Regarding our cultural yearning for a life partner. Comments to a sister.

A dear young sister shared with me the yearning that she feels to find a loving committed partner:

Those few that ever hear what I have to say must have incredible patience because what a broken record I am. I share this with you not at you but it comes to mind with what you've shared with me. Again.

I remain convinced that we are born to be, the butterfly, the Wagers of loving, for the every breath that we do reward of joy. Not happiness, more likely intense pain, but joy. But for that to transpire it seems that we need enough of a cocoon. I'm not certain of that because it seems to me there are exceptions, young Rachel Corrie for example. But for all practical purposes we need a cocoon throughout our childhood or maybe just for a couple of days. Hard to know.

My dad was that cocoon for me all of my youth.

But once enough of that cocoon has been available only a butterfly in a really sick collection of butterflies succumbs to their insistence that the Cocoon is where they want to be. And all of us are swimming in that sick collection of butterflies. 2018.

More than life itself I was convinced for my first 45 years or so that all I wanted and all I needed to survive, way more than anything else, was to be in a loving partnership. I will never know if that was true for me.

I know that it is not true for me now, and there is no one that seems to have it that I find myself envying. I have to acknowledge that it could be a function of a different hormonal mixture in me now and brain development which was not available earlier. But I see myself of today, 67 years old, in young Rachel Corrie who to my knowledge did not have such a partnership Central in her life. I see myself, my soul, the joyful Part of Me, In Jane Goodall who to my knowledge never had such a partnership Central in her life.

Again, dear sister, this is not directed at you rather you have brought it to my mind to further explore for myself and to share.

Joy is the solution to life, Goodness, Flourishing, Parenting, Optimal Experience, Personal trauma..... [species flourishing].....>>>

Joy is the solution to life, Goodness, Flourishing, Parenting, Optimal Experience, Personal trauma..... [species flourishing].....

40 years I've been living on the basis of this Theory. As an executive leader in the high-tech industry it was my guiding principle. As a parent. But not blindly, nothing blindly.

My initial base of information was observing my father who did this in my view, and through him the person Jesus, and Gandhi, and King, Teresa of Calcutta and many since.

To say that joy is the answer is to say that the cure for individual or Collective cancer has been found. This Theory may be incorrect but that is the import of what it asserts, far more important than the Cure of cancer which only kills the body.

Instrumentation is beginning to exist to prove or disprove this Theory within the human nervous system but what is lacking is scientists with their hands on these instruments that have any knowledge or experience of joy in their lives so the best I can hope is that they will slowly approximate and I'm afraid like George vaillant, spiritual Evolution, totally misinterpret and Missapply the results.

Were any of the individuals I just mentioned in on this conversation they would be saying, yes, James, the above is exactly right.

If I did anything right as a father it was realizing pretty much on the day of the first one's birth, that joy is what I wanted for that child and then the second one, more than anything else. And that therefore as a father I owed to that child more than anything else that there be joy in my life as my example would be the most powerful influence I would have on that child, those children. I was quite sure that was true then, all of my study, practice, experience, life everyday since has indicated that it was.

Where does Joy come from? It is the reward provided by the nervous system when it thinks we are devoting our very existence to do something really really important for others who are in dire need. The best formula I've come up with is serving the neediest from the soul in solidarity.

[It was the solution to species survival and flourishing, but it is too late for that. But it will always be the solution to the individual flourishing even on the sinking Titanic, every breath.]

Every breath that I am given my highest priority will be on substantiating the above for myself through exhaustive study of the most scholarly information, practice, and sharing that in how I live and in what I write as best I can.

The most substantiated book on psychology in this vein is George vaillant, spiritual evolution. I'm on my 5th reading and struggling to keep my head from exploding with how much he got wrong, but he got Nuggets right that the horrible insane field of psychology has gotten wrong for so long.

At his recommendation I'm also reading Karen Armstrong, the great transformation, which among other things brilliantly presents the history of the Great inventors throughout history for ways of being individually and collectively to optimize experience, so-called religions. They have been relative failures, but there is much much much much to be learned from what they have done so that some of us can figure out how to go beyond, how to invent what was really needed.

Suicide, drugs, mountains of material things, alcohol, marijuana, wallowing in regret for depression or guilt, sex addiction, do not occur with the individuals devoted to a life of joy, see LSGIABeing.com. it doesn't happen. Inconceivable. People who are trying to be good? Yes, these things happen. But those pursuing Joy by whatever conception or none, no, it doesn't happen. These are the equivalent of the Buddhist ideal who have refused Nirvana to stay and serve.

I would die rather than accept a middle or upper economic class lifestyle were it offered to me. I'm sure.....

I would die rather than accept a middle or upper economic class lifestyle were it offered to me. I'm sure of it. That would be to leave my family, the neediest in creation, the masses of creation. Who would leave their family? Here in DC it is impossible not to see the Masters of the Universe, those empty Souls, poor souls, they have done just that. Walking Dead people. Thinking the opposite. Madness.

P1. the extreme essential life and death Joy of wrestling with evil for good

https://vimeo.com/246712400

Decades too late now to avert Armageddon never too late to lessen the evil and increase the good, and joy, for our fellow creatures.

Decades too late now to avert Armageddon never too late to lessen the evil and increase the good, and joy, for our fellow creatures.

Moving forward in the face of utter hopelessness. Video log

https://vimeo.com/246153430

The valid function of Prayer: to seek and execute marching orders in service of creation.

The valid function of Prayer: to seek and execute marching orders in service of creation.

Without a mission I am Paralyzed by the horror in this world. With a mission I cannot sit on the sidelines.

Without a mission I am Paralyzed by the horror in this world. With a mission I cannot sit on the sidelines.

She throws up on you for the 8th time today, your beloved 2 year old daughter desperately ill with the flu. Do you yell at her yet? Do you cut off her food......

She throws up on you for the 8th time today, your beloved 2 year old daughter desperately ill with the flu. Do you yell at her yet? Do you cut off her food...... or threaten to end her housing because of her horrible Behavior? Of course not! You ache for her pain, care not how many times she throws up, only that you help her pain subside. And yet my sisters and brothers often draw my Fury and ire. The rich in their disgusting criminally selfish mansions. My sisters and brothers in their pickup trucks with their cursing at this vehicle and their hatred. The homeless, the poor, with their trash all over the place and their wretched appearance. All are terribly sick, victims of this diseased society, and yet too often they draw not my compassion and solidarity but my hatred. But what I've just written is a new Glimpse for me of the problem within me. And I'm glad of that. I'm learning a new way to see these horrible behaviors for what they are, sickness of this Society made manifest, needing my attempts, my best attempts, to be a cure.

If a water skier lets go the tow rope they almost immediately sink. The most dire needs of creation is my tow rope. Nothing less can keep me from drowning.

If a water skier lets go the tow rope they almost immediately sink. The most dire needs of creation is my tow rope. Nothing less can keep me from drowning.

No, everything is not fine. My depression has been periodic in my life, an inspirational and creative friend. Yes I have understandably.....

No, everything is not fine. My depression has been periodic in my life, an inspirational and creative friend. Yes I have understandably worked to surmount the depression. I no longer find that this is called for for me. My job, the job of all of us is and must be, to stir people's hearts. Fun, Pleasant, nice to be around, is not what the world needs from me, or you. Disturbed, mildly depressed. Not as an act, but as the only sane response to what is being done by us to all creation. One of the few great psychologists, Abraham Maslow, was asked at an august convention where he was speaking, dr. Maslow you cite Abraham Lincoln as iconic of human health , yet Lincoln was known to be depressive. Maslow replied, you think someone being depressed in the midst of a civil war Slaughter is a sign of unhealthy?

Epiphany, for me? The best scholarship I know on the historical Jesus, Dominic crossan of the Jesus seminar, says that the central feature, the central mission, of the man Jesus was.....

Epiphany, for me? The best scholarship I know on the historical Jesus, Dominic Crossan of the Jesus seminar, says that the central feature, the central mission, of the man Jesus was to preserve the one thing that those masses being destroyed by the Roman Empire could hold onto if they chose, their community, being family to one another, regardless of how incredibly difficult the Roman Empire made that through their savagery.

The communal meal was not symbolic, it was the central Ministry. His Central message was, you must not allow this savagery to destroy that which is most sacred, your unconditional loving, your being unconditional family one to another, especially the outcast, the enemy...

I have known and been impressed by this scholarly insight for many years. But just this morning several things are colliding in my mind, the fact that more than half of this country now lives in objective material poverty, the fact that the most joyous larger community that I have ever personally witnessed lived in considerable material misery at Standing Rock for months , that the most joyful body of people of any huge size that ever was on this continent were the Native Americans before Columbus arrived, and this recollection of Jesus teaching.

When 15 years ago I left a $300,000 a year career in Industry and became an elementary school guidance counselor in one of the country's largest and neediest elementary schools, Chester Pennsylvania , I was aware of a problem that I never adequately solved at the time, what did I want for these children, these materially poor children, did I want them to become part of the sick society that created them? I now have a much better understanding of the answer.

The answer is hinted at in a vision that I shared some days ago, ( please see Link in comments below).

When, as I hope occurs, I soon resume my travels across the country I expect to add to my itinerary places like Detroit where I think there may be some fertile ground for sewing/cultivating this seed, for helping the materially poor in cities and places like that to possibly see that their opportunity is not to seek the faux-Heaven, the actual hell, that Mammon tells us looks like the capitalist society, but the heaven that Jesus spoke of, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need. The world Gandhi hinted at, a world that has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for anyone's greed.

Standing Rock update: it's 5 minutes after 5 in the afternoon. More than three hours after......

Standing Rock update: it's 5 minutes after 5 in the afternoon. More than three hours after I expected to be arrested. I've got hypothermia. It's quite interesting. To my knowledge I could walk out of the camp right now and Escape six months in prison, a felony charge, and possible severe physical abuse now and then prison. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't cooperate with the evil that is being done to our Native American brothers and sisters, even if they can. I can't do it. I can't cooperate with this evil anymore. This state, our country, our economy, totally Antichrist. I can't cooperate with it. Isn't that wild?

Standing Rock update: Everyone wants to be a revolutionary, but no one wants to be the revolution.

Standing Rock update: Everyone wants to be a revolutionary, but no one wants to be the revolution.

Standing Rock update: The battlefield, 100% of the battlefield, on which the future of humanity, of creation, will be finally lost or won, is 0% physical, 100% spiritual. This has always been true. We have always pretended......

Standing Rock update: The battlefield, 100% of the battlefield, on which the future of humanity,  of creation,  will be finally lost or won, is 0% physical, 100% spiritual. This has always been true. We have always pretended this was not true. The most powerful creatures known in the universe are the two legged humans. Where our individual and Collective spirit is, there we go. Only through a massive and sustained Global shift in the spirit of humanity is there any prayer for a decent future. I hope to remember this on today, February 22nd here at Standing Rock. If my body, my life limb and treasure, can be used so that the terminal savagery of our fascist greedy Antichrist satanic Collective spirit in this sick country and world, if my body can be used by Savage perpetrators, possessed by their evil spirit, if my body life limb and treasure can be used to sicken the spectators to the final destruction of their children's future, if I can use my body to help them become sick and at the evil of their passivity, and possibly to sicken even one or two of the perpetrators, immediate or distant, crushing us today, then I hope to be glad of that. I think I will be glad of that.

I have heard what I understand to be native story. A grandfather and a grandson are speaking, the grandfather says to the grandson, there are two wolves fighting each other within you,  a good wolf, and a bad wolf. The grandson thinks for moment and says to his grandfather, grandfather, which of the Wolves will win? Grandfather answers, the one that you feed. The story is broader than that in its implications. With each breath, with each action or omission of ours, we feed one of those two wolves in those who are impacted by our lives. Everything depends on which ones we choose to feed.

Even Napoleon saw this: 
"Do you know, Fontanes, what astonishes me most in this world? The inability of force to create anything. In the long run the sword is always beaten by the spirit."

Written as I am here here on self-assigned duty at the composting toilet complex taking out bags of s***, sweeping, feeling the sawdust bins, making certain there's enough toilet paper.... I like to serve. This is a nice way to to lovingly serve my sisters and brothers here, and there by the world, as best I can see to do at the moment.

A mass permanent revolution of loving possessing the world's people is the only hope for a future worth living. This by any and every objective measure.......

A mass permanent revolution of loving possessing the world's people is the only hope for a future worth living. This by any and every objective measure that I know. The loving revolutionary in this world that is self-extinguishing due to vast oceans of evil, the loving revolutionary makes of their life as powerful an antidote, as powerful a cure as possible. Possibly being chemo drugs such as have held my cancer at Bay, possibly being chemo drugs is no picnic. Being the loving revolutionary is no picnic and if it is one is not a loving revolutionary. The loving revolutionary relentlessly places their life limb treasure such that the savagery, hatred, inhumanity, Godlessness, satanic nature of those people and institutions possessed by evil might become so sickening  at the site of their own evil that the all-important spectators cannot tolerate the sickness and begin to act, and even some of those most possessed by the evil become the so sickened by seeing their own evil so that they act to cure it. This is the best description I know of those throughout history that has been loving revolutionaries. I believe that this understanding just expressed advances the thought process of how to fight evil. It came to me as I slept. I believe that my soul is committed to being that type of chemo, to being that type of antidote, that type of cure and I expect it to be living hell. I will be glad when my life is over, when I have breathed my last breath. But I will not hasten that by my own action intentionally despite the relief that I would get from that. I have no belief in a life after this one for me or for anyone else. I never have near as I can recall. I have no interest in it. In part I have no interest in it because I can't imagine a heaven that would be a place I'd like to be. But yesterday I received a wonderful thought. I do find it morally clarifying to imagine such Concepts as heaven and hell and how you get to one or the other. Anyway what popped into my mind, I have no recollection why, what popped into my mind was that there are no angels in heaven. It was a wonderful thought. I was so glad for it. I am so glad for it. Of course there would be no angels in heaven. Why, you may ask? Well, an Angel would want to be here on Earth and would return here to try and lessen the suffering.

***** The central questions of life are, right now, where does Creation need me to be, what right now does Creation need me to attempt? Only those who every breath live those questions, make of their life an answer to those questions, have the ultimate human experience of feeling Alive.

The central questions of life are,  right now,  where does Creation need me to be,  what right now does Creation need me to attempt? Only those who every breath live those questions,  make of their life an answer to those questions,  have the ultimate human experience of feeling Alive.

Dear friends, notice: I see this very very infrequently among my small circle, but those few that Express themselves, that experience themselves, as quote against the other side, unquote it's time for this to stop or for us to unfriend each other. I have hope in, and........

Dear friends, notice: I see this very very infrequently among my small circle, but those few that Express themselves, that experience themselves, as quote against the other side, unquote it's time for this to stop or for us to unfriend each other. I have hope in, and I only have time to affiliate with, those who are for every creature unconditionally, and against every Injustice unconditionally. No exceptions.  Never against another creature, including another human being. Never. Never. Never against another group, not for any breath, ever. Against Injustice? With all our might. Against bigotry? With all our might. Against oppression, violence? With every fiber of our being. Never ever us against them. Don't do it, or we need to stop wasting each other's time. Militants,  passionately, VA, forcefully, relentlessly , unequivocally for the dignity, sanity, rights, good, fundamental needs of every creature, especially every human being, or we need to stop wasting each other's time. No exceptions. No exceptions for even a moment. It's too little too late for that. Whenever you see me doing it please call me out.

***** I have never been so wealthy, because these last four weeks , from trying to do good, I was poor and helpless. My first five decades I.........

I have never been so wealthy, because these last four weeks , from trying to do good, I was poor and helpless. My first five decades I had material wealth that makes me cringe with regret. These last four weeks I have had the wealth of community such as I never imagined I would live to see. Part of it is lds. I could never share their origin beliefs in my soul. Not possible for me. Nor would I want to. But as my teacher Jesus said, they will know you by how you love, and these folks love. They are denomination was seems to be producing loving people such as I have never hoped to see. Part of it is living among those who have not embraced our cultural ways , our worship of material wealth. Here in this part of the country the true economy is profoundly different,  deep opposite. In my Northern sophisticated life the first, second, third, fourth lines of defense are money. Here in the country South Part I have been in those lines of Defence are neighbors,  friends,  strangers who you know and don't know. These folks are so much more Rich than we poor over privileged Northerners. So much more wealthy. And, hear this, we Northerners endure our economy for the pitiful Pleasures it gives us. The economy down here that I have witnessed is intrinsically joyful. Infinitely more than we Northerners, there is intrinsic worth and what these folks do. Growing stuff. Feeding folks. Helping folks. Serving folks. Building Community with folks. Flow is a concept that every video game programmer knows. Mahalo csikszentmihalyi University of Chicago found that the human being is the most gratified when it is totally absorbed in the challenge, Pursuits, for which she or he has adequate skill, like a video game, but those whose whole life is like that AR living a life that makes a difference to their neighbors, a positive difference. The most joyful population he and his researchers found in the world was a farming community off-grid, out of all communication, in the northern Italian Alps. That's what I've been in these last 4 weeks. Tens or hundreds of years ahead of us. Perfect? Oh my goodness no. The only thing that shouts louder than their protests that they are not racist or bigoted as their racism and bigotry. That must change. For their very Souls that must change. But they are way ahead of us sophisticated Northerners. Their economy is infinitely more Rich, more sustainable , more Godly. Part of the ugliness that they do evidence, may be a large part, is out of the fear of the ever more powerful Northern Elite crushing all that is Good, Godly,  Christlike ,  that they have. It is understandable that they would act out hateful,  in horror and Terror.  had I not been poor, vulnerable, helpless because I was trying to help others, I would never have encountered this. What a Divine gift. What a divine blessing. I will be infinitely wealthier because of this, forever.

Maybe I've never shared this, among the most important gifts I've ever received. About 15 years ago I......

Maybe I've never shared this, among the most important gifts I've ever received. About 15 years ago I embarqed toward the journey that has captured me ever since. Leaving the ways of our culture, 180 degrees in the opposite direction, from working to make rich people richer, like me, to lived solidarity from the soul serving our neediest sisters and brothers. It was Joyful from the start. There was never, has never been, the tiniest portion of a instant when I've been other than overjoyed with this total change of direction. It is pretty much muscle memory for me now, but not so at the beginning. It could not have been. It was natural for me, I think it is the natural path we were all born to. But our sick culture strips us away from that path, thinking it virtue to do so to its children, and puts us on exactly the opposite, exactly the wrong path. And we gain muscle memory for that and our nervous system literally and actually atrophies for the correct path. So it takes tremendous work and experience for that to be recreated. Really in my departure on this path I found it useful to imagine that there is a creator of us all, a parent figure that unconditionally loves us all. For me then and now God is love, life, and Truth. Period.  People like Teresa and Gandhi said the same, and most if not all of those who throughout history I Revere lived the same. That was an understanding in my head but it was also something more and more clearly felt in my spirit. It became tangible for me in that way. I had a wonderful warm feeling, tremendous peace, each moment that I experienced myself as in creators will. And then I received the gift. From my earliest memories I was obsessed with the female form and all things sexual toward that form. For most of my decades, carefully taught by my culture in a trillion ways, I thought that virtue. I was carefully addicted to all of the lists that our society worships but I'll speak of this one for the moment. The gift I received was in the form of a question that came to my mind, as I was following my inclination to admire a shapely female form, the question came to me, is that that you are now starting to direct your attention toward, is that toward or away from God? The answer was instantaneous for me, instantly and comfortably clear, away from. Yes, I can hear the chorus arguing otherwise. I'm speaking what I experienced then, and with every breath since. The answer for me was instantaneous, that's away from being a vessel for love, life, and Truth. It is turning away from love, toward lust, toward my selfish inclinations, away from serving the neediest from the soul in solidarity. It was then instantly clear to me that turning away from the pure Spirit of love, life, and Truth, was not the choice I wanted to make then. And it has never been the choice since then that I have wanted to make, in any instant. Experientially for me it is not about right and wrong. It is not about guilt or not being guilty. It certainly has nothing to do with an afterlife in which I have zero belief. For me it is simply a matter of now having a mechanism that enables me to pursue Joy rather than pleasure, Joy being infinitely more gratifying in any and every moment then pleasure. I don't know that this could make sense to anyone beside me. Or maybe everyone beside me learned it much earlier and knows that much better. I don't know that it can be helpful to anyone beside me. But it has saved me from wasting even moments on Pleasure when there was an infinite Divine banquet of Joy there before me,   and before all of us I believe, with every breath we take. But it is all but completely obscured behind the Avalanche, the ocean, the universe, love sick country messages inundating us from our pathological, suicidal, malignant culture telling us exactly the opposite. So without mechanisms such as I just mentioned it is almost impossible to choose the joyful path from moment to moment.. James