Surgery and Updates

My husband went in for bladder cancer surgery on Thursday and is now home recovering nicely. It all went as well as it could have and they said they got all of it without it having spread elsewhere. During it all, I think he gets reminded of his mortality and perhaps, just a tiny bit, he’s reminded about who’s important? I, too, have had a complete rethink.

We have actually achieved a truce, of sorts. I’ve had to scale back emotionally and he’s living with the idea that he does not have my full attention any longer. Perhaps that’s for the best.  This article is one I came across accidentally, but it does help me understand the ideas behind things and why we are all bent on romanticism and the idea of one person for each of us until death. I have always fallen for the full romantic picture that we are taught as young women; there is one special person, your soul mate, whom you will meet, fall in love, and marry and live happily ever after in perfect bliss. Yeah, not so much.

I think now that people live to a very advanced age and it’s virtually impossible to ask someone to love one single human being throughout your life. It is entirely possible to love more than one person romantically. I’m doing it now. I love my ex-husband and I love my current husband. I see no contradiction. The contradiction only occurs in people’s minds when it comes to sex. Jealousy only really occurs when we think of people having sex with other than us.

I certainly don’t believe anymore that people are monogamous. The majority of evidence that I see around me in the people I know and in the news confirms to me that men especially are incapable of fidelity.  Yes, women too, but it is not as accepted in women as it is in men. I am certain that if two people work at it, non-monogamy can work, however BOTH people have to start at the same place and not try to fit it in afterwards. My problem is that I didn’t sign up for it from the beginning. If I had, I could have dealt with it all better.  If I’d been honest with myself as well, I could have been self-aware enough to know that I am NOT one for fidelity myself. My current relationship proves it! And, just because I have no interest in outside relationships right now, it does not mean I won’t in the future.  I’ve made it clear that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander and the hubby accepts that.

The lesson learned here is to BE HONEST FROM THE BEGINNING. We all spend so much time hiding and lying to ourselves and to others about what we really want and then we try to force ourselves to live by a moral code that we did not create. Someone else said that this was our moral code and we accepted it. I told my husband, it’s not that he’s ACTUALLY seeing anybody else that’s the problem for me, it’s the lying about it that angers me more. The betrayal is making it seem that I’m not worth telling the truth to. True, I’ve made it difficult for him to be truthful by my outbursts, but I’ve learned, through scaling back emotionally, that my outbursts do not encourage honest dialogue. So there are learning curves all around.

Perhaps something can be salvaged after all. I feel better about it now that I give myself time to really think about it and the ramifications of certain choices. It’s not for everyone, but it might be for us.

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Giving In or Accepting Things I Cannot Change?

I have used many philosophical and religious systems in my life, for personal improvement mainly. I’ve been a devout and now a nominal (if that) Christian. I’ve read numerous philosophers.  At university, as a literature major, I was obliged to read widely and often. This I gladly did. I could never quite come to know a system that worked for me, that reflected life as it is lived and not as some dogma pronounced.

My favorite bible book is Ecclesiastes. It has more sound wisdom in it than the entire collection of epistles, stories, and myths in the Jewish and Greek Testaments.  It’s curious that no one preaches from this book, probably because it goes against all the tenets of Paul’s version of Christianity. I have to say that my favorite philosophers have been the more practical ones. I’m all about practicality until I get some damn fool notion of romance into my head. One of the most practical is Aristotle.  The Transcendentalists are sublime. The Stoics are admirable AND practical.

My morning read always includes a portion from The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman. In today’s portion, a quote from Seneca, Moral Letter, 83.2

I shall keep watching myself continually, and – a most useful habit – shall review each day.^[2] For this is what makes us wicked: that no one of us looks back over his own life. Our thoughts are devoted only to what we are about to do. And yet our plans for the future always depend on the past.

Good words to heed and keeping a journal has been a daily habit with me for over 40 years. I do look back over my life and realize all of the mistakes in thinking that I keep making and all of the actual mistakes. It’s a very self-reflective journal, sometimes nauseatingly so.  Daily examination is a good thing, although as a Christian this would always turn into some kind of scrupulosity fest which never made me feel any better.  But one thing the Stoics believed was that we have control over one thing; our own minds. All else stems from that, including our will.

I’ve also learned a great deal from my husband who follows every whim, denies himself nothing, and seemingly has no control over his own ideas, actions, or choices. He also never reflects on what’s past because he just forgets everything. He’s like a blank slate every day. I ask him about previous marriages and he doesn’t remember anything, or chooses not to. He keeps no diaries or journals or blogs. This complete lack of concern over one’s actions has taught me a great deal about how we see the world and our reactions to it. It’s also taught me that we CANNOT change other people. We can only change our MINDS and therefore, our actions (will).  Marcus Aurelius wrote in his Meditations 7.2:

How can our principles become dead, unless the impressions (thoughts) which correspond to them are extinguished? But it is in thy power continuously to fan these thoughts into a flame. I can have that opinion about anything, which I ought to have. If I can, why am I disturbed? The things which are external to my mind have no relation at all to my mind.- Let this be the state of thy affects, and thou standest erect. To recover thy life is in thy power. Look at things again as thou didst use to look at them; for in this consists the recovery of thy life.

I need to go back to first principles every single day and reflect on those things that worked for me and those things that didn’t. When was I most happy? When was I most content? What made me feel in control and purposeful in my life? What makes me feel crazy and out of control? It is to these which I must reflect on every morning. As Aurelius said, ‘to recover thy life is in thy power’.

No, I cannot change anyone else, but I can change how I see it and how I react. Now this is easier said than done, but if we keep falling into that hole in the sidewalk instead of choosing to walk around it the next time, we have only ourselves to blame.

“The Habit of Face to Face Encounters”

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I love Roger Scruton. He always puts his finger precisely on the problems with social media.

In human relations, risk avoidance means the avoidance of account­ability, the refusal to stand judged in another’s eyes, the refusal to come face to face with another person, to give oneself in whatever measure to him or her, and so to run the risk of rejection. Accountability is not something we should avoid; it is something we need to learn. Without it we can never acquire either the capacity to love or the virtue of justice. Other people will remain for us merely complex devices, to be negotiated in the way that animals are negotiated, for our own advantage and without opening the possibility of mutual judgment. Justice is the ability to see the other as having a claim on you, as being a free subject just as you are, and as demanding your accountability. To acquire this virtue you must learn the habit of face-to-face encounters, in which you solicit the other’s consent and cooperation rather than imposing your will. The retreat behind the screen is a way of retaining control over the encounter, while minimizing the need to acknowledge the other’s point of view. It involves setting your will outside yourself, as a feature of virtual reality, while not risking it as it must be risked, if others are truly to be encountered. To encounter another person in his freedom is to acknowledge his sovereignty and his right: it is to recognize that the developing situation is no longer within your exclusive control, but that you are caught up by it, made real and accountable in the other’s eyes by the same considerations that make him real and accountable in yours.

Now, I love this quote precisely because it serves to explain the dynamics of real relationships and not necessarily explanatory of the social media we hide behind through our computers. But since Scruton brings it up, there is a sense where we can say safe in our homes and “engage” virtually and remain safe. I think it’s a result of over-information in every area of our lives. We suffer from a decided lack of innocence and faith in our fellow beings because we are now completely aware of what people can do to each other, all in vivid colorful and gory detail. I think it’s even more prominent after events like 9/11.

We don’t like the vulnerability of face to face encounters because it can always go quickly very wrong. People can very easily hide themselves in virtual space, quite unlike meeting someone at the corner pub. Remember meeting someone in person for the first time and the sense you just get if this person is trustworthy or not or suspicious or not? That can’t happen in the virtual world because we only have what words are emotionless as they are typed from the other end of cyberspace. I find that it is very much easier for me to communicate with someone through a computer screen or through an email than it is in person. And perhaps half of it is the visual prejudices we have for people. On the internet you cannot be seen and judged immediately as stupid because your fat, or ugly because you aren’t symmetrically beautiful according to movie standards. For once, we can be taken on our ideas alone and it’s revolutionary, but like anything, we can take it too far and use it exclusively to withdraw from society. Not a good idea. What think you?

Related Articles

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Feminist Gatekeepers

 

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Rebecca Traister, Hanna Rosin, and others on why you can’t own feminism. (1) – By DoubleX Staff – Slate Magazine.

Now I understand. After reading these feminists (and I’m surprised that they “allowed” Christina Hoff Summers to comment) I understand better about the feminist gatekeepers. They are elite women-firsters. They are academic women lording sover the lives of any other creatures; fetuses, men, animals, etc. They have earned this right because they believe others have ruled them long enough. Fair enough. I’m on board with that. Men have always taken what they wanted without weighing consequences. It’s their right. However, feminist gatekeepers look askance at anyone who would claim the right to be first themselves, such as Sarah Palin, who they label “unserious.” Why? Because she’s not educated like you or believe in the same policies as you do? As I recall, men in their patriarchal heyday often called Victoria Woodhull and suffragettes “unserious.” Gatekeepers label Palin and other women who disagree with them as dabblers at politics who do not understand what they are talking about.  Why? Because they don’t understand it the way you do? Which education is enough to make them “serious” about their political beliefs. Ivy league colleges? I smell elitism in the air.

Again, ladies, we UNDERSTAND what you are saying. You are saying women have rights no matter who’s involved. You are saying that your body is yours no matter what. Abortion is your banner no matter who you’ve allowed inside your body first. We get it. Fathers have no rights. Grandparents have no rights. The fetus has the least rights of all. The only right that matters is the female because she carries the baby. No parthenogenesis is involved yet somehow this “tissue” is strictly hers to dispose of at will as if no one was involved in its creation but her. We understand that no one has the right to an opinion about the government, about welfare, about employment, but you. Early feminists such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, ladies who were never governors of their states, are considered “minor” feminists, probably because Stanton opposed abortion as another means of enslaving women by getting rid of men’s mistakes for them. Stanton wrote:

“When we consider that woman are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should Treat our  children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.”  Letter to Julia Ward Howe, October 16, 1873, recorded in Howe’s diary at Harvard University Library

Mary Wollstonecraft wrote:

“Women becoming, consequently, weaker…than they ought to be…have not sufficient strength to discharge the first duty of a mother; and sacrificing to lasciviousness the parental affection…either destroy the embryo in the  womb, or cast if off when born. Nature in every thing demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity.” “A Vindication of the Rights of Women,”

In other words, there is a price to be paid for such cavalier trashing of nature’s effects isn’t there? I think so. Yet, I am pro-choice myself and think the laws should stay as they are to protect a woman’s health and against crimes committed against her. However, there should be caveats as with any act that has responsibilities attached to it; the rights of fathers who care, and other family members who have a vested interest. No decision should be responsibility free. I don’t believe the religionists that say your body is God’s, but I also don’t go to the other extreme that say your body is yours no matter what.

There was a division in Stanton’s day and it appears there will be in our day. Ideology always creates division. Perhaps it should but people who don’t agree with you have a right to express their beliefs just as much as you do. Agreeing to further the causes of women should not however lie on the stance of a single issue.  Life is never about single issues. Again, modern feminists are making themselves the gatekeepers of an ideology that only a few women will ascribe to and declaring it true and right. They are “mortified” that other women claim their accomplishments as feminist; women who are married, mothers, or in any other category not fitting for complete and total freedom as they see it, a right they only accord to themselves. Is abortion really going to be the test for all political ideologies, left, right, and middle? Really? Feminism will never go anywhere with this mentality.

As for who gets to be feminist? I’ll tell you; only those who agree with the gatekeepers of their generation, that’s who.

Related Articles

• Who Gets To Be Feminist? (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
• Did Slate’s collection of essays to inspire anyone to engage with the hoary question “Who Gets to Be a Feminist?” (althouse.blogspot.com)
• Reason Writers Around Town: Katherine Mangu-Ward in Slate on Who Gets to Be a Feminist (reason.com)
• How We Can Fight the Right-Wing’s Absurd Hijacking of Feminism (alternet.org)
• IN SLATE: “The guardians of feminist purity are not amused by the idea of right-wing girl power.” … (pajamasmedia.com)

Quitting Christianity a la Anne Rice: a Manifesto of sorts

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I’ve gotten angry with religion quite often lately. Like being part of a nation or state which also angers you because of their stupid policies and marginalizing of certain groups, finding your religion consistently betraying its preached principles is very disheartening. And although I’ve claimed atheism at various times in my life, I can never willfully give up that part of me that convinces me personally through experience a belief in a Divine Will that operates in/throughout/above/below the Universe. Many times I throw my hands up in despair and say, “No more of this bullshit for me!” Yet, I always come back.

Anne Rice has gotten a lot of flack lately for quitting Christianity. Some say that quitting Christianity is not possible. I would agree with the semantics of that. If you believe Christianity is an institution, you can quit it. There are differing definitions of “church” although I believe the church is made up of Christians no matter where they are. Others are in agreement with her and have come out of their religious institutions as well. We all agree that the polarization Christians (and all religions) cause when they insist on following this or that dogma, tenet, doctrine, or “prophetic” saying are the prime motive for our coming out. On her Facebook page, Rice has posted the various responses and there are so many that I can’t single out just one. However, I can say that I agree with her 100%.

When I became a Christian, I was not evangelized nor did I “come forward” in an alter call at a church. I had my own experience of Jesus and “God” on my own time and in my own way through personal prayer and from reading parts of the new testament. The Divine manifested itself to me in terms I could understand. It just happened to be in Jesus’ form. My first mistake after this experience was searching out a church where I could meet with fellow believers and connect with others and perhaps compare notes about our experiences. That would have been great, had it stopped right there. Unfortunately, becoming part of a community such as that seems to imply that others can become your moral compass and tell you what you can and cannot do and what you can and cannot believe. This got me wondering what the church is for then. Is it primarily a place where others can compare experiences or is it a club where only those who pay the right amount or who follow all the rules others laid down for us by others, away from the secular world and all its contaminates? Is it supposed to welcome all who wish to come to it or is it primarily set up to exclude? You will find as many explanations as there are religious sects, so nothing can be decided either way. What’s left is the kind of individualism that Rice espouses and that church leaders so despise. It is fundamentally a lack of faith in people to do the right thing at the right time and for the right reasons. I think it’s time we grow up from that.

Church leaders argue that Jesus set up these rules, but of course there is no evidence of this. The bible cannot even be counted on to accurately record the words of Jesus or to set down the history of the church without those, who happened to win the power play of sects back then, redacting those portions that came down to us ahead of time.  The one thing that convinces me that religions as practiced in the world are not absolute truth is due to the confusing witness provided by the varied sects, churches, religions, and practices throughout the world. None are in agreement. If such dogmas were ABSOLUTE TRUTH, there would be consensus about these issues and there is not. Individualism is the only answer here. Actions such as peace, simplicity, and love are its evidence. What I think these so-called leaders fear most is being out of a job! Do they not think that a Divine Will can’t accomplish what it wants with or without us?

My individualism imposes no belief on anyone. My individualism does the most good and spends my money where I see fit. I don’t funnel funds through the church and expect it will go where I want it to go. I send it directly. I don’t evangelize nor do I believe every believer called to do that. This thinking is only an institutional tool to garner the most numbers. In this day and age, it isn’t necessary to evangelize. The information is out there. It’s up to the Divine to speak, not me.  Much like the Religious Society of Friends, I believe in the Light that is in every person. This is the Light of God and it has to be trusted that whoever or whatever Divine Will is accomplishing in the world, what is accomplished is what is meant to be accomplished. The church as a traditional institution has done irreparable harm in the world by not trusting this concept. They believe “truth” is funneled through authority and hierarchy. Judaism and Islam share in the harm done and in believing in imams, priests, prophets, or “special” people. The “big three” have a lot to answer for and I’m not going to blindly follow the herd and say “They told me to” because they claim authority over me. My only authority is my conscience informed by my spirit, however that comes to me (brain, soul, outside me, whatever), through a community I choose, if I choose, and through information garnered from experts in other fields; scientific, religious, or otherwise. Therefore, I will stand or fall on my own decisions, no one else’s.

Related Articles

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American Health “Care” Debacle

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As I sit and read blogs this morning and as I am contemplating what to write next, my mind is turned invariably toward the American insurance industry. There is no such thing as American Health Care. It’s a misnomer that means whoever can afford it is guaranteed the finest. If you cannot afford it, you are urged to buy insurance. Since insurance is tied to the workforce, you are also limited by the insurances your company can afford to provide you, which in everyday speak means ‘not much.’ You are also limited by your work hours. My daughter, who works in retail is given between 20 to 39 hours a week to work. She is not salaried, so insurance is contingent on her maintaining 40 hours a week. Clever no? Her employer saves money by not giving every employee the hours they need to bank to provide their own coverage.

On the other hand, I have a salaried position and am paying $600 a month for group insurance after a long, long fight for it. Previously, I was covered under my husband’s insurance through his union. There was no interruption in coverage, in fact there was an overlap of almost a month. Yet, recently my insurance company denied a claim for a bone density scan claiming a preexistent condition. huh? What might that be? I will call them tomorrow, but an issue comes to the fore here. Why is the first inclination of an insurance company, who you pay thousands of dollars to, to deny your claim? I know why… profit. You see the insurance companies are not about health care. They are in this for one reason only, to make money. There is no other reason for insurance companies to exist. Don’t tell me it’s to “regulate” doctors or hospitals or to keep costs down. That’s just bullshit. America’s system is capitalism and that includes health care going to the highest bidder, not because they want their citizens to be healthy, but so that companies can make profits.

I was called back to get a second mammogram due to something they spotted the first time last week. I will call them tomorrow and see if they are going to cover this. If they aren’t, I’m not going. I can’t afford to. The bone density scan costs $350. I now will owe this somehow out of all my other bills and expenses. It sounds measly to some people, but $350 is almost a month’s groceries. It’s almost a car payment for me, or at least the kind of car that I can afford. As I wander the shops and watch everyone buying, buying, buying, I can’t help but wonder, “where do all these people get all this money?” $350 is a drop in the bucket for them. And another mammogram will be upwards of $600 or so. So, I will have to take the risk that what they saw on the first mammogram was a false reading and not go to the second. And I will tell the insurance company this when I call them and if they tell me they will refuse to pay for it. There is no alternative for people like me and millions more who make less than I do a month. Obama’s plan will try to redress this somewhat, but this won’t go into effect until 2014 and even then it will get huge opposition from whoever happens to be in office at the time. The insurance companies will retaliate by raising rates and we will be back to square 0.

So please, please, please, don’t call what we live with now health care. It’s more like health capitalism.

Sadness, Thankfulness, and Changed Lives

I was surfing the ‘net and found this incredibly sad blog. I don’t know if she’s alright. My gut says no since she was on hospice care at that writing, but her tale about her life at home with her husband and her childhood sweetheart and her children made me think about how we waste so much of our time doing things we wish we didn’t have to do and not doing things that will make  us happy.  We make choices, we make mistakes, we hopefully learn, and move on. I hope she has found blessed peace at the end of her days. We all deserve that.

Another Thanksgiving has passed and I am most thankful for being alive– here today– exactly where I am. I’m thankful I got my kids raised without serious incident for them or for me. I really can’t say I’d do anything different than what I have done. Despite going through a divorce (it’s incredible how many women are also going through this right now), I am happy, happier than I’ve been in a long time. After years of trying to please others in my marriage and at work, I decided not to do that anymore. What I thought I wanted 30 years ago turned out as well as it could have, but it has not led to what I want now.  I must say that now, I’ve grown closer to my kids, closer to my husband (yeah it took separation and divorce for this to happen) and I’ve found that I can take care of myself. The fearless woman I used to be 30 years ago is slowly coming back.  My husband (divorce not final yet) is happier and can tell me so without fear. I was a bad wife. I was bossy and pushy and I lacked respect for the man my husband is. But he can also admit that he was a bad husband when it came to giving me what I needed in a relationship. He refused to truly know me, converse on an intimate level, and felt that being a good provider was all he had to do.  I’m glad we can both admit our failings. Sooner or later, it would have come to an end. Now, just happens to be the time.  He’s gained new confidence without me and rather than hurt me, that makes me feel  that we are both on the right track.

The blogs I have read and in which I write, the meds I now take, the counselor I now see, and the new love of my life have all taught me invaluable lessons about myself that I would have never dreamed about 10, even 5 years ago.  Change can’t help but come with some pain.  I’m not responsible for the decisions others make, only the decisions I make.  How we handle those decisions is entirely up to us.

Some blogs on change:

The Change Blog

Love Appetite Lost

Rumination on Ending a Marriage