How to know your will

I can't believe I never posted this story before. But a quick search proves that I haven't. So here goes.

A couple days ago, I read a remark by John Michael Greer that he made three years ago, in the middle of a discussion about training the will. (I probably read it back then too, but in the moment this discussion was referenced from something more recent.) Anyway, leaving the context aside, what he said was: "You always do act in accordance with your will -- just not always in accordance with your conscious will."

And suddenly I was reminded of a Full Moon ritual put on by Wife and a couple other members of her coven, some 36 or 37 years ago. One of the young men (later ordained as Sun-Bear) drew the lot to serve as Priestess, so the Lady was invoked into him during the Aspect. (For a rough overview of the Full Moon ritual, see this post here. At the ritual I'm describing now, I was not the one to do the invocation.)

"Auxiliary backup parent"

I got a call from Son 2 today. He explained that he and Beryl have been fixing up their space so that they can accommodate overnight guests. And he invited me to come visit sometime. Not today, exactly [and that's fine because he lives at least an eight-hour drive from here!], but sometime when it's convenient.

It was a lovely invitation. I thanked him multiple times for it. And I have spent the rest of the day disgruntled.

Maybe it was partly because he started the call by explaining that he had just been talking to Wife, and so he figured sure, what the hell, why not call me? I forget his exact words, but somehow or other he said that of course I'm the "auxiliary backup parent," but he was in an expansive mood so he called me too. (I don't remember the overall remark, but I'm certain of those three words.) And later, as he was explaining how they have fixed up the house they're in, he mentioned that they invited Wife to come visit for Thanksgiving, Son 1 to come visit sometime in the fall to go shooting, and Beryl's brother to visit them over Christmas. And then, he said, he was left wondering, "Now who am I forgetting …?"

Very likely some of this was meant as a joke. Maybe even most of it. But of course it struck me kind of hard because it doesn't feel like a joke. Not really. 

• I've written about how I feel out of touch with the boys' lives. (See for example this post here. I feel like I've written about it in other places too, but I can't find them right now.) 
• I've written about feeling jealous that Wife talks to them a lot more than I do—and of course she is actually living with Son 1. (See for example this post from ten whole years ago, or this one that is a lot more recent.)

And Son 2's remarks re-triggered all those feelings again.

I'm writing this post because I want to force myself to think this through, instead of just reacting to the emotions.

So let me think.

Does everyone hate family life?

Fifteen years ago, I wrote a post arguing that monogamy is an artificial social institution like democracy: "unnatural" in the sense that it doesn't respond to the tug of immediate impulse, but superior to impulse because it solves some of the problems that unfenced impulse creates.

Now earlier this week I saw on Twitter a post quoting from a new book* that appears to argue that family life itself is unnatural, and that really nobody much likes it (neither men nor women) … at any rate not compared to the life of immediate impulse. The quoted selection goes on to say that the reason traditional societies feature patriarchal privilege is that this privilege is a bribe to men to encourage them to settle down in households. The reality, says the author, "isn't that men seek by nature or education to dominate wives or children, but that men simply don't care."

Really? I don't know … there were good days when I was glad to have a home and a wife and a couple of kids. Notwithstanding all the destructive chaos that was ultimately unleashed, I do remember that. (It didn't last, of course.)

Maybe I'm just easygoing. Or easily bribed. 

__________

* Costin Alamariu, Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy, Independently published (September 15, 2023)        

               

Nobody cares about rights until they want to DO something

A few days ago, I saw a post on Twitter from CatGirl Kulak defending "Lost Cause" historiography. In case that term isn't immediately transparent to you, the "Lost Cause" is an interpretation of the American War Between the States (1861-1865, also called the Civil War, or by other names) which argues that the South was justified in seceding and that the war was not primarily about slavery. Lost Cause historians often argue that the South was driven to secede in order to protect its "way of life," and in particular that the southern states were ticklish on the question of "states' rights"—rights which were already becoming so infringed by a tyrannical and centralizing government in Washington, D.C. that separation was the only way to preserve them.

CatGirl Kulak's argument is that the historians who developed the Lost Cause interpretation were the ones who had direct access to surviving participants of the war, and so could question them. She argues further that the current generation of historians (who reject the Lost Cause interpretation pretty universally) are all Marxists, so what do they know? It's the kind of argument that sounds good until you think about it for a minute. Yes, the Lost Cause historians were closer to the action than we are today; they were also, to a man, Southern. And surely it is only natural that defeated Southerners—especially those who lived so close to the war that they still felt the shame of defeat—should try to put the best possible face on the choice to secede. As for protecting the Southern "way of life," already before the war it was well understood on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line that the critical, fundamental difference between the Northern and Southern ways of life lay in the South's "peculiar institution"—namely, slavery.

But the main point I want to make has to do with the topic of "states' rights," and it is a point far more general than the specific argument over Civil War historiography. It is simply this: Nobody in real life cares tuppence about the details of their legal rights until they actually want to do something!

"Neopagan disability cult"?

A few days ago I was reading John Michael Greer's latest weekly blog post—plus the comments, which are always valuable—and in replying to one comment he made a passing reference to something he called the "Neopagan disability cult." Someone asked him what he meant, and he explained as follows:

Pro tip from Twitter

I'm pretty sure when Scott Adams posted this he meant it as a political remark. Given what's been in the news lately, it probably has to do with the allegations of bribery against President Biden. But it caught my attention because this was always and consistently my experience with Wife! With her affairs. With everything else. This was always her go-to defense.

Or else she'd ask me what evidence I had. Then she'd give me a carefully-tailored alibi to account for exactly that evidence. After a while I caught on to the game, and stopped answering her questions. This made her accuse me of jumping to conclusions unfairly, but it was easier than playing the game over and over.

On the one hand, it was exhausting. On the other hand, I know Adams is right about what he says here.

          

Lost day

I was going to call this post "Hung over" but couldn't quite bring myself to do it. But that's what I mean.

Monday was the same way. That is to say, Sunday night I stayed up too late and drank too much; Monday was a waste. Tuesday night I stayed up too late and drank too much; today was a waste.

If there's a good part to the story, I'm drinking less than I was back in May and June. I look at how much it took to make me worthless today or Monday, and there was a whole week straight back in May when I had more than that every single night. Of course I wrote you about it too, so clearly it concerned me. (And except for writing all my West Highland Way blog posts, the month of May was pretty much a loss for me, as I discussed here.) Anyway, if I'm now tolerating less booze before it wipes me out, maybe my body is finally balking and telling me to quit. That would probably be a good thing, I suppose. 

Also this morning I had a Skype call with Marie, and for the very first time we actually used the video link for sex. (I know, I know, other people figure this out when they are teenagers and not in their sixties. But Skype hadn't been invented back when we were teenagers.) In the moment it was exciting and fun, but I found myself feeling kind of squicky about it afterwards. That might be partly because I realized only afterwards that all my windows were open (though with the blinds drawn), so I wonder if anybody heard anything. Also maybe partly I was still feeling the after-effects of the hangover.

Maybe I can make tomorrow a better day.

               

Who's out there?

The last couple days, just for grins, I looked at this blog's stats. (Also I checked the box to stop tracking my own views of the blog.) 

To my amazement, I found that there are actually people reading these posts. 

I mean, ten years ago, sure. Ten years ago I was part of a blogging community. We regularly read and commented on each other's posts.

But that was ten years ago. Lately, comments have been so rare that I assumed nobody was out there listening.

But the stats prove me wrong. Somebody (besides me) is reading my posts.

So my request to you is this: Whoever you are, if you are reading these posts, say "Hello." Add a comment. Post a URL where you can be found, so I can read what you write and comment on that.

I don't insist on your legal name in real life. If you can't risk giving me that, I totally understand. Go ahead and create an alias. Plenty of people in my former community wrote from behind aliases, for one reason or another. It was still fine.

But say "Hello." Let's start a conversation. You've seen by now what kinds of things I have to say. Let me hear from you. Let's talk.

I look forward to meeting you.

           

Good deed for the day?

Yesterday I got an email from Marie about a recent phone call with her "little" brother Hermanito. It seemed pleasant enough: kind of aimless, but chatty in the way that sibling phone calls can be.

Had a very nice chat with Hermanito.  We talked about my upcoming trip to Paris, his proposed big motorcycle jaunt next summer with his girlfriend (who was in the background, occasionally chiming in), his generator and home repairs (he's replacing his plumbing, his water heater, and his generator, all in the next two weeks), his proposal to visit Auntie for Thanksgiving if his girlfriend can get enough time off (she said she could, but he seemed more doubtful), [and so on]. It was a good conversation.  He once made a comment about liberals like me and Natasha, but I deflected with a question about his summer plans.  And he teased me about my book collection, so I agreed, compared it to Mom's doll collection, and recounted the story of how I showed pictures of her house to a doll-phobic coworker.  So we happily agreed that I was evil, and that was that.

At the end he said love ya sis.

Maybe I'm learning how to talk to him again? 

A city of NPC's

I was talking with Marie today, and an idea popped out of my mouth without my thinking about it. Maybe I had better explain what I mean.

Marie joined our Sangha last night; and during the discussion of the Dharma reading we talked (among other things) about how and why people in small towns distrust educated people from the Big City. A couple of different theories were advanced. 

This morning Marie picked up the topic again and we discussed it a while longer. Marie tried to argue that the reason rural people resist regulation (she assumed that they do) is that since nobody else lives nearby it's not "intuitively obvious" that restrictions on individual behavior help everyone by protecting us from each other. I suggested (on the contrary) that of course rural people understand that; but their idea of what restrictions make sense is based on their experience. Since their experience is different from the experience of urban folk, they will accept restrictions that urban folk reject and vice versa.