1. Where is your cell phone?
GONE

2. Relationship?
Hot

3. Your hair?
Grey

4. Work?
yawn

5. Your sister?
huh?

6. Your favorite thing?
books

7. Your dream last night?
weird

8. Your favorite drink?
coffee (sorry, it’s not monosyllabic)

9. Your dream car?
Blue

10. The room you’re in?
quiet

11. Your shoes?
off

12. Your fears?
Government (sorry, it’s not monosyllabic)

13. What do you want to be in 10 years?
rich

14. Who did you hang out with this weekend?
FAMILY (sorry, it’s not monosyllabic)

15. What you’re not good at?
fibs

16. Muffin?
berry

17. One of your wish list items?
TRAVEL

18. Where you grew up?
COLLEGE

19. The last thing you did?
eat

20. What are you wearing?
shorts

21. What aren’t you wearing?
shoes

22. Your pet?
annoying (sorry, it’s not monosyllabic)

23. Your computer?
on

24. Your life?
fine

25. Your mood?
wired

26. Missing?
Hoffa (sorry, not only is it not monosyllabic – it’s funny)

27. What are you thinking about right now?
chicks

28. Your car?
runs

29. Your kitchen?
mess

30. Your summer?
cool

31. Your favorite color?
BLUE

32. When is the last time you laughed?
now

33. Last time you cried?
unsure (sorry, it’s not monosyllabic)

34. School?
more?

35. Love?
Wife

1) A sense of humor – Stoicism is not hot, even if it’s wearing something skimpy. Sorry, life is way to short to take seriously. NEXT!

2) Curiosity – The ability and interest in thinking about why things happen. Letting life just happen to you gets really old quick.

3) Imagination – The ability to think creatively. This goes really well with #1.  Having a good imagination pretty much counts as a coping skill, which is good to have anyway.

4) The ability to emote – Knowing how to identify the feeling and knowing what to do with it. It may take time for labels to  happen, but being able to do this makes things even cooler.

5) Confidence – You don’t need to know exactly what you want, but having a good idea helps. Knowing what you like and what you don’t like is a great start. I think it comes from being comfortable in your own skin….your own world. Knowing how to emphasize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses is a skill that everyone should have. Challenging yourself to try new things also helps. Staying home to do nothing except watch tv gets old fast too.

Side note: My wife is 5/5 on this one, for those who are curious.

1) Balance – Everything in the universe works towards maintaining equilibrium. Things also tend to be dynamic, rather than static. Equilibrium can be reached, but it’s not a permanent destination. Being able to find out what it takes for you to reach equilibrium with everything is the way to go. Hint: sometimes all it takes is having the right perspective to see the way towards equilibrium.

2) Learning – This doesn’t mean institutions to obtain degrees. It’s the willingness to be open to new ideas and incorporate old ones. Once again, it’s a journey – not a destination.

2) Energy Management – If you think of all the influences in your life as energy, it becomes clearer on how to manage them. The main example of energy most people probably think of is electricity. It is a force. You can’t see it, but you can see what it can do for you. It can be used to run everything from reading lights to running machines. However, if you don’t handle it properly; it can kill or injure you.  Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It simply changes forms. This even applies to personal energy. Holding onto anger, pain, fear and a whole range of other negative emotions is normal & takes energy. However,  not ultimately letting them go at some point can lead to problems.

4) Nurturing – Being able to expend energy to take care of someone else can help build a sense of empathy (an important trait to have) toward others.  It’s very natural, perhaps even genetic. However, it should not be a permanent state (see: balance). Living to serve only others is not healthy. You want to be able to see the whole picture of how everything works together, which includes each of us. We all have a part in the universe.

5) Discernment – Being able to see patterns and tell things apart is important. It applies to not only being able to recognize things in new situations, but also to be able to see the different levels of interaction. People have their own agendas. Some are obvious. Some are not. Being aware that you aren’t being manipulated or tricked can be an important skill too.

1) The key to finding the right religion is finding the right God. Luckily, it’s not a matter of inventing a God because the divine essense exists in many forms. However, you should probably pick a self-confident God whose P.R. campaign doesn’t include grilled cheese sandwiches on E-bay. Gods that tacitly prove their existence with mountain ranges and sunset are your best bet.

2) Don’t worry about who has the most documentation or that has been around the longest. Religions that have little to no documentation aren’t necessarily invalid. History shows that if you ostracize,torture and kill those who practice non-mainstream faiths; subsquently, those religions tend to have less future adherents.

3) Avoid religions that have too much ‘middle management.’ There’s nothing wrong with having structure, or even a hierarchy. However, some middle management styles involve interceding on issues well outside their control. As a rule, people wearing expensive suits with bad comb-overs tend to have their own agendas. Gods, as a whole, have a tendency to be omniscient and omnipotent, so if they have to get a message to you; they shouldn’t have much of a problem doing so directly.

4) Rituals can provide meaning in any religion, as well as strengthen faith. Supplementing those rituals with nice outfits and ritual tools is a nice touch. However, these rituals should  have meaning to you personally. Here’s a little spiritual tip. When practicing transubstantiation, don’t worry about counting calories. Live a little.

5) Choose a religion with a healthy ‘big picture’ focus. Providing food and clothing to the homeless is fine. Working to become a better person is good too. Examples of not-so-good ideas include supporting the marriages of 14 year olds to perverted old men, pointing full automatic weapons at Federal agents or flying your congregation to Guyana to separate them from family members. 

1) Even if you don’t believe in a divine being, being able to appreciate the circumstances needed to bring about life and the planet it came with is still very important. Seeing yourself as a small (but important) part of something bigger gives you a perspective. Religion is a choice to have a relationship with that force. Rituals and prayer are just how we interact with the divine force. Faith is the belief that

2) There are all sorts of forces on the planet and laws that everyone has to follow. Your choices are to passively react to them, ignore them, learn to work with them (or around them) or pretend that you have complete control over them. The forces themselves are not good or bad, but what they’re used for. If you don’t respect the power of those forces, there are consequences. If you believe you have complete control over everything, please reread #1. Science and religion are not in conflict with each other; they are just different ways to quantify the world around us.

3)  We each give value to what we think is important. Even in groups, value can be assigned to any object/behavior/trait. Just as it is up to us to decide what has value; it’s also up to us to make sure what we emphasize is really worth it. We just need to make sure that when the dust settles, it’s really something we want to be left with.

4) The world is full of patterns and the answers for things we don’t know lie in those things that we do know. Being able to recognize patterns can help us learn new ways. Recognizing that learning is a process and not a destination is important too.

5) The purpose in life is to discover our own purpose. It is up to us to determine how meaningful we want that purpose to be. If you want to rule the world, go for it. If you only want to take up space in line at Wal*Mart, that’s your choice too. Everything comes down to our choices. Any choice we make also tends to have an effect, even slight, to those around us.

*as revealed to me by life experience. This is only my opinion.

1) No one adherent truly represents a religion. This is good news for those who are bad examples, and bad news for those who think finding religion is an easy job.

2) A flaw in the practice of its adherents doesn’t not necessarily mean a flaw in the religion itself. Those who hold themselves up as spiritual beacons aren’t necessarily the ones to follow. Frequently, spiritual leaders are so busy leading spiritual lives that they don’t have time to draw attention to themselves.

3) Religion is not simply the act of attending church, nor is religion seated in a symbol. It’s not even a specific set of rituals. Those are all external things that believers and non-believers can focus on alike. While mocking a religious ritual or destroying a religious symbol is disrespectful, faith is something that can only be damaged by the person who chooses to give up hope. If you have a strong faith, there isn’t an external force on the planet that can change that.

4) Religion, like any human endeavor, is subject to bias. A spiritually weak person will bend their interpretation of  sacred text to serve their own wants & needs. A spiritually strong person works toward changing their behavior to fit into their interpretation of sacred text. As I have also said before, spiritually weak people also prefer holding others to a high spiritual standard before holding themselves to the same standard. Control issues, manipulation  or deception can exist without religion. Religion can just be a means of delivering such an agenda.

5) Finding religion is only a matter of asking the right questions and looking in the right places. It starts with the honest willingness to look and not asking the same questions over and over again. It is finding your own proof, even if indirect, that the divine exists. Taking someone else’s assumptions at face value limits your own growth. I also think that the spiritual journey involves more doubt and fear that you may be lead to believe exists.

6) There is nothing wrong with ritual. It provides stability and security for us. It can be comforting. It provides predictability in the face of an unpredictable world.  Some require more structure to their ritual than others, but there is no one answer for everyone.

 7) Having faith simply means the ability to have hope.  Having enough trust in a feeling that everything will work out, despite what the immediate circumstances may tell you. That is faith. This then leads to building your relationship with the divine.

8 ) Wisdom and truth are timeless. You don’t have to be the oldest or have the most adherent to be validated. Mocking, lying or distorting the religion of another can also be a means of disempowering it. Those become the socially acceptable way to destroy the competition since imprisoning, torturing and killing others for their faith isn’t an option anymore…at least, in this country.

9) Many words are subject to different emotional meanings which includes the use the of the word PATH to describe religion. Some assume this means there is only one. Others see it as many paths all leading to the same destination. The word God means many things to many people. Some believe its masculine. Some believe its feminine. Some believe both genders. Some neither or that it’s a force. As it is an infinite being, finite beings such as ourselves can wrap our brains around the entire essense of the divine. People who are overly concerned with debating the mortal concept of gender as it applies to the divine have probably not made the spiritual leap yet.

RadFem Row website

    Having recently visited some websites dealing with gender issues, I have recently added this site to my list of ones I am watching.

     I will leave it up to the blog visitor to form their own opinions about the site. It does have some strong things to say about males, but I would suggest visiting it with an open mind.  It does present some thought-provoking thoughts within some of its aggressive commentary. 

    If you are only interested in visiting the site to ’stir the pot,’ please do everyone a favor and find something else to do. Post pictures of your dog wearing a homemade sweater or something. Just don’t be an a##.

    First of all, I am not an expert on the subject. My emotional resume includes failed as well as successful relationships. I don’t have the time or inclination to date each and every person to formulate what possibly might be a more accurate theory, but I simply offer some basic thoughts.

     Next, I think these thoughts apply to all relationships including romantic, familial, friendships, acquaintances, and stranger alike. There are some standards that apply to all, but somehow romantic relationships have some other set of rules. I don’t believe that is true. Once again, this is based on my personal experience. 

1) Know your weaknesses and strengths. I think that you really have a good idea about yourself before you can share that with someone else. It is alright to be quirky; we all are. We have to be aware of our own set of rituals, maybe think about why we do things the way we do, and know how we act when we can’t do them.  If you know you become short-tempered when you’re tired or hungry or have an irrational fear of clowns, that’s fine. Being able to identify things like that will help you sift through real issue later. Don’t sweat having your quirks. Everyone has them. If they say they don’t, they are either lying or haven’t done their own inventory and might be best left alone. Assuming no one else has emotional baggage of some sort is completely silly.

2) Fight fair - All relationships will have disagreements of some sort. The more time you spend with someone, the more likely you are to see them at ALL points of their emotional, social, and physical range. If leaving wet towels on the floor bothers you enough to say something; then say it in a timely matter. Be as diplomatic as possible. Say it is just something you are used to and express some appreciation if they could stop. Let it go. The idea is to not sit on the problem for weeks/months on end, then blow up the next time it happens. Leaving wet towels on the floor should not also be a springboard into an anger-fueled tirade of everything that person has done wrong for the last 6 months. That is attacking. Namecalling? Attacking! Accusations or implying other non-spoken things? Attacking! It doesn’t mean the relationship is over. In this case, it’s just wet towels. This leads us to…..

3) Respect the other person and their boundaries -  Think about the closest friend or family member you have had that you feel genuinely looks out for you. They call you on your stuff when they think you are messing up, but put it in a supportive way. They are also their to share your accomplishments and successes too. A friend also learns and knows what you like and don’t like, and acts in response to that. Here is where trust, honesty, and respect are established.  All of it is fostered by communication. You don’t have to be a polished public speaker, but you do have to have an respectful approach when dealing with other people and their feelings. Long lasting relationships are not built on manipulating or using others.  People worth knowing and hanging out with aren’t into the extrinsic form of relationships.

4) Never give ultimatums – These are usually given to manipulate someone into doing something else. They are generally given with the expectation that you will pick the answer they want. Relationships, like any natural force on the planet, constantly seeks equilibrium. Anger, hate, violence, control issues, ultimatums, etc. are not settled states. Equilibrium doesn’t mean relinquish all control to the other person. It is a shared balance. Both parties should be able to be themselves, and make their own decisions.

5) Everyone is entitled to their own feelings and emotions – People will feel the way they want to; however, that is not, nor should it be, license to dominate/hit/ threaten/manipulate/control other people. Stressing out is natural, but people need to learn how to identify and express their emotions in a safe, healthy way. Substance abuse (drugs, alcohol) interferes with that expression just as pretending to be victim to feeling emotion. Anyone wound so tightly that they become violent or belligerent upon feeling any anger or anxiety should be a beacon to leave unless it is dealt with an managed with professional help. Giving someone time to deal with it is fine. Not holding them accountable for changing is not fine.

6) Pay attention to some detail – knowing what someone’s favorites are is a simple thing to show that you think about someone.  Remembering a conversational tidbit that they like a particular flower or food is a nice tip-of-the-hat when you see them again. However, you have to be careful with this. Something too intimate or personal could be interpreted as stalking or obsession. Unless you want to kill any hope of relationship, serious thought should be kept in keeping things simple. Saying “Hi” in passing to a complete stranger in a Piggly Wiggly supermarket, following them home, and pledging your undying love; that’s just creepy. Seeing someone again who caught your eye at the last party you both went to together, and remembering that she likes Van Gogh paintings; that’s a nice touch. Subtle is good.

7) Building Relationships are like poker games – You just can’t jump in on any table. You should develop a poker face to temper pure excitement from scaring off anyone willing to play, or masking disappointment when things don’t work out. Knowing when to walk away when things don’t look right. Sharing information about yourself is much like the ante up process. You share just enough to match what you think will keep someone interested but not too much to scare off future bids. If someone puts TMI (too much information) on the table, the other people will either feel compelled to share something too personal too match it or may fold (walk away).  When you do win, rubbing it in other peoples’s faces is still not cool. When you lose, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be playing. It might mean finding another table to change your luck. Good luck does come into play here, but it has more to do with the willingness to learn skills than wearing a lucky outfit. Pardon the cheesy Kenny Rogers-like analogy, but I think this makes sense.

Orthodox Jewish Woman Beaten by Men for Refusing to Go to Back of Bus Post

I thought this thread was interesting.

Methinks I feel another post on the topic coming on.

Relationships, Gender Issues/roles, Feminism, and how they interact with masculinity…..

   I have recently come across several anti-male blogs. Some women who are sharing their perception of the male species. Aggression, violence, rape, murder, and other atrocities committed by those who share my gender are listed as common traits. My mind reels with thoughts on this one.

    I firmly believe that we were put on this planet by a divine force. Call it God, Goddess, Deity, The Divine, Allah, Hashem, Hecate, Kali, Ashtaroth, Pazuzu, Chuck, whatever; some being with remarkable powers to create life from nothing.

   In creating that world, it has structure and is full of many discernable patterns (some not so discernable). Among those patterns are forces. Forces that maintain a balance or equilibrium. When these forces are not in balance, things go wrong. Sheer forces build up, we get earthquakes and tsunamis. Electric charges build up, lightening strikes. Political power wielded without balance; people lose their voice or rights and are subject to the whims of those in power. This includes forces like love, lust, jealousy, fear, etc. These forces can be beautiful when they work to our advantage and harmful or deadly when they work against us.

     Hate and anger are both natural forces. Like any other force, neither is designed to be the permanent standard.  Another trait of forces are that they are not static. Being dynamic means there is a constant shifting, but the ultimate balance is still there.

  I see these man-hating blogs, much like any other blog where the viewpoint becomes more important than any supporting information to that effect.  I think poster children of the unbalanced include anyone who used the US vs. THEM thought process.  Religious, political, social, or ideological divisions of this magnitude also lack the natural equilibrium to be supported.

that’s just my thought on it.

Here is the one that triggered the post…but it is not the only one I have seen.

misandrist.wordpress.com