(no subject)
Nov. 25th, 2003 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaxjediI think I found a few words (from behind the couch, I think).
Work and life continue to be hectic. It seems that the duties of 'day-to-day' take up much more than the day-to-day time. And some things seem so hard to muster effort for, like cleaning up the health hazard that is our apartment. But I've managed to find some silence in the cacaphony that is my life. It's not much, but it keeps me alive.
The week after OryCon was tough. I was felled by a very nasty flu. Fortunately, my manager was very merciful and used my OFLA intermitent medical leave to validate the days I took off (and one of the lates). So, instead of being near losing my job, I'm only on a first warning. And if I don't miss any days or am not late until Christmas, then I'll lose 2 points off of my attendence, putting me firmly in the 'no danger' area.
However, the best part of this was that I talked ot my manager and explained the current state of affairs. She understands and understands that I am doing my best for both my family and my job. And my manager is the type that if she knows I'm on her side, she'll stick her neck out for me.
Still, it was a huge emotional drain, as well as physical. Being sick feels like I'm failing my family twice over - not only am I unable to really help Eleri with the Mouse, but I'm not even earning money for us when not being useful at home. Plus feeling like I am failing my team.
I know it's just a job, but as I'm in a position of authority, I feel a responsibility to them. And sometimes, that keeps me coming in when the money doesn't.
Work is busy. Too much to do. I've spent all week trying to catch up for being out. I'm almost there - I'll need to put in some serious overtime tomorrow and Saturday to catch up and to approach making up the hours I missed.
However, there has been one breath of fresh air. I started chatting with one of the new people in an associated team over the company IM client. She's very cute in a zaftig gothie sorta way. But just having someone to talk to is a big thing. When they cut off AIM at work, I effectively lost most of my ability to communicate with people not living with me - I did most of my chatting while doing my other work. I lost a conduit to talk with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eleri during the day and lost complete contact with some other people.
So talking to someone was really good. I sorted bubbly-geeked on her when I found out she gamed - started talking about games endlessly. I'd forgotten how much I relied on IM to keep me sane at work.
Hey Loki? What's the chances of getting you to rip MP3s of the Secret of Dominion for me? I've been missing it. (Yeah, sick, huh?)
"The secret of Dominion... have you discovered it?
And what is.... Emerald Tree?"
I've slacked off on Sinnish. I haven't gotten past chapter two of my primer. I think my primer will still be a little dense for people - I just don't have the skill of language instruction.
I have people who actually want to learn Sinnish.. but I don't have the resources to teach them. I have the resources I need to write in it, but without people, it's just a curiosity that won't develop. I would like to do more with it. Just need to spare the focus.
On the language tangent, I've been looking into D'ni a bit lately too. Seems pretty simple so far. Not particularly developed though.
I've always wanted to be special. I mean, who doesn't. There is a self-important part of me somewhere that feels I have some special creativity in me. I've tried to express it in my games, mylanguage, my writing, my art and my relationships.
Every once in a while, I'll realize that I just haven't been expressing it enough. I feel like I have to make up for the lack.
Now I know that, ultimately, I can make nothing of lasting value. Almost nothing one does lasts beyond one's own time. We are whole universes - people with 24 hours a day of sensations, experiences and inspirations. But our memories and stories and accomplishments are lost in a generation or two - to our great grand children, we will be names to be found and placed in geneological charts. Even those few that are remembered as 'greats' will be reinterpreted by the pressures of history and the eye of the day's biases.
I can't hope to create anything that's lasting, really. But I want to impart something to the world around me. Maybe that's why I focus on my relationships - when everything will pass away, only are loves really seem to matter.
I watched Miri this weekend while Eleri hung out withryoganox and jennkitty (btw, happy birthday jenn!). Luckily, the Mouse was subdued for a while - I actually got to read gaming books for a while. It was almost a restful weekend.
Monday at work, I was wired. I'd had just enough sleep and rest to actually feel rested for once.
This is the point where I have a lot of short posts because I'm getting tired. Eventually, I'll end the post with something like "Must go to sleep".
Once, I posted a reply to a post of a friend's LJ where she was bemoaning the loss of her innocence. And I made the comment that innocence was overrated. Someone else responded saying that that was the most jaded thing they had ever heard.
But I stand by it. I don't find innocence inspiring, or even desirable.
I watch my daughter. She's pretty innocent and often the sweetest thing I've ever seen. However, she's also a baby in many ways - she's very selfish. She doesn't know any better.
And that's the point for me - she doesn't know better. I love her sweetness, but I don't know if she knows better with that either.
However, without innocence, we know better. We can choose to do the right thing. And that makes it a conscious choice. We intentionally choose the right thing, knowing the implications and knowing that there might be an easier and more pleasing, if less moral, path. Right action born out of a knowledge of what it is, not out of not knowing any better.
Now that, I think, is truly exceptional.
At thge polyamory panel at OryCon, the most common phrase I heard was 'and this is important even for monogamous relationships'.
And you know, that comes up a lot. "It's important to communicate even in a monogamous relationship." "How would that be any different in a monogamous relationship?" etc.
I realized that a huge amount of what poly groups talk about is exactly the sort of skills that you should ideally have for mono relationships as well. Communication, an understanding of yourself and your own needs, a respect your partner's needs, allowing the other people to have their own space, etc etc.
I mean, beside the fact that the multiplicity of relationships makes the situation more complex (more people to communicate with, etc.) is there a place where it is substantially different than monogamous relationships?
Sometimes I wonder if poly 'discussion groups' aren't really more just a sort of 'let's get together to remind each other that it's okay to be poly'.
Ultimately, that's what a lot of 'subculture' social meetings are about. Getting together with simialr people to remind yourself that you are not alone.
And ultimately, that's the difference between those who are poly or poly-friendly and those who aren't. The posturing about protecting children with monogamy, or allowing yourself to be free of jealousy in polyamory, or the fostering of stronger relationships (which both sides claim) is just postering. In the end, it comes down to "we think it's okay" versus "we think it isn't". The arguments thrown back and forth are simply rationalizations.
I like poly. I think poly is Right(tm) and Okay(tm). And I have a lot of reasons. But I found those reasons after it occurred to me that it made a fundamental sense.
It's really inductive reasoning instead of deductive. The reasons are explanations of what is already there in our heads, an attempt to backtrack what we are doing to some sort of moral standard so we can say it's Okay(tm) and explain it to others. We don't deduce that it is right from first principles. (In fact, very little of common morality is deduced from first principles if you thing about it - a lot of it 'just doesn't seem right' and people act on that, or form doctrine to codify it).
It's the same with the people who oppose gay marriage - it just seems wrong to them. Thus there must be a reason.
It's a paradox. I don't see any definite morality anywhere. But I believe that people are moral and need morality.
Like C.S. Lewis, I see that humans have an urge for right and wrong. But I think that right and wrong have malleable boundries.
My spirituality is odd. I'd classify it as a sort of spiritual humanism. I feel it is definitively pagan in the modern sense, but it's not nature-based, nor is it particularly magical. Once again, I come back to the question of 'what is pagan?' (this runs around in my head a lot).
And I'd have to say that the essence of pagan is occult (or mystery, as I've stated before). Occult in the broader sense of uncommon wisdom or hidden mystery. Pagan is the sense is that the spiritual parts of the world are keyed around those places/times/concepts where the mundane and the supernatural intersect out of view. These things are necessarily subjective, in some sense, as they are not mass experiences, but experiences 'between worlds' - outside the normal experience in a sort of gnostic state or mileu.
And that's where my spirituality exists - that we move between worlds in the exploration of things that expand us outside of our normal boundries so we can directly experience the fantastical.
Now is time for the "Must go to sleep" line.
Work and life continue to be hectic. It seems that the duties of 'day-to-day' take up much more than the day-to-day time. And some things seem so hard to muster effort for, like cleaning up the health hazard that is our apartment. But I've managed to find some silence in the cacaphony that is my life. It's not much, but it keeps me alive.
The week after OryCon was tough. I was felled by a very nasty flu. Fortunately, my manager was very merciful and used my OFLA intermitent medical leave to validate the days I took off (and one of the lates). So, instead of being near losing my job, I'm only on a first warning. And if I don't miss any days or am not late until Christmas, then I'll lose 2 points off of my attendence, putting me firmly in the 'no danger' area.
However, the best part of this was that I talked ot my manager and explained the current state of affairs. She understands and understands that I am doing my best for both my family and my job. And my manager is the type that if she knows I'm on her side, she'll stick her neck out for me.
Still, it was a huge emotional drain, as well as physical. Being sick feels like I'm failing my family twice over - not only am I unable to really help Eleri with the Mouse, but I'm not even earning money for us when not being useful at home. Plus feeling like I am failing my team.
I know it's just a job, but as I'm in a position of authority, I feel a responsibility to them. And sometimes, that keeps me coming in when the money doesn't.
Work is busy. Too much to do. I've spent all week trying to catch up for being out. I'm almost there - I'll need to put in some serious overtime tomorrow and Saturday to catch up and to approach making up the hours I missed.
However, there has been one breath of fresh air. I started chatting with one of the new people in an associated team over the company IM client. She's very cute in a zaftig gothie sorta way. But just having someone to talk to is a big thing. When they cut off AIM at work, I effectively lost most of my ability to communicate with people not living with me - I did most of my chatting while doing my other work. I lost a conduit to talk with
eleri during the day and lost complete contact with some other people.So talking to someone was really good. I sorted bubbly-geeked on her when I found out she gamed - started talking about games endlessly. I'd forgotten how much I relied on IM to keep me sane at work.
Hey Loki? What's the chances of getting you to rip MP3s of the Secret of Dominion for me? I've been missing it. (Yeah, sick, huh?)
"The secret of Dominion... have you discovered it?
And what is.... Emerald Tree?"
I've slacked off on Sinnish. I haven't gotten past chapter two of my primer. I think my primer will still be a little dense for people - I just don't have the skill of language instruction.
I have people who actually want to learn Sinnish.. but I don't have the resources to teach them. I have the resources I need to write in it, but without people, it's just a curiosity that won't develop. I would like to do more with it. Just need to spare the focus.
On the language tangent, I've been looking into D'ni a bit lately too. Seems pretty simple so far. Not particularly developed though.
I've always wanted to be special. I mean, who doesn't. There is a self-important part of me somewhere that feels I have some special creativity in me. I've tried to express it in my games, mylanguage, my writing, my art and my relationships.
Every once in a while, I'll realize that I just haven't been expressing it enough. I feel like I have to make up for the lack.
Now I know that, ultimately, I can make nothing of lasting value. Almost nothing one does lasts beyond one's own time. We are whole universes - people with 24 hours a day of sensations, experiences and inspirations. But our memories and stories and accomplishments are lost in a generation or two - to our great grand children, we will be names to be found and placed in geneological charts. Even those few that are remembered as 'greats' will be reinterpreted by the pressures of history and the eye of the day's biases.
I can't hope to create anything that's lasting, really. But I want to impart something to the world around me. Maybe that's why I focus on my relationships - when everything will pass away, only are loves really seem to matter.
I watched Miri this weekend while Eleri hung out with
ryoganox and jennkitty (btw, happy birthday jenn!). Luckily, the Mouse was subdued for a while - I actually got to read gaming books for a while. It was almost a restful weekend.Monday at work, I was wired. I'd had just enough sleep and rest to actually feel rested for once.
This is the point where I have a lot of short posts because I'm getting tired. Eventually, I'll end the post with something like "Must go to sleep".
Once, I posted a reply to a post of a friend's LJ where she was bemoaning the loss of her innocence. And I made the comment that innocence was overrated. Someone else responded saying that that was the most jaded thing they had ever heard.
But I stand by it. I don't find innocence inspiring, or even desirable.
I watch my daughter. She's pretty innocent and often the sweetest thing I've ever seen. However, she's also a baby in many ways - she's very selfish. She doesn't know any better.
And that's the point for me - she doesn't know better. I love her sweetness, but I don't know if she knows better with that either.
However, without innocence, we know better. We can choose to do the right thing. And that makes it a conscious choice. We intentionally choose the right thing, knowing the implications and knowing that there might be an easier and more pleasing, if less moral, path. Right action born out of a knowledge of what it is, not out of not knowing any better.
Now that, I think, is truly exceptional.
At thge polyamory panel at OryCon, the most common phrase I heard was 'and this is important even for monogamous relationships'.
And you know, that comes up a lot. "It's important to communicate even in a monogamous relationship." "How would that be any different in a monogamous relationship?" etc.
I realized that a huge amount of what poly groups talk about is exactly the sort of skills that you should ideally have for mono relationships as well. Communication, an understanding of yourself and your own needs, a respect your partner's needs, allowing the other people to have their own space, etc etc.
I mean, beside the fact that the multiplicity of relationships makes the situation more complex (more people to communicate with, etc.) is there a place where it is substantially different than monogamous relationships?
Sometimes I wonder if poly 'discussion groups' aren't really more just a sort of 'let's get together to remind each other that it's okay to be poly'.
Ultimately, that's what a lot of 'subculture' social meetings are about. Getting together with simialr people to remind yourself that you are not alone.
And ultimately, that's the difference between those who are poly or poly-friendly and those who aren't. The posturing about protecting children with monogamy, or allowing yourself to be free of jealousy in polyamory, or the fostering of stronger relationships (which both sides claim) is just postering. In the end, it comes down to "we think it's okay" versus "we think it isn't". The arguments thrown back and forth are simply rationalizations.
I like poly. I think poly is Right(tm) and Okay(tm). And I have a lot of reasons. But I found those reasons after it occurred to me that it made a fundamental sense.
It's really inductive reasoning instead of deductive. The reasons are explanations of what is already there in our heads, an attempt to backtrack what we are doing to some sort of moral standard so we can say it's Okay(tm) and explain it to others. We don't deduce that it is right from first principles. (In fact, very little of common morality is deduced from first principles if you thing about it - a lot of it 'just doesn't seem right' and people act on that, or form doctrine to codify it).
It's the same with the people who oppose gay marriage - it just seems wrong to them. Thus there must be a reason.
It's a paradox. I don't see any definite morality anywhere. But I believe that people are moral and need morality.
Like C.S. Lewis, I see that humans have an urge for right and wrong. But I think that right and wrong have malleable boundries.
My spirituality is odd. I'd classify it as a sort of spiritual humanism. I feel it is definitively pagan in the modern sense, but it's not nature-based, nor is it particularly magical. Once again, I come back to the question of 'what is pagan?' (this runs around in my head a lot).
And I'd have to say that the essence of pagan is occult (or mystery, as I've stated before). Occult in the broader sense of uncommon wisdom or hidden mystery. Pagan is the sense is that the spiritual parts of the world are keyed around those places/times/concepts where the mundane and the supernatural intersect out of view. These things are necessarily subjective, in some sense, as they are not mass experiences, but experiences 'between worlds' - outside the normal experience in a sort of gnostic state or mileu.
And that's where my spirituality exists - that we move between worlds in the exploration of things that expand us outside of our normal boundries so we can directly experience the fantastical.
Now is time for the "Must go to sleep" line.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
various stuff
Date: 2003-11-26 08:18 am (UTC)However, a quick Google reveals that someone may have already done the work for us. I bet Kazaa Lite or whatever could turn up those MP3s.
I agree with you about innocence. I think what people miss about being innocent is the simplicity you decry, actually. They miss not having to think about complicated issues, because they no longer know any better. And they miss optimism based on ignorance. Sometimes, it takes a strong soul to continue optimism despite everything -- but it comes to the innocent so easily.
Here's to looking behind the couch
Date: 2003-11-26 09:43 am (UTC)The reductionist in me always wants to find the simplest core to a theory, the one axiom that everything else can follow from. I can't say I've found it, but I think compassion comes pretty goddamn close. We don't need rules, we just need compassion. ( I could say love, too, and sound like John Lennon or Master Therion, but I'm not a poet. I'm not really solving anything here, just pointing out what I think is important. )
Moral dilemma arises in the details of finding the balance between my needs and your needs and her needs and everyone else's needs. So I guess we need two things: compassion and balance.
That's why I call myself Buddhistic, and its not to be confused with any religions. Don't get hung up on these labels, though, or the source. Wicca, too, teaches karma ( cause and effect ) and compassion, "...do no harm." Even Jesus got some of this right ( you know what they say about broken clocks ) though you'll be hard-pressed to find many of his followers that understand the message. They are too busy following.
But I digress. The innocent are innocent because they lack empathy, and thus lack the capacity for compassion. They are ignorant of the suffering of others. Let me introduce you to one of my koans:
How old must one be, before we may hate them?
I could say more on this, but I'll leave it here for now.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-26 12:01 pm (UTC)I think I disagree with you on the reasons behind poly [I think--I'm awfully tired.]--inductive vs. deductive reasoning. While I think what you've said is [obviously] true for yourself and other people, I think the reasons that some people come to poly have nothing to do with being 'wired' that way--which is what I'm hearing you say--but more to do with a concious choice. I made the choice to conciously choose to be poly because I think it's a healthier way to live. I believe that monogamy is a product of previous times when people *needed* monogamy and it's not good bad or otherwise. I could exist in a monogamous relationship--it would be hard, given that I've spent X number of years being poly, but it would be possible. I also know of people who are poly because it's a political statement for them--with them saying effectively 'fuck you' to a patriarchally based legal-religious union..
Which leads me to gay marriage. I'm queer and I completely oppose gay marriage because I think it's an assimilationist action and why do queer people need to imitate and/or fit in the heterosexual model? That, and the act of marriage can never, for me, be seperated from the religious aspect--marriage has always been a religious covenant between two people. I don't think it should be involved with or endorsed by the state--I think marriage should be strictly religious and the state should endorse domestic partnerships for everyone. That, and people cannot legally marry more than one person or have a legal group marriage--no one but the two people legally married can get health insurance, death benefits, etc.
I would theorize that people are only moral because they are taught to be moral--children have no morals and don't until they're taught..
no subject
Date: 2003-11-26 11:03 pm (UTC)Semantics. That's what legal marriage *is*, and that's what gay marriage would be, legal domestic partnership. Calling it 'gay marriage' doesn't mean making it fit the 'hetorosexual model', it means making it ok for any two people to enter into a long term domestic contract. Just because the religious act of joining two people is called 'marriage', doesn't make the legal act doing the same thing any less valid.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-28 05:17 pm (UTC)The foundation of christianity in this country has people going balistic at the suggestion that the word 'marriage'. Three out of six Democratic presidential candidates support domestic partnerships for queers, but not marriage--because, to them, and a whole hell of a lot of other people, marriage and domestic partnerships are vastly, vastly different because of the religious aspects.
Re: legal act vs religious act. Since marriage has it's basis in Judeo-Christian tradition and has the distinctive place in history where women were, and still are largely, legally and culturally subjugated by their husbands--and having both the church AND state endorse it, I personally find it hard to stomach for anyone regardless of orientation.
It may work out for those lesbians who live in the suburbs with kids and dogs and such who make 90k a piece each year and would prefer to blend in with common society, but for those who don't, well, we still don't get health benefits, legal standing of any sort, or death benefits. Heterosexual couples who don't marry can get that under commonlaw marriage...queers can't. Still second class citizens. It's a conundrum--be for it and support the sucking up of queer culture, or be against it and in the eyes of the queers with the money and the strings to pull, be undermining the gay rights movement.