wife went to work that day, then sat in his living room and set up a shotgun and blew off the top of his head. She found him that was, when she returned with groceries.
Or the guy that entered the back gate one night, drunk, was getting hassled by the gate guards until he snapped and started beating the crap out of one of them and the other shot him, killing him.
So, some of us apparently couldn't take it. I did. It wore on me too though.
We had a commander of our squadron, who happened to be black. It didn't really matter one way or another, except, we all thought he was an idiot. As isn't really unusual, we liked the second in command better. But he didn't seem to be kind of an empty vessel. To us anyway. But we managed, we put up with it.
So one day I go to work. I'm in the shop and mid morning, we hear, that everyone needs to stay at work, no one is to leave. Lock down. It would seem that Dick, finally lost it. He was in his room on the 3rd floor of the barracks, someone said he was playing with his 9 shot .22 cal revolver. His door was open, he was just hanging out, drinking, fooling with it. Then something got to him and he went to the barracks "day room". The barracks is separated, a hall on either end, and in between its got a large room usually with TV, maybe pool, or other games and chairs, overstuffed ones frequently.
Dick walked into the day room and there were two guys, kicked back, watching TV. Dick raised his gun and put two bullets into the set, then walked out and went back to his room. It turned into a "thing". They cleared the barracks. The SP's (Security Police) were called out, the LE's (Law Enforcement) were called out. Dick, stayed in his room.
When we heard about it, none of us could believe it. But we knew Dick, and knew he wasn't a killer, just tired of all the bullshit like the rest of us. We all wondered all the time just who would snap next, or when it might happen. There seemed to be a high rate of suicides at the base and we just assumed it was part of the package.
It was a high stress place. We were the "Best in the West" of the bases and we were going to keep that rating. The job itself was stressful. We were under constant surveillance. They said even our home phones downtown would be intermittently monitored. National Security. We had to go to "Golden Flow" (urine testing) once a month.
We were under the HRP or PRP programs (Human, or Personal, Reliability Programs). To do our job, you had to have two people who knew the job, had the clearance and the rank necessary. If anyone asked you a question, even a General, you could tell them to go to Hell if they didn't have, the need to know, the security clearance, and proper credentials. Something I did, at least once to a very pissed off General. When he told my boss, a Tech. Sgt. at the time, he told the General to go to Hell too, politely, and that, was the end of it. Interesting life.
In talking to my coworker and friend, Craig (his real name because names have been changed only to protect the innocent), we realized, if we could just go talk to Dick, we could talk him down. But we weren't allowed to leave the shop.
Then we got the news that our Commanding Office had called him on the phone in his room. He tried to talk Dick down, but his reply was, "Fuck you, you stupid, black bastard!" Then slammed down the receiver and shot the phone several times. Now really, we didn't take this much as a racist comment, but rather an accurate one (he WAS black after all) and as for stupid, well, again it just seemed accurate. We actually laughed about it at the time, because, well, we all agreed, he WAS a stupid bastard, in our opinion and we cheered that someone actually had the brass ones to call him on the carpet about it. But then we started to really get worried.
It was getting on about 11am by this time and we heard that the City Police of Spokane, the city SWAT team, the Sheriff's office and the professional hostage negotiators from downtown had arrived and had set up shop in the ground floor of the barracks. I asked, why the bottom floor, and was told, that's where the pool table is. I was also told that base security, who had no experience with this king of talk down, negotiating kind of stuff, would not let the professionals who knew how to handle this kind of thing, any where near Dick. Who really needed them to be near him.
At this point, Craig, our friend and coworker, Dan and I were all getting upset because we knew Dick could be talked down. Now we were pissed off, because we knew where this was headed. You could feel that they wanted this to end badly. That was our feeling at the time anyway. Otherwise, why wouldn't they let hostage negotiators in?
We tried not to think too much about it, but news was buzzing all through the squadron. Then, about 1:30pm we got the word, it was over. At first, we felt elated, but the silence erased that pretty quickly.
It seems the base waited long enough, they wanted to move. The off base Pro's were still on the first floor, playing pool, being pissed off themselves from what I heard, when the base sent two SPs up the outer staircase. Its made of a metal frame like a fire escape but we all used it daily. Well, I didn't as I lived downtown with my wife, but Craig and Dan did. Craig was down the hall from Dick.
So it seems that when the two SPs were going up the stairs, just at that time Dick had decided to come out the top floor. When he saw two fully geared SPs heading up the stairs at about the second flight, he panicked and pulled off a few shots. He hit one SP in the wrist and the other, squeezed the trigger on his M-16. It was in full auto mode. He emptied the clip in an arc across the path where Dick was standing, hitting him in the head and chest. The event was over.
We got this news, and we just stood there. The guy that came into the shop to tell us, just stood there a moment, then turned, opened the door and walked out. Our Shop Supervisor, Pete, turned disgusted and said, "They didn't need to kill that boy! If he'd have wanted to hit someone, he would have, he was a crack shot with that gun. He wasn't trying to hurt anyone!"
A little later Pete just told us all to take the rest of the day off. So Craig and I headed over to Craig's room in the barracks. He was going to get some things and spend the night at my house. He didn't want to sleep in the barracks that night. When we got there, we got out of the car and walked over the grass to the stairs out side as we always did. About the second floor up, we realized, when we saw how the wall looked so different, that this was where the standoff ended. We had known that, we just were so wrapped up in our thoughts, it didn't occur to us until we saw it.
We could see the arc of bullet holes. The blood, pieces of bone, brain. Not a lot, but enough. We never slowed down, but went in, got his things and headed back out down the inside stairs.
And that, is the story of another kind, about a guy named Dick, another kind of hero. Just a guy. Just a guy who couldn't take it anymore.
We have those now, today, happening in the military. People who are living in harsher more difficult situations. And they can't take it either.
The New York Times said in January 2009: "Including the deaths being investigated, roughly 20.2 of every 100,000 soldiers killed themselves. The civilian rate for 2006, the most recent figure available, was 19.2 when adjusted to match the demographics."
American troops are taking their own lives in the largest numbers since records began to be kept in 1980, several years after the story I just told happened.
According to the Air Force times in March 2009: "The Air Force lost 38 airmen to suicide in 2008, a rate of 11.5 suicides per 100,000 airmen. From 1987 to 1996, there was an average of 13.5 suicides for every 100,000 airmen. Of the airmen lost in 2008, 95 percent were men and 89 percent were enlisted."
This story was for those who didn't survive. Who possibly didn't even fight. Who just couldn't handle it. We talk a lot about the heroes, but sometimes we forget tot think about the others, who served, who couldn't survive, and took another way out.
But in the end, here is to all those who served, in whatever capacity.
They ALL deserve our humble thanks, gratitude and support.
Having a bad day? Compared to what?
Hi. How has your week been? Not too stressful, I hope.
Mine has been quite over the top. Some of my "customers" are very high stress and they find it easiest to put some of that stress directly upon my head. Some rightfully so, some I've been told, not so much. Or more precisely, not at all.
Just how stressful HAS this week been? Or last week for that matter, with this one giving it a good run for the money? How so? How can I explain? How can I draw this out and yet keep talking to you till you realize this was just another attempt to talk about strange and unusual times from the past? How can I even keep your attention for that long? Let's see.
I'll just say, this week has been slightly more stressful than I remember feeling one day years ago (harp music), while plummeting to the ground from about 3,000 feet up, having just foolishly let go of a perfectly good airplane, on one fine summer day. It was about just then that I had noticed my parachute was kind of open above me but had not quite really opened as I had been lead to expect it would. It was just flapping in the wind like a streamer held out a car window.
First, I really should mention, this experience I'm about to relate, took place the day after my High School friend Rod's birthday at his house. He had just turned eighteen. I was seventeen. I woke after a night of very strange things, my ex girlfriend I had JUST broken up with and my soon to be new girlfriend both being there, doing a variety of inebriates I had done and had yet to do, drinking at a keg and waking on the couch, to a hangover and the sounds, of all things, of someone dumping and counting, jar after jar of coins there on the living room floor. It was Jimmy, Rod's older brother.
I said, "HEY, knock it OFF!" Jimmy said, "Sorry, but I have to." I said, "Why?" and he said, "Because, I'm going sky diving." Then he said, "I'm done, later." and he ran out the door.
Shortly after the door slammed shut, Rod came down and said where'd Jimmy go. I told him and he lost it. "WHAT! Oh Hell, he told me he'd take me! I'm going!" and I said, "What? Then I'm going."
On the way there, he realized he didn't have enough money. So, I loaned him what I had. And when we got there, I said I wanted to jump too but I gave Rod all my money. Once I found I didn't need parent's permission as I wasn't eighteen (I thought I did and my mother already made it clear she wouldn't give her permission), I really wanted to go. But I was broke. Rod felt bad and between he and Jimmy, we got the $30 together for me and we all started our five hours of training (still hung over and jumping from a platform five feet up to learn parachute landing form, didn't feel none too good). Finally we were ready to go and we climbed into the plane.
I remember someone asking, do you know what position you are in, as we were on our knees, crowded into the plane to get the most jumpers up as possible. I said, "No" and they replied, "The preying position." Ha ha. Very funny.
I never should have flirted with the beautiful jump master as it was after all, her husband who packed our chutes. But, that was pointed out far too late.
Back to the chute. As I said, it was not inflating above me and thus slowing my descent nominally. Making things worse, I could not actually see it. The risers connecting me to the canopy were crossed against the back of my neck and so I could only therefore stare at my chest, where lay my chin just above where the emergency chute sat all nice and tightly secured to me and ready for instant deployment; oh, and of course that hard ground far beneath and beyond the chute on my chest, with its great grouping of fenced off meadowland that was currently floating gently up toward me at about 100 miles an hour. I could see it between my dangling feet.
After you jump out of the plane, you are supposed to take proper form to keep from tumbling terribly out of control, like Jimmy had just done, almost hanging himself in the fifteen foot static line that pulls the chute out. Jimmy was pretty scared, but hey, he jumped out. Rod had exited the plane fearless and in perfect form. Just the opposite of what I would have expected as Jimmy was always the fearless one. For myself, when dangling my foot, hanging outside the plane, looking down at 3,000 feet of nothingness, when the jumpmaster hit my leg and said, "GO!" I said, "WHAT!?"
She looked at me incredulous. "JUMP!" and hit me again. I looked, thought, "I'm not losing that $30 because I rode the plane back down" and thought, "I only have to relax my fingers and..." and it happened, the plane jumped out of my grasp and I was gone. Swimming for the plane didn't appear to be working. Then the static line snapped and the chute was pulled out. But....
It was all quite hard to miss, but what I missed most was seeing what the chute above my head was doing because, frankly, I just wasn't slowing down. You are supposed to count to six, then look up, check the chute opened, and make a decision, to relax and ride it down, or do some emergency procedures like cut away and pop the emergency chute.
I began to consider feeling stressed out, but I had been told you only have about ten seconds to make a decision on what to do in a situation like that at that altitude, so I really didn't have the time to stress out. Or to be afraid, which I thought I would save for either just before I impacted the ground, or just after I landed and somehow, continued to live. Which, actually, I was kind of counting on.
My hangover seemed to magically dissolve away. I guess adrenalin does that.
I remember thinking I needed to break away, pop the emergency chute; but then I thought, "I don't have $2.50 for an emergency chute repack. So...I'd best just get this one to work then; no sense in being embarrassed. That would really suck." Right. OK.
So, I did the obvious thing, what anyone might do. I pulled apart the risers and snapped my head back, only then realizing how much strength it took to keep the risers apart for more than a second or two as they were supporting all my weight and so, I had to let them snap back into place. At which point, I found I was now staring straight up at the streaming tube-like, "cigarette roll" (as they call those malfunctions); a funny looking arrangement of a Hell of a lot of 1.1 rip-stop nylon all not inflating and there far beyond that, a truly beautiful, silent, blue sky.
Technically, this type of "function" as they like to call them, is known as a "compression twist", but at the time, I really wasn't caring what the correct technical term for it was. It can happen when you twist the chute as you put it into the pack, so when it extracts it spirals and compresses, holding itself in a tube shape, and so it can't inflate as air has no entryway.
I noticed that it was really quite quiet falling like that through the sky. Except for this one noise, and what was that anyhow as it was getting quickly getting louder? I thought about it for a moment (just part of a second, don't worry) and realized finally that it was me, passing through the air, at 100 miles an hour (go ahead, stick your head out the window of your car at 100 mph some time, and you'll see what I mean). There were some other minor sounds from material flapping, or loose harness webbing, but other than that, just the screaming of the air shooting past my ears seemed to take up the majority of my attention.
At about that point, when I realized that my head was stuck back, the riser were holding my helmet back and that I could have it either way, but not easily transition between the two extremes. So, I figured that well, I might as well try to fix it. Besides, I didn't really want to watch my knees being shoved up into my hips should it come to that. I figured I'd feel it either way and no sense in sensory overload, ya know?
It was at that moment that I thought to put into play my brilliance and act accordingly. So, I pulled the risers apart as wide as I could so that the chute above me could inflate and I could sit there happily and relaxed and watch the show of a colorful spectacle of yards of nylon spinning rapidly around up above me, so that it could open to its full and glorious 28 foot diameter of canopy. I was surprised as I pulled them apart, that I was actually able to hold them far apart, and again, I think it was the adrenalin. But then the amazing happened.
I wasn't considering a small overlooked item. That being physics. You see, when you have what you might call an "air anchor" and you try to move it against that of say 190 pounds of dead weight plus gear, well, the larger "air anchor" wins and the dead weight (yes, me) spins instead.
At which point I began to spin uncontrollably as the inflating parachute above instead got to watch my spectacle all with feet flying out as I did a strange little meat puppet twirl. Unbeknownst to me, not so far below on the ground, down there beneath me at the landing zone or LZ, all the other sky divers were watching in shared fascination and sheer horror.
"Why in the Hell isn't he cutting away and deploying his reserve!" They wondered.
Fascinated, they watched the display of me spinning, after having not broken away from the malfunctioning main chute sooner and using the reserve chute; and all in horror at having lived moments that felt like hours to the more experienced jumpers as they watched the far more inexperienced sky diver (my esteemed self) not breaking away from the "compression twist" (something that has killed many sky divers and one time parachutists for nearly a hundred years or more).
I finally had a grand finale as I snapped to and stopped spinning quite suddenly. I was a little dizzy and I had to let my eyes catch up to my head and allow my vision to focus again, but I was very happy to note that I no longer heard any high speed winds, and that above me (yes, I could now look up quite easily through the now uncrossed risers) there was finally a beautiful open and fully inflated "commando" parabolic canopy doing what it was meant to do: slow descent to a reasonable and much more fun speed.
I was now able to enjoy a quiet, and beautiful descent, with a massive view of the entire region below me. It seemed to last forever, until I got within about 40-50 feet of the ground at which point, things seemed to increase in speed and the culmination of the jump. That being, the landing.
Which actually went quite smoothly and I actually hit the ten foot wide target of pea gravel. I was exhilarated. After all, I was the only one that jump who hit the target. The other more experienced jumpers already on the ground had all missed. Which happens, as the jumpmaster in the plane can only zero in on one or a few jumpers to hit the target as the plane is continuing on in a line at about 100 miles per hour. The new "square" chutes make this less an issue now a days.
After I landed, I lost my happy feeling quickly after kissing the ground (literally) and got chewed out by the "ground-master", the guy that guides you in; and yes, I did get down and press my lips to the soft fragrant moss and clean beloved dirt of that beautiful collection of fenced off meadows in the forest. Ah, the Earth is a wonderful thing at that point and not every the really annoyed groundmaster could completely quelch my good feelings. And he knew it. And let it go. But made it clear, that rather than go through what they just witnessed, with a new jumper (no tandem jumps back then), they were all have pitched in to pay the cost of a repack for the emergency chute.
Once again, Life was good.
And thinking back on it, that wasn't even as stressful as this past week has been for me; that week that I would one time experience some several decades later.
Its good to know that you can nearly always count, no matter how things are at the time, that they will at some point in the future, be even more intense than what you are currently going through.
Makes you think.
You know?
Mine has been quite over the top. Some of my "customers" are very high stress and they find it easiest to put some of that stress directly upon my head. Some rightfully so, some I've been told, not so much. Or more precisely, not at all.
Just how stressful HAS this week been? Or last week for that matter, with this one giving it a good run for the money? How so? How can I explain? How can I draw this out and yet keep talking to you till you realize this was just another attempt to talk about strange and unusual times from the past? How can I even keep your attention for that long? Let's see.
I'll just say, this week has been slightly more stressful than I remember feeling one day years ago (harp music), while plummeting to the ground from about 3,000 feet up, having just foolishly let go of a perfectly good airplane, on one fine summer day. It was about just then that I had noticed my parachute was kind of open above me but had not quite really opened as I had been lead to expect it would. It was just flapping in the wind like a streamer held out a car window.
First, I really should mention, this experience I'm about to relate, took place the day after my High School friend Rod's birthday at his house. He had just turned eighteen. I was seventeen. I woke after a night of very strange things, my ex girlfriend I had JUST broken up with and my soon to be new girlfriend both being there, doing a variety of inebriates I had done and had yet to do, drinking at a keg and waking on the couch, to a hangover and the sounds, of all things, of someone dumping and counting, jar after jar of coins there on the living room floor. It was Jimmy, Rod's older brother.
I said, "HEY, knock it OFF!" Jimmy said, "Sorry, but I have to." I said, "Why?" and he said, "Because, I'm going sky diving." Then he said, "I'm done, later." and he ran out the door.
Shortly after the door slammed shut, Rod came down and said where'd Jimmy go. I told him and he lost it. "WHAT! Oh Hell, he told me he'd take me! I'm going!" and I said, "What? Then I'm going."
On the way there, he realized he didn't have enough money. So, I loaned him what I had. And when we got there, I said I wanted to jump too but I gave Rod all my money. Once I found I didn't need parent's permission as I wasn't eighteen (I thought I did and my mother already made it clear she wouldn't give her permission), I really wanted to go. But I was broke. Rod felt bad and between he and Jimmy, we got the $30 together for me and we all started our five hours of training (still hung over and jumping from a platform five feet up to learn parachute landing form, didn't feel none too good). Finally we were ready to go and we climbed into the plane.
I remember someone asking, do you know what position you are in, as we were on our knees, crowded into the plane to get the most jumpers up as possible. I said, "No" and they replied, "The preying position." Ha ha. Very funny.
I never should have flirted with the beautiful jump master as it was after all, her husband who packed our chutes. But, that was pointed out far too late.
Back to the chute. As I said, it was not inflating above me and thus slowing my descent nominally. Making things worse, I could not actually see it. The risers connecting me to the canopy were crossed against the back of my neck and so I could only therefore stare at my chest, where lay my chin just above where the emergency chute sat all nice and tightly secured to me and ready for instant deployment; oh, and of course that hard ground far beneath and beyond the chute on my chest, with its great grouping of fenced off meadowland that was currently floating gently up toward me at about 100 miles an hour. I could see it between my dangling feet.
After you jump out of the plane, you are supposed to take proper form to keep from tumbling terribly out of control, like Jimmy had just done, almost hanging himself in the fifteen foot static line that pulls the chute out. Jimmy was pretty scared, but hey, he jumped out. Rod had exited the plane fearless and in perfect form. Just the opposite of what I would have expected as Jimmy was always the fearless one. For myself, when dangling my foot, hanging outside the plane, looking down at 3,000 feet of nothingness, when the jumpmaster hit my leg and said, "GO!" I said, "WHAT!?"
She looked at me incredulous. "JUMP!" and hit me again. I looked, thought, "I'm not losing that $30 because I rode the plane back down" and thought, "I only have to relax my fingers and..." and it happened, the plane jumped out of my grasp and I was gone. Swimming for the plane didn't appear to be working. Then the static line snapped and the chute was pulled out. But....
It was all quite hard to miss, but what I missed most was seeing what the chute above my head was doing because, frankly, I just wasn't slowing down. You are supposed to count to six, then look up, check the chute opened, and make a decision, to relax and ride it down, or do some emergency procedures like cut away and pop the emergency chute.
I began to consider feeling stressed out, but I had been told you only have about ten seconds to make a decision on what to do in a situation like that at that altitude, so I really didn't have the time to stress out. Or to be afraid, which I thought I would save for either just before I impacted the ground, or just after I landed and somehow, continued to live. Which, actually, I was kind of counting on.
My hangover seemed to magically dissolve away. I guess adrenalin does that.
I remember thinking I needed to break away, pop the emergency chute; but then I thought, "I don't have $2.50 for an emergency chute repack. So...I'd best just get this one to work then; no sense in being embarrassed. That would really suck." Right. OK.
So, I did the obvious thing, what anyone might do. I pulled apart the risers and snapped my head back, only then realizing how much strength it took to keep the risers apart for more than a second or two as they were supporting all my weight and so, I had to let them snap back into place. At which point, I found I was now staring straight up at the streaming tube-like, "cigarette roll" (as they call those malfunctions); a funny looking arrangement of a Hell of a lot of 1.1 rip-stop nylon all not inflating and there far beyond that, a truly beautiful, silent, blue sky.
Technically, this type of "function" as they like to call them, is known as a "compression twist", but at the time, I really wasn't caring what the correct technical term for it was. It can happen when you twist the chute as you put it into the pack, so when it extracts it spirals and compresses, holding itself in a tube shape, and so it can't inflate as air has no entryway.
I noticed that it was really quite quiet falling like that through the sky. Except for this one noise, and what was that anyhow as it was getting quickly getting louder? I thought about it for a moment (just part of a second, don't worry) and realized finally that it was me, passing through the air, at 100 miles an hour (go ahead, stick your head out the window of your car at 100 mph some time, and you'll see what I mean). There were some other minor sounds from material flapping, or loose harness webbing, but other than that, just the screaming of the air shooting past my ears seemed to take up the majority of my attention.
At about that point, when I realized that my head was stuck back, the riser were holding my helmet back and that I could have it either way, but not easily transition between the two extremes. So, I figured that well, I might as well try to fix it. Besides, I didn't really want to watch my knees being shoved up into my hips should it come to that. I figured I'd feel it either way and no sense in sensory overload, ya know?
It was at that moment that I thought to put into play my brilliance and act accordingly. So, I pulled the risers apart as wide as I could so that the chute above me could inflate and I could sit there happily and relaxed and watch the show of a colorful spectacle of yards of nylon spinning rapidly around up above me, so that it could open to its full and glorious 28 foot diameter of canopy. I was surprised as I pulled them apart, that I was actually able to hold them far apart, and again, I think it was the adrenalin. But then the amazing happened.
I wasn't considering a small overlooked item. That being physics. You see, when you have what you might call an "air anchor" and you try to move it against that of say 190 pounds of dead weight plus gear, well, the larger "air anchor" wins and the dead weight (yes, me) spins instead.
At which point I began to spin uncontrollably as the inflating parachute above instead got to watch my spectacle all with feet flying out as I did a strange little meat puppet twirl. Unbeknownst to me, not so far below on the ground, down there beneath me at the landing zone or LZ, all the other sky divers were watching in shared fascination and sheer horror.
"Why in the Hell isn't he cutting away and deploying his reserve!" They wondered.
Fascinated, they watched the display of me spinning, after having not broken away from the malfunctioning main chute sooner and using the reserve chute; and all in horror at having lived moments that felt like hours to the more experienced jumpers as they watched the far more inexperienced sky diver (my esteemed self) not breaking away from the "compression twist" (something that has killed many sky divers and one time parachutists for nearly a hundred years or more).
I finally had a grand finale as I snapped to and stopped spinning quite suddenly. I was a little dizzy and I had to let my eyes catch up to my head and allow my vision to focus again, but I was very happy to note that I no longer heard any high speed winds, and that above me (yes, I could now look up quite easily through the now uncrossed risers) there was finally a beautiful open and fully inflated "commando" parabolic canopy doing what it was meant to do: slow descent to a reasonable and much more fun speed.
I was now able to enjoy a quiet, and beautiful descent, with a massive view of the entire region below me. It seemed to last forever, until I got within about 40-50 feet of the ground at which point, things seemed to increase in speed and the culmination of the jump. That being, the landing.
Which actually went quite smoothly and I actually hit the ten foot wide target of pea gravel. I was exhilarated. After all, I was the only one that jump who hit the target. The other more experienced jumpers already on the ground had all missed. Which happens, as the jumpmaster in the plane can only zero in on one or a few jumpers to hit the target as the plane is continuing on in a line at about 100 miles per hour. The new "square" chutes make this less an issue now a days.
After I landed, I lost my happy feeling quickly after kissing the ground (literally) and got chewed out by the "ground-master", the guy that guides you in; and yes, I did get down and press my lips to the soft fragrant moss and clean beloved dirt of that beautiful collection of fenced off meadows in the forest. Ah, the Earth is a wonderful thing at that point and not every the really annoyed groundmaster could completely quelch my good feelings. And he knew it. And let it go. But made it clear, that rather than go through what they just witnessed, with a new jumper (no tandem jumps back then), they were all have pitched in to pay the cost of a repack for the emergency chute.
Once again, Life was good.
And thinking back on it, that wasn't even as stressful as this past week has been for me; that week that I would one time experience some several decades later.
Its good to know that you can nearly always count, no matter how things are at the time, that they will at some point in the future, be even more intense than what you are currently going through.
Makes you think.
You know?
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