Light the world on fire!

My work in the political arena these last few months started tugging at some pretty old threads for me and over the last few weeks I think that thread is finally fleshed out.

See, the work I've done in life has always been in a service industry setting. But, I think too often the focus is on industry and not service. Granted this makes sense in things like retail. I've been blessed to work both direct care and management positions in industries that work with people with disabilities.

Often when I talk about my past work I talk about the not so positive things I did and not the positives. Admittedly all those things still stand. However, I have tried to remember service as an ethos. In school busing I can say I kept my integrity and was always honest with my employees and customers alike. I didn't have company employees  I had "my drivers" I knew everyone by name and really miss them some days. They didn't drive packages of salt they drove "our kids" and we were acutely aware that every child that got on a vehicle was someone's most precious and wonderful baby. Granted we were also a business and we made decent money but it felt secondary most of the time.

Camp is a lot easier to highlight the service on. This is because I worked directly with the kids. It's hard not to take a service perspective playing with kids, doing art projects, teaching a kid to swim. Again, these were "our kids". A group of 16 to 20 year olds were handed someone's special baby and they knew that the care their child got was the absolute best. Money doesn't buy that kind of care, we loved those kids, we loved our jobs. Sure, there were regulations to deal with, cleaning to do, and all those sorts of things. But the core of it all was the kids. That kind of work forged friendships and experiences that can't be beat.

But political work expands this idea of service. I wasn't just serving the campaign or a wonderful candidate, we were serving the community. It wasn't just about winning, it was about sending someone to office that would raise up everyone in the community, especially those most at risk. I was blessed to enter politics not via a drive to win or make money but to make a difference. I worked for a campaign that felt more like family, with a candidate that felt closer to a friend than a boss. We bled for our win, most of us working deathly ill through GOTV. And as we held our breath looking at a loss before the early vote numbers turned it into a win, we knew no matter the outcome "we left it all on the field". Let's be fair, we got paid too and no one works for a candidate they agree with 100% of the time (unless you are the candidate and then my hat's off to you).

So that's the connection, service. I've listened to a lot more by Cornel West lately and maybe that's what has me thinking this way too. The truth is being successful isn't enough. Raising myself above where I am or was isn't enough. I think this is why the nice car, good money, etc wasn't enough for me. I want to raise more than myself. That's how the world gets better. If we raise not just ourselves but those around us. If we raise our friends and family we may just raise a community. Raising a community could expand to a city, a township, a county, a state, a country, maybe even the whole world. I don't just want to do well, I want to look around at a world of people doing well. That's it, that's really lighting the world on fire. The flame of hope passed from one person to another has the power to push back all the darkness. So pass that flame to your neighbor and let's set this world aflame.

Another Random Poem

Untitled

Lightning bug lighthouses

Warding the boats of our souls

From the shores of peril

Some boats dark as night

Built of the abyss

Some boats shimmer

Little suns on the cool glass waves

Lost we search

Arrogant we stumble 

Off the edge

Waking to a world lit by those little suns

In the all too rare friend or lover

Bro Hugs

So my last post touched on friendship but I wanted to make a short post addressing a tangent of that… The Man Hug.

                I was watching a documentary earlier in the week call South of The Border. Now I’ll spare you all the geopolitical lessons and thoughts the movie brought up for me and pick something really tiny the movie itself doesn’t touch on. Central and South America are known for having a culture we label as machismo. That “man’s man” sort of masculinity. While on a whole this may or may not be true something struck me. South America politicians hug! I wish I could remember who is was hugging but there’s a clip in the movie of Hugo Chavez hugging another South America head of state. I can’t imagine politicians in the United States hugging like that. I know, I’ve hugged politicians and watched how uncomfortable the situation makes them. But here’s a man that is the leader of Venezuela, a man that many would credit with the movement in South America to socialism and he’s hugging in front of documentary and international news cameras. Granted Chavez is a unique guy but still.

                So it got me to thinking. I wasn’t a hugger for a long time but as I’ve gotten older I’ve become one. I’ll hug people I count as friends as long as they seem comfortable and people that I’m really close to get hugs (fuck em if it makes them uncomfortable I’m hugging). This led me to think about an observation a friend who grew up in Mexico made; men in Mexico and men in the United States hug differently. In America (he’d remind me here America is a continent the United States is a country) men don’t really hug, we turn so our shoulders touch not our chests; we pat each other on the back (pat not hug, your hand better not rest too long) and we separate quickly. This isn’t the case in Mexico. The handshake moves to a hug and that hug is important. “Heart to heart” is the explanation I was given. You hug so the left sides of your chest (where your heart resides) touch. There’s still the back pat but it’s a full embrace first. This tends to end with another handshake at the end, not the quick separation of the man hug. There’s such beauty in the symbolism of the hug of Mexico. Showing the connection between two people by embracing “heart to heart”, highlighting the closeness with a real embrace. Shaking hands before and after displaying such a level of comfort and connection. I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, Mexico clearly has a better handle on male relationships that the US does.

Now I understand that I’m talking about this as a cis male and through a particular cultural lens. Don’t take my language to mean that I’m not aware of this; it’s just easier and more understandable for most if I leave them as separate talking points. That aside, I encourage all of you to become huggers too. Think about not just whether you hug people but how you hug them. I’d advocate we all adopt a Mexican style of hugging. I’d also advocate you think about what you convey in your hug. Those of you that have spent time with me, think about the last time we hugged and how it made you feel. Think about the difference between how we hug to say hello and how we hug to comfort one another. And at the end of the day, get rid of the “bro” hug. If you’re too scared to show affection to your friends, then that’s a sad thing for you. I for one will hug anyone that wants one and a handful of you have no choice in the matter.

Rules To Live By

1. Act always from a space of compassion
2. Find a partner to share life with and be a safe haven and support beam for that person
3. Find the amazing friends in my world, cultivate and care for those friendships
4. Learn something every day, teach your passions

That's it. That's what life has narrowed down to for me. And honestly I'd be ecstatic to hit any of them. I've had a lot of conversations with people recently about what I'm like as a person, as a friend, as a partner. It's interesting to get the outside observations. It's especially interesting to hear feedback from people about how I can change from one environment to another.

Act Always From a Space of Compassion
I started on this path listening to things like the Dali Lama's conversations from The Mind and Its Potential Conference and Karen Armstrong's Charter For Compassion talk. Compassion is a pretty hard space to create at all. Compassion isn't just about empathy but action. I can feel empathetic all the time but compassion moves one to action. Sometimes these actions are easy. I see someone at a party alone and I go over and talk to them. I see someone I know crying and offer a hug. Sometimes these actions are hard, I'd give examples but honestly I'm still working on growing in this area. I'm not looking to turn myself into a "save the world" type of person. Honestly, I'm not even trying to make a dent. I want to have people find some small solace in their interactions with me. I have what it takes to become the  next Martin Luther King Jr; but I'm hoping I have what it takes to have a beer with him/her and be a space he/she can recharge in to create a more beautiful world for us all. Don't get me wrong, I can effect minor change. I can call out injustice and bigotry, especially important as part of a privileged group as I can do this relatively safely. I can be a safe haven for people in my life that are out struggling both on their personal journey and journeys which may some day change our world.

Find a Partner to Share Life With and Be a Safe Haven and Support Beam for That Person
I've given up on the whole actively seeking a partner thing. It'll happen or it won't. I'm not expecting to stumble into my fairy tale relationship, but I know what I want and if it comes through my life I'll act to seize that opportunity. Until that time, I need to make me the best person I can be. I've done a lot of that over the years. There's this idea that you shouldn't look to enter into a relationship until you've done half the work you need to do on yourself. I spent a long time where I could say that wasn't the case with me. Frankly, while I've done at least half the work I need to I'm still not a finished product. Likely I'll never be finished, human life is about growth and change. But I've come to realize who I am, good and bad, and have cultivated the best in myself while working on the rough spots. I've come to embrace my personal struggle, to have faith and see the beauty in the resilience of the human spirit. I've come to understand that sometimes protecting yourself is denying the rest of the world seeing beautiful parts of you. I still need work, and I'll keep working on me so that when opportunity on this front comes knocking... I'll be ready.

Find Amazing Friends in My World; Cultivate and Care for Those Friendships
So I'm awesome at the first part of that. I can tell fantastic people really fast. Hell, sometimes I can tell them from across the room. I read people fast and incredibly well. And I've found some really awesome people in my world over the last year or two (not to discount my old friends at all). The thing is I'm a shitty friend. Like not so much the whole being a friend thing. You need help moving, no problem. Shoulder to cry on, done. Support, love, fun, whatever you need; I got you. Problem is I'm shit for keeping in touch. Every friend I have that goes out of their way to call, txt, email, write etc I cannot ever express fully how much that means to me. I'm shitty at keeping in touch so those that do that part of friendship for me get a full throttle version of me. I'm loyal honest and caring. Seriously, I may suck for keeping in touch and doing shit on the regular with (unless you just decide we're partying every Friday or Saturday then I know to just show the fuck up) you but in a pinch when your world is falling down around you, I don't panic and I generally know just what to do. Also, loyalty is primary for me in all relationships so once I count you as a friend... it really doesn't matter if you melt down sometimes or have shitty days. It happens we're human, I really don't care and don't judge. Seriously, if I am up at 2am I'll answer for any friend. If you need me I'm there. I just need to get better at sending txts/emails/calls to see how people are doing. Maybe throw a dinner party monthly to get people close enough together on a regular basis.

Learn Something Everyday, Teach Your Passions
I'm a sucker for falling passionately for some new idea or activity. But long term passions are... well... mercurial moods don't exactly lead to consistent anything. However, I love beer and mixed drinks and share my love of that skill set and tastes as often as I can. I love cooking and food, recent conversations with a friend have reminded me how awesome sharing a new dish or cooking with someone can be. This is what makes me think a dinner party or pot luck would be so awesome. A bunch of people cooking and eating together... seriously this is what connections are built on. Plus, trying a new dish especially something outside your normal cuisine is a way to travel via food. Food is a big part of culture and so seeing what and how others eat, seeing what meal time is for them gives you this very human glimpse into their experience. I've got a great passion for information and learning in general. A passion for taking everything apart and discussing and analyzing the hell out of it. I know it drives a fair numbers of you bat shit "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". Yeah, well, most of the time it isn't. Frankly, there is value in taking things apart and having dialogue and discussion. I understand that learning to live on and appreciate the surface is something I need to work on. But I also understand I'm happier underneath it all. I'm glad people are out there that are the opposite of me. People that live mostly on the surface. Because frankly 50 ft under is only beautiful if someone is tending to the surface as well. The world needs both kinds of people in it. I really do tend to learn something new every day whether it's from a person, a talk, a movie, an article, or a book. I probably need to spend some time thinking about what teaching my passions looks like and thinking about how well I'm doing on that end of things as well.

Hope my random posts give you all a smile or a thought!

Clueless

Soft echoes of haunting rooms
Thin sheets of bent emotion
Worn thus on edges of mist
Thick hanging regrets upon the hatpost
A shadow filled lightless space
Devoid of shoulds and coulds
Release is a pen
Held in suspension
Just before the ink
Taints the page

Sometimes my head just fills with words, thoughts, ideas. I don't usually write them out. Today I happen to be sitting in-front of the computer anyway so, why not. Most of it isn't poetic at all. Once upon a time words in that format flowed from my brain as readily as water from a faucet. My head doesn't seem to flicker that way much any more. Honestly, I think I've dulled my mind with tv and internet. So goes life.

Milk Mathmatics

There is a popular belief that what men want out of relationships is sex (or sexual intimacy if we're feeling generous). Women on the other hand are said to want emotional support and intimacy out of relationships.

"Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"

This is the sage wisdom told to women who are "too" free with their sexuality and struggle to find a partner. But I think it works both ways.

Here's the bottom line. I think that relationships are much like a free market system. I remember they used to have sites where you could name your own price for things and wait and see if anyone bit at that price. In some ways this is how sex and emotional intimacy work. It is a barter with most people. Sexual act A grants B degree or amount of emotional intimacy or B degree or amount of intimacy grants A sexual act as the case may be. This usually is based on who "has hand" at the present time.

Except there are a handful of a certain type of individual that flip this equation on its head. Woman who are free with their sexuality, who do not make men pay the toll of emotional intimacy for sex. Men who offer emotional support with out demanding sex before or as payment for. Yes, these types are rare.

Now, to be fair, I assign a moral judgment to my gender. Oddly I do not have this same judgment cross gender. But for me it is morally wrong for me to withhold emotional support. I should support, care, be emotionally there from the moment I count you as friend. And even before that for some cases. I think that men who trade emotional support for sex are asshats.

I think it is rare for two atypicals to connect. I just don't think there are many of us. There was a research study done (I can't find it at the moment) but what it found was that most men found physical infidelity worse than emotional infidelity where women found them to be equal with a very slight amount more saying emotional infidelity is worse. Now I could make an evolutionary psychology argument for this but who cares. I have found that I find both equally painful. However, the line for physically infidelity is one less blurred for me. Emotional infidelity is tricky to spot, it means I care for and ostensibly love the other person to the same amount or in the same way as you. This is hard to find. I think this is why women are hard pressed to say strongly that the emotional is worse. Because you never are quite sure he loves her just like he loves you until you find out low and behold he is sleeping with her too. That some how signs and seals that the emotional infidelity was there. A blurry line as I said. I also think that it is normal and perhaps even good that we love our friends. As such I am hard pressed to find a clear line with emotional infidelity though I know it exists.

I think that atypicals are hard on each other. Imagine a woman who is free with her sexuality. She will spend a lot of life not only being judged but hearing "why would he buy the cow when he can get the milk for free." Her emotional needs go unfilled because she doesn't see sex as a big deal and she doesn't want to wield it as a weapon. But when she finds people that she connect with emotionally, BIG deal. And so what, sex is sex. Separate. And so she continues with sex as not a big deal and being free, liberated. But the emotional intimacy is a big deal. huge in fact. These people are special. There may only be a small handful in her whole lifetime. Often, the other side of atypicals is in the same position. Emotional intimacy is easy. They care easy, they love big. But physicality is a rare the thing, again maybe a handful in his whole lifetime. And I think this difference in world views makes connections between these two elements high octane. But oddly, I think they are good for one another. They may try and test one another. But in the end they force one another to grow. And in the end they have what the other needs, with out reservation. She can come to him, no matter the time, no matter the situation, and she can know that he will emotionally support her. And he can come to her, no matter the time, no matter the situation and get physical intimacy. But they will wound each other nearly as easily. She will have others and that will pain him. And he will support and care/love others, and this will hurt her. And neither will really quite get why or how they have injured the other. In his mind he obviously cares about her more or in a unique and special way. He sees it clear in the openness physically, sees it in the custom fit of emotional support and not just the general support anyone can get. And she feels the same way, obviously he's special, she's opened up her heart and mind to him. And this is a space rarely shared and offered. And sex is not that big a deal.

I'm not sure the resolution to this equation. I'm not so sure that there is one. I think it, like most relationship equations is a minefield that simply must be walked and risked.

Twist

I tend to do two things here. The first is to start to write a post then get distracted or loose my thread and stop. As such, I have a million threads started but few posts. The second is that I go through old posts and threads not posted to see if I have brought up a thought before.

And this leads me to this post. Instead of finishing up one of my terribly negative threads I have entered into this post with the hope of something a touch more positive. I'm not sure if I've written about it before and honestly, if I have, I could use going back through it again anyway.

I spend/spent a lot of time thinking about what makes me happy, and what seems to make others happy. One of the things I noticed is that we all seem really stuck on this idea of home. Now for most people it is a place they go to at the end of the day. For some it is an idea that hasn't made it into the world yet but someday, someday, they'll build it and decorate it and fill it with stuff. Now don't get me wrong, I love my stuff. And I appreciate a nice house, a well designed room. But I learned over the years that where I live and what I live in is not the primary factor in my happiness.

What is primary is this feeling of home. So I thought a lot about those moments where I feel like I am home. Those moments where if feels like all the pieces have clicked into place and I know I am where I am meant to be. And after years and years I realized that for me, and I would venture for a lot of you, home is not a place. Home is a feeling, and more specifically home is people. Home is the friend from childhood that got your through the darkest hours of life. Home is the sibling you soldiered on through the muck with. Home is the soft space created between lovers that makes you feel safe. I have often wondered what a map would look like if I put a pin in every city that holds a person I call home. I think it would be far more populated that I could guess. I also wonder what it would look like if people that thought of me as home put pins in their home city as well. What if it was yellow for places I see as home, and blue for people that see me as home. Would their be more yellow or blue I wonder? Would I find yellow dots and blue dots next to each other most of the time? How many dots would not be paired? I'm not sure the answer to these questions, but I know that it would be a colorful map indeed.

There are little things that remind me of those people, those moments, of home. I remember home in a song. Some are songs of my generation Blink-182 anyone? Others are unique to my experience, The Bodeans- Still The Night. I sense home in tastes, home-made macaroni and cheese or a can of jam. Some are scents, the sleepy relaxation of jasmine and lotus or the rush of desire of Paloma Picasso. Others are sights, african statues and warm colored walls.

I hold all of those talismans of home close to my heart. I listen to songs, taste foods, seek scents; when home feels too far away or when I am in dire need of a recharge.

I know too many seek home in a building, believe that 4 walls will create that feeling for you. I promise, set that aside and look for the people in your life, past and present, that make you feel like you are home. Then strive to keep those connections. Never let go of one another, create home in your heart. The place your pins in your map and smile.

If you can find but a handful of people you can call home, you will have your own constellation of homes throughout the world. And when you let go of the place, and focus on the people... you realize that home can be anywhere, made of anything.