Do As I Do

So delighted with a new understanding
Something about a little evil that makes
That unmistakable noise I was hearing
Unmistakeable sound I know so well

Spent and sighing with a look in your eyes
Spent an sweatin’ with a look on your face like

Sweet revelation, sweet surrendering
Sweet revelation, sweet

A Perfect Circle, Thinking of You

I have written before about something I call “Enlightened Self Interest.” I find that expecting people to be as a matter of course to be, unrealistic, in the extreme. Some people will be so, some of the time, but that’s the most we can expect. Enlightened Self Interest, on the other hand, is a strategy (if you can call it that) that has worked for our species for most of its existence.

It goes like this.

When we live within our monkeysphere we interact with the same people over and over, we need them for certain things, they need us, our very survival depends upon being able to count on one another to give when we need it and vice versa. As individuals, we cannot afford to lie cheat and steal because it is obvious and incontrovertible that the people we depend on will respond in kind if we behave badly. Because dealing with the same people every day means that they know.

So… I have always been inclined to behave as best I can toward other people. It is my basic nature. More recently, as I have thought about these things from the perspective of sustainability, community and, well, changing the world, I have undertaken to be very conscious of my behavior, to show the people around me this behavior pattern. To teach by example. I have thought than by doing this consciously, that the behavior would spread amongst those that I am closest too, that by showing respect, caring, forgiveness and generosity, that I would receive the same in turn. Makes sense, right?

Unfortunately, I find that time and again, those closest to me do NOT respond in kind. In fact, they take advantage, they abuse and disrespect, in short, they exhibit the worst behavior, simply (perhaps) because I allow them to get away with it. And knowing this, I continue with my behavior and point out to them what I do and what they do and ask them to reconcile the two. But no matter how much I give, nothing seems to ever change. I find it very disheartening.

So does this mean I should give up on my theory, my efforts, my general behavior patterns? Simply put, I cannot. I would not be who I am if I changed my fundamental nature. But perhaps I do need to change something – and that says to me that I need to be surrounding myself with people that are already more like me. I need to cut off people that fail in these behaviors from the very beginning. I need to stop believing that everyone is salvageable. And when it comes to building a community, I need to be even more selective than I am in my day to day life.

But its hard. Because the very people that have consistently disappointed are those that I have known forever, have cared about forever, and want, more than anything, to see succeed in life in this world AND the next, Fifth World. Many of these ties have been severed, but there are more yet, to go. Unfortunately, including most of my family. Someday I will find a way to either walk away from these relationships entirely… or I will find a way to bring them forward into a new paradigm – but with safeguards to prevent them from destroying me, my dreams and my future. Somehow.

Too Poly or Not To Poly

In my dreams, I can see us in a tight embrace
Doin all the things that we never really did
I think I’m in love with you
Must we go run through our lives with our eyes closed
To the loving happiness that we can share
I think I’m in love with you and your friend

Snake River Conspiracy, You and Your Friend

I’ve been struggling for some time, with my thoughts, ideas, opinions about polyamourism. Part of me says this is the key to loving, resilient and functional communities. Yet another part of me says that, all in all, this was NOT a characteristic of traditional sustainable communities, so how could it possibly be the answer now? After the explorations I have engaged in over the last few years: meeting people active in this lifestyle – from swingers to true polyamourists — talking with them, dealing with these ideas in my own relationships, and experiencing my own intellectual and visceral reactions, I think my thoughts are finally becoming clear.

Polyamoury, as a modern social construct and lifestyle, promises deep emotional connections, resilient relationships (as a function of networked relationships as compared with linear ones), deep social support structures and an honesty and openness that is heavily contrasted with the standards of modern main line society. Looking at this list of attributes, there is a clear and direct association with those attributes that any true community should provide. And, in fact, those attributes provided amongst primitive, egalitarian societies.

With that in mind, why do we not find polyamoury as a default (or at least common denominator) amongst primitive societies?

To be blunt… because none of these characteristics have anything to do with sex. Even amongst primitive, egalitarian societies sex is understood to be potentially disruptive to the social order of the community. Because humans are emotional creatures – emotions created by chemical reactions in the brain – chemical reactions created in evolutionarily adaptive ways to protect offspring, families and communities (in that order of priority).

As a result, most primitive societies are monogamous, or at very least serially monogamous. At the same time, they tend to have a very practical response to sexual dalliance. Simply put, they generally look the other way unless, and until, sexual behavior creates a disturbance in the community. When that happens, then the response is firm and immediate. Desist or leave. Choose between your lover and your community, because the community cannot survive the chaos you are creating.

So why is it, that best I can tell, it is the polyamourists that are coming closest to creating truly deep relationships and communities? I submit it is for exactly the same reason.

Sexual intimacy is the one avenue for true intimacy that our culture provides. Not to suggest that non-sexual friendships cannot be deep and long lasting – obviously they can and do – but it is a much longer, slower and less consistently effective strategy for developing deep emotional and intellectual ties. Additionally, polyamourism (and swinging as well) require a level of trust and openness between partners that is rarely accomplished (or even pursued) in main stream society.

So I guess what I am trying to say is this: sex is a shortcut. Perhaps an effective one, but also, perhaps, one that is destined to fail in the long run. Because everything else aside, humans are still emotional creatures and sexual intimacy creates vulnerability. Community, by contrast, creates resiliency. Which leaves me, at this point, thinking that polyamourism may be an exceptional way of learning what is possible within human community, but also a poor way of trying to create durable, generationally strong, sustainable communities.

The Theory of No-Duh

Don’t these talking monkeys know that Eden has enough to go around?
Plenty in this holy garden, silly monkeys
Where there’s one you’re bound to divide it right in two.

Angels on the sideline,
Baffled and confused.
Father blessed them all with reason,
And this is what they choose?

Monkey killing monkey killing monkey over pieces of the ground.
Silly monkeys.
Give them thumbs, they forge a blade,
And where there’s one they’re bound to divide it right in two.

Tool, Right in Two

I have, over the years, spent a lot of time discussing evolutionary theory with people all over the ‘net. Over and over I have had long forum discussions that very slowly establish a real understanding of how evolution works, why it works and how, really, fundamentally inarguable it is.

Now I know I just put somebody out there up in arms. I hope you will keep reading if you are one of them.

Evolution is a very political issue. We all know this and we have heard the lengths some people will go to disprove, to cast aspersions, to create doubt on all levels of the theory. What everyone may not realize is that the political-religious factions opposing evolution have consistently (and, I believe intentionally) misrepresented the theory, and done so in an incredibly effective way. So effective that the language of doubt can now be heard in college classrooms and in books on evolution (including those by some of the most respected evolutionary biologists of the last fifty years).

I’m gonna fix all that right here and now.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit overconfident, but let me start by telling you all a secret that (to my knowledge) no biologist or evolutionary theorist has let out before now (perhaps because they don’t realize it ): Evolutionary Theory isn’t really a theory at all – its simple common sense. In much the same way that Newton’s Theory of Gravity is not a theory, but simply obvious. I’m not talking about the math, here, nor the speed of acceleration, but the simply question “does an apple fall?”

So back to evolution. We know, as a scientific fact that our genes carry all of the information required to build “us.” We also know that that genetic information is unique to each individual and a mix of the genetic information carried by our parents (assuming, obviously, sexual reproduction. We’ll leave asexual reproduction alone for the moment.) Finally, we know that our genetic code is also subject to random mutation under a variety of circumstances. I have never heard these facts disputed by even the most extreme religious fundamentalists. (If anyone else has, I’d love to hear that story, but for now, I’m going to take all those facts as accepted.)

In fact, there are only two places I have ever heard evolutionary theory questioned. The first is the actual, theoretical part of evolution: how did we get from primordial soup to here-now? As far as I’m concerned, they can go on debating that until the end of time. We will likely never know all of it for certain, but really, how much does that effect our lives or our image of the world around us? I suspect very little. The second point of contention, the one that Creation Scientists have latched onto and preachers attack fervently over and over, is Natural Selection. This is also the point where even our most brilliant evolutionists trip and occasionally fall.

So what, you say. Well, let me pose a scenario. Let’s say every day you drink two cups of coffee to get yourself started for the day. Gives you a nice balance and gets you up and moving each morning. One day, you drink a third cup and as a result, you are all kinds of wired and energetic. You get to work and find your office in an uproar over some crisis situation. You’re already jazzed up so you jump in, pour massive energy into solving the crisis, you’re light on your feet and operating at peak efficiency and by noon you’ve solved the problem and everyone can relax. The boss notices, maybe even pushes you to the front of the line for promotion and you have had a great day.

With me so far?

Now, imagine the same situation, you’re jazzed up and ready to go and you get to work to find that the boss has brought in some kind of motivational therapist to work with your department. Its going to be deep meditation exercises, visualizing goals, all sorts of new age mumbo jumbo all morning(no offense to the mumbo jumbo crowd – I use some of it myself). You start going through these exercises but you just cannot focus. Your body is all revved up, you can’t sit still so you fidget… you get the picture. Again, the boss notices and calls you in at the end of the session because he’s “disappointed” that you didn’t take this special opportunity more seriously and so on and so forth.

One more time. The same situation, you get to work and its just a normal day. For a couple hours you are a little hyped up, but nothing special happens, so that extra cup has no consequential effect on your work performance.

Still with me? Obviously, in all three situations, you have changed your routine, your standard operating parameters and this has had some effect on your performance at work. Right? So how does this relate to evolution?

That extra cup of coffee represents a mutation in your genetic code: a change to your operating parameters as an organism. The situation you find when you get to work represents the environment you live in. In one case, that “mutation” caused you to excel, in another the exact same mutation caused you to fail, while in the third it had no exceptional effect whatsoever.

This is natural selection. That’s all that Natural Selection represents. Period.

So if we know that we are defined by our genetic code, that this code is subject to mutation, and that natural selection is nothing but the potential effect of those changes in our current environment, then what is left to debate about?

Absolutely Nothing.

Elegant Complexity

They took all the trees
And put them in a tree museum
Then they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see ‘em
Don’t it always seem to go,
That you don’t know what you’ve got
‘Til it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi

I’ve been thinking a whole lot, recently, about complexity. It is at the heart of the arguments we have about civilization and it’s future (or perhaps, lack thereof). It is also at the heart of rewilding, ecology, systemics, and intuitive thinking. All topics that I spend more than my fair share of time considering.

Jason has written extensively about complexity and diminishing marginal returns on complexity within civilization with his thirty thesis. But I have seen, in those discussions and overflow discussions elsewhere that the one repeating argument against his thesis surrounds the definition of complexity in relation to natural systems. How can we say that complexity is unsupportable when, in fact, natural systems are far more complex than anything civilization has ever designed. This, of course, has led to extended discussions of the disconnect between designed complexity and ‘natural’ complexity.

It’s time to find some new words, I think.

‘Complexity’, from an Anthropological viewpoint, is defined by the number of artifacts a given society creates. Simplified to the most basic level, it is really the amount of energy expended by a society in order to create those artifacts. That means that Anthropological complexity actually describes a one-to-many relationship: ie total energy embedded in artifacts (both physical and mental). Let me suggest that this means that what we are really talking about is ‘merely complicated’ (ala Dave Pollard).

When Dave talks about the difference between merely-complicated problems and complex problems, he is recognizing that we, as civilized humans, have difficulty seeking solutions to complicated problems, but we are able to eventually do so. Complex problems, on the other hand, we seem to be completely unable to deal with.

The VA Tech shooting presents a good example for today. Calls are already going out to find solutions that will prevent such a massacre happening again. Yet what do those calls entail? More of the same. More gun control, more enforcement, more intrusion into the lives of ordinary citizens, more data collection (with no thought for how we can possibly process more data when enforcement organizations are already unable to keep up with the current load). The American government, as an example of civilized hierarchy is trying to address a complex problem with a merely-complicated response.

So what might a complex response look like? This would require identifying the fundamental, underlying causes of such behavior: hierarchy, exploitation, dehumanization, marginalization and so forth. And then, an effort to remove those causes from our society. (Note: I would suggest that we, as a civilization, are totally unable to do any of this)

If civilization is merely complicated, based upon linear one-to-many relationships, then where do we find true complexity? Natural systems describe many-to-many relationships. Millions of very simple interactions that effect, and are effected by, tens, hundreds, thousands of other very simple interactions creating a truly complex system. Importantly, many, most, perhaps all of these interactions are based upon non-linear relationships. But there is another word that can be used to describe this: Elegance (ala Jeff Vail).

Jeff writes about elegance specifically in relationship to elegant technologies: technologies that do what they do as a natural consequence of their fundamental nature: passive solar heating and cooling, for example. But isn’t this fundamentally how nature itself works? Or to put it even more bluntly, when we embrace elegant technologies, aren’t we really just accepting nature as it is, rather than trying to create complicated, non resilient tools to replicate what nature already does in simple, dynamic and resilient ways?

Far be it for me to suggest abandoning terminology that is well established(HA!), but perhaps in this case, we can avoid much of the semantic bickering by recognizing that anthropologists adopted the term complexity without understanding that, in fact, what they are describing is exactly not complex at all.

Communication 101: Love

Well I just had to turn off the radio
But not before I heard thirteen songs about love in a row
Well I don’t know what the next song’s gonna be
But I know how the words are gonna go
They’ll be singing ‘oh baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby I love you so’
So won’t everybody sing along cause her comes just another love song

I need you like I need a hole in my head
I need someone to steal my money and wish I were dead
I need someone to always put me down
And everywhere I go she wants to hang around

Suicidal Tendencies, Just Another Love Song

I get the feeling that my first blog in this series freaked people out a little. It was a little harsh. I’m in a much better mood, now so this one will be easier on the senses… but don’t think that means that I am retracting anything I put out there before.

I don’t know how others are, but I tend to be a brooder. I analyze everything. I try to second guess and draw conclusions and read between the lines. The people I am closest too are the same way, but I have learned enough over the years to recognize that the people I am closest too may not be a terribly random cross section of people in general. So, some of what I have to say here may be irrelevant to anyone out there that is not a brooder. Only you can answer that for yourself.

I discovered last year that there is a very simple way for me to feel empowerment over my life: to honestly tell the people I care about exactly how I feel. I found that I had avoided doing that because of my own fear of rejection. That, and it was a bit like displaying a weakness that might be exploited. But when we do that, what happens? We spend all of our time analyzing things people say to us, trying to figure out what to make of it, what it means about how they feel. Trying to pick out the possible hints of love, and the subtle pains of not love and we wrap ourselves up into knots trying to determine what we can trust.

Instead, last year, I decided to set my fears aside and just put myself out there. I never would have believed it, never thought it could be possible, but instead of leaving myself weak, defenseless, and scared, I ended up discovering a freedom I had never known. Once I had laid my feelings bare, there was nothing left to be hurt. I could get a positive response and life would be beautiful, or I could get a negative response and move on, stop analyzing, stop worrying, stop questioning myself. It was amazing.

With each occasion, each experiment I embarked upon, I found it easier to just be, easier to be honest, easier to be open, and eventually, easier to express anything I felt without worrying that it would come back to haunt me. Because I came to understand that the people in my life that I do love – and that love me – will accept who I am without reservation. Yet if I hide who I am, how could they ever tell me so?

Our culture tends to work us over pretty well in this regard. We are taught to avoid letting ourselves be vulnerable. We are taught that honest emotional expression makes us vulnerable, and we are taught that letting others see that vulnerability removes our own control over our lives. I would suggest that the opposite is the case: once we allow ourselves to give up our illusion over control over our relationships, the true potential of those relationships increases exponentially.

Communication 101: Shame

Shame, shouldn’t try you, couldn’t step by you
And open up more
Shame, shame, shame

What we lost here is something better left alone
Second steps have been forgotten, will you tell me how
They go
Set yourself, situate, like a fool try again
There’s no one around you can remember being good, for you
So

Matchbox 20, Shame

This is part of a short series I wrote for an online forum I participate in… as a response to an argument between two real-time friends of mine. The series fell apart after two articles because of changes in my life, but we’ll get to those stories soon.
I’m pissed off.

Really, I’m sitting here and I just feel the anxiety and irritation welling up and I just want to lash out at something. Of course, I don’t do that anymore, because I am ‘all grown up’ but man, I’d like to do it just the same.

Does that make me wrong?

No, just pissed.

When are we going to stop telling each other what it is ‘okay’ to think or feel or want or need or be? When are we going to finally recognize that all of it is valid? Honesty. Fucking honesty in all it’s ugliness. Anger, Fear, Aggression, Hatred. We all have these things in our souls, but we cannot admit to it, because that would make us no better than the worst among us. Bullshit.

I’ve been promising to write some bits about communication based on the experiences I have had in the last year. Well, you know, this is not really what I had in mind, but why not start with this? If we are going to embrace the power of sharing with one another, we need to first start with acknowledging our own humanity – and inhumanity at times. Sometimes, I’m a royal bitch. I am selfish and superficial. I hide my shame. I pretend it is not there because if it were, well, how could I face myself, never mind another person that knew about it?

But you know what, that’s bullshit, too. Because we all have these secret shames and we all hide them from ourselves and those we love and we all pretend that we are better than all that. But it’s a lie and you know it, just as I do. If only we are willing to face it.

So I’ll tell you what – seek out your secret shames. Share them with the people you love and encourage them to do the same. Once that’s done, reconsider Devin and his ‘angst’ and ask yourself if it upset you because of the words he used, or if you were upset by it because it reminded you, ever so slightly, of the secrets in your own heart that you were too frightened or appalled or anxious or ashamed to acknowledge.

Don’t Talk to Me About Life….

And I can’t wait to get on the road again.
On the road again -
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We’re the best of friends.
Insisting that the world keep turning our way

And our way
is on the road again.
Just can’t wait to get on the road again.
The life I love is makin’ music with my friends

And I can’t wait to get on the road again.
On the road again

Willie Nelson, On the Road Again

Hey Kids. Sorry about the lack of posts the last couple days. This last weekend was a doozy. We had a big festival in town for the weekend. Means I worked lots and worked hard every moment. Pure exhaustion. And then to cap things off, we came in Monday morning to discover we’d been robbed. One of my bosses put it best… “we worked our asses off this weekend, and then someone just comes along and takes it.” Kinda remind you of the government? But whatever. Yesterday I decided to be a total hermit and just… recover… but tomorrow we’ll be back on track.

Peace out.

Living In Joy

Don’t say what you mean
You might spoil your face
If you walk in the crowd
You won’t leave any trace
It’s always the same
You’re jumping someone else’s train

It won’t take you long
To learn the new smile
You’ll have to adapt
Or you’ll be out of style
It’s always the same
You’re jumping someone else’s train

The Cure, Jumping Someone Else’s Train

Two years ago, when I left “my honey”, there were a number of direct and indirect reasons behind my decision. I came to realize that we did not have compatible goals and aspirations: we would talk about things and seem to be on the same page, but when it came to actualization, he always retreated; we would come to philosophical agreements and then he would act in ways that diametrically opposed our conversations; he was too afraid of being “poor” to act on any possibility that he didn’t feel was virtually assured. But the ultimate, defining cause of our separation was a belief on my part that there was something absolutely fundamental that I was looking for in life that he could never, ever provide. Joy.

That’s not to say that we were never happy. Of course we were or we wouldn’t have been together for fifteen years. But happiness is a momentary experience. It comes and goes with ones changing moods, activities, interests and relationships. This was something else and I tried like hell to explain it to him, but I don’t know if he ever truly understood. I know that he did not then. I like to hope that he may have since come closer, but I have no real knowledge of where his life has gone in the intervening years.

I wrote to him, then, trying to express this idea of joy that I had:

I asked you a couple of weeks ago when the last time you felt joy was. The exact details of your answer didn’t really matter – the point was that you had to think about it and find a moment in time that specifically applied. It was a special thing. Before, I would have done the same thing. Sought out some moment that was better than most and then applied that label: joy, to the experience. But you know, that’s not really what I am talking about here. It’s decidedly not the special moments, it’s living with each moment special in and of itself. Regardless of circumstance or activity or companionship. Simply engaging life in all it’s complexity and beauty.

When we separated, this was my goal. To find a place in the world where I could live this ideal. Where I could leave behind my depressions and my anxieties about things that rarely actually matter: where I could live in now time, truly experiencing the wonders this world has to offer. Perhaps this sounds like an unrealistic goal, but I had seen this world, I had lived in it for a short time, and I very much wanted to stay.

I can’t say that I have done a very good job. Since I moved to Colorado, I have found pieces of the puzzle, but I have also been relentlessly distracted from my goal. I’ll be telling those stories over the next few weeks. The most important thing, right now, is that I’ve been reminded, once more, that this IS my goal, and it is a worthy goal and I absolutely refuse to let it go again.

Rephrased by a friend of mine: “Life is good. No matter how much shit happens, life is still good.” I would add to that: this is not simply that life is good overall, but, in fact, every precious moment, even when the worst things are happening, are absolutely, indefinably, good. This is living in joy…………….

The Truth, Part II

So if I decide to waiver my chance to be one of the hive
Will I choose water over wine and hold my own and drive?
It’s driven me before
And it seems to be the way that everyone else gets around
But lately I’m beginning to find that
When I drive myself my light is found

Whatever tomorrow brings, I’ll be there
With open arms and open eyes yeah

Whatever tomorrow brings, I’ll be there
I’ll be there

Incubus, Drive

I have always thought of myself as a shy person. I have tended to be quiet, especially as a kid. I have been quite self-conscious, never quite believing that other people, mostly, would find any value in my companionship. At the same time, I have always had a lot of body-issues, as most women in our culture do, regardless of their health or appearance.

Over the past few years and months I have come to term with many of these issues. I have come to realize that my ’shyness’ was not shyness at all, but a psychological repression built upon speech classes I had as a young child. I have come to understand that people do find value in me as a person, that I have something to offer that is insightful, entertaining and compassionate. And I have even begun to take a firm grip on my body issues, although I am uncertain whether I will ever be truly free of them.

When I went out to see Eddie, i found that he brought out the positive effects of these changes in a tremendously dynamic and intense way. I felt like i could conquer the world when I was with him. I realized that what I had always seen in him – this ability to really connect with people and create in others a response (not always positive, but always intense) – was not just in him, it was in me. That if I gave myself a chance, I could be that person as well, and that being around him helped me to embrace that possibility.

Then I thought about it some more. And I realized that I noticed this as a result of spending so much concentrated time with him. He brings this out in me like no one else ever has – but he is not the only one that has ever encouraged this behavior. In fact, all of my old friend do. Perhaps not at the same level, but certainly in the same sort of ways. That stymied me for a time. Because if everyone brings this out, why has it not been a part of WHOIAM for so long? The answer I found is that my SO dampens this same behavior in me. Not intentionally, but simply because he is far more introverted and dis-interested in people than I – and I have an unfortunate tendency to reflect the people I spend most of my time with.

This led me to understand that part of what I had been searching for in myself was this dynamic interaction with other people, and perhaps, it was the one thing I could never have so long as I was with my SO.

But there was another piece to all of this as well. I don’t know if it is directly related, in some ways I think it certainly is, but in other ways, I think it may be entirely different: Eddie has a joy about him. A simple enjoyment of life. Even at his worst moments, this inherent joy still radiates from him. Again, I came to realize that I too could be as joyful as I see him as being. But again, my SO, really a negative personality at times. And so my life has been rather negative at times, merely by reflection.

That is not entirely fair. Many things in my life have contributed to my inability to encompass joy in my life. But these are personality traits deeply embedded in day to day behavior. And I see now that the daily behavior I have engaged in these last fifteen years have driven me further from my desired path than I had ever realized.

On other levels, I found that over those few days in a hotel room, I had expressed some of my most personal feelings and desires, and Eddie had done the same, yet somehow, it never became heart wrenching or sad. No tears, no yelling, no digging at the core of our beings to find the Truth. Just a comfortable openness and sharing. I found that quite enlightening as well – that open and honest communication does not require emotional devastation.

I also found a person that after fifteen years of separation, holds far more of the same values, hopes, fears and beliefs about the world than the man I had spent the last fifteen years with. In some ways I was unsurprised: every person I was close to in high school that I have since rediscovered has been in many ways similar to me in world view. We all grew up and went out into the world – but our earlier foundational beliefs are so similar that our interaction with that real world has fallen into similar patterns. Again, except for my SO. I almost think that his divergence from this shared (or rather similar) path has been cause by the interaction of he and I. And that is scary in itself.

So back to my story: when I returned from my trip, many of these thoughts were yet unclear in my mind. I had a vague understanding of most of it, but I had not yet made clear connections between the experiences, the feelings I had about those experiences and the intellectual understanding of how it all fit together. So when my SO began quizzing and pushing me, much of it came out disjointed, or bitter, or incomprehensible to him. I’m sure some of it came out in ways that seemed contradictory to him. And when I first broached the subject of separation, i am sure he was completely flabbergasted. And, of course, very hurt.

What ensued was five days of pain and anguish and fighting and crying. We saw the worst of each other in those days. And then I left.

It has been a month since then. It has been a difficult time, with my SO still struggling to understand what happened, trying to figure out his own feelings, and in many cases, discovering new things about himself that he wishes I would give him the opportunity to explore. Unfortunately he has been unable to show me that he can – and should – make these changes. I would like nothing better than to see him come out of this relationship a better person (in his own eyes) than he has ever been before. But I cannot condone him reshaping himself to create some ideal that he believes I want. And I cannot go back to the constant promises that next time will be different.

All of this began many months ago with an article I read from Dave Pollard a few days after my initial contact with Eddie. Somehow, now as I approach the end of this story it seems appropriate to dredge it out out once more. At the time it nearly broke my heart. Today, I hope and pray that it is a sign of better things to come:

For many of us, it is life’s promise that is good. It’s what we could become. It’s the potential. Many of us daydream our lives away, buying lottery tickets, imagining ourselves on American Idol or the New York Yankees or surrounded by adoring admirers in thrall to our sexual magnetism, or living vicariously through our children, or through ’successful’ or beautiful people we know, or even through complete strangers (celebrities). As I keep saying, the scarce resources we most crave are appreciation and attention, and most of us have no hope of ever getting much of either. So we cling to our dreams, the possibilities we know are really impossible. For many of us, life is not really good. It is only the promise that it could be that keeps us going. – Dave Pollard

(Originally Written April, 2007)

The Truth, Part I

Sometimes, I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear
And I can’t help but ask myself how much I let the fear
Take the wheel and steer
It’s driven me before
And it seems to have a vague, haunting mass appeal
But lately I’m beginning to find that I
Should be the one behind the wheel

Whatever tomorrow brings, I’ll be there
With open arms and open eyes yeah

Whatever tomorrow brings, I’ll be there
I’ll be there

Incubus, Drive

Well, I have been gone for a while, but now that I am back, I suppose it is time for me to come clean.

The last thing I told y’all before killing my old blog was that I was headed out of town to visit Eddie and see what sort of future we might be able to make — a polyamorous style future, to be specific.

Instead, I discovered the last pieces of what I have been looking for over this last year. And that has led to, well, a complete lifestyle change in the past month. I guess I better start at the beginning, neh?

Almost a year ago, I reconnected with my old, first love. Not only my first love, but for many years one of my very best friends. Because of the nature of our relationship back when, this contact triggered a series of mental events: I began looking at my life with a critical eye, reconsidering my path and what I want from life. Thinking long and hard about WHOIAM and, more importantly, who I want to be. I got nostalgic and thoughtful and eventually disturbed by the person I had become over the intervening years. I decided that I was not getting what I wanted out of my long term relationship and the only question left to me was to decide when and how I was going to do something about that.

Instead, my SO took an unprecedented action: he stepped up and opened himself up to me, exposing his vulnerabilities and his love for me. We started down a long path of discovering what honest and open communication can do, what it can create, and explored what our lives might look like if we together found a new path.

This went on for months. Soul searching, soul wrenching self analysis, discussions that extended far into the night, often accompanied by very intense emotional releases and re-alignments. Over that time, I came to think that perhaps he and I could make a better future together. I also continued to have doubts of various sorts. Some of those doubts were brought up and discussed, often to extreme ends. Others felt to me like fear or self doubt and so I shoved them away.

One of the most intense doubts, however, revolved around love. After fifteen years of separation, I found that I still carried extremely intense feelings for Eddie. At various points over these months, I let him know that those feelings were there, and at first, we avoided the direct discussion, while assuring ourselves that however we might feel about one another, practical concerns made any deep exploration of those feelings unrealistic. He has a life and a lifestyle and relationships focused on where he lives, and I have the same where I live and between us spans a thousand miles.

Nonetheless, my SO and I continued to explore my feelings and desires and other aspects of our life. Eventually, Eddie came forward to tell me that his feelings for me were equally deep and that sent me spiraling once more. And it impacted the conversations with my SO significantly. When all was said and done, we decided that one way we might approach our issues was by expanding our lifestyle.

I have always been polyamorous by nature. In other words, I find no conflict in the idea of loving more than one person. And I have always believed, in a philosophical sense, that there is no reason that humans cannot live with multiple loves: that much of our jealousy and insecurity is founded in our culture rather than our DNA. I had never really thought about trying to pursue such a lifestyle, but if it had fallen into my lap I would not have thought twice about the implications.

After all the discussions with my SO, he began to see and embrace this idea I held. In fact, he told me that he had somewhat known this of me all along. He even wondered if this was part of why he was drawn to me. However, for all that, Eddie was extremely threatening to him. It seems he may have thought of him even more that I had over our fifteen years together. He called him his ‘nemesis.’ Perhaps he, of all people, was the only one that really understood the depth of my feelings for Eddie. Or perhaps, it is simply that my he represented many specific character traits that my SO consciously refuted in himself.

In any case, we finally came to the conclusion that we would explore this whole poly concept and figure out whether it would work for us, and more importantly perhaps, whether bringing other people into our lives might fill some of the empty spaces we could not fill for one another. The theory was that no two individuals could ever perfectly provide for all of their partners wants and needs, so by adding additional individuals, we might find effective and successful overlapping experiences and relationships.

We decided that if we were going to do this, that only an organic approach could really be successful: in other words, we would not go out trolling for pick-ups or other similar behavior. Rather, we would merely open our hearts and minds to the possibilities and see what happened. What happened was that an ongoing flirtation in my SO’s life turned into a full blown relationship a mere week after we made this decision.

There were some hard times through there – mostly related to me digging out old repressed feelings and issues. So it was difficult, but productive, too. Unfortunately, the relationship he found was very intense, but also very unstable. It could have been glorious, but instead it was…. painful. For him, for her, and for me. I still think there may possibly be some kind of future for them, but maybe that is just my optimistic approach to life.

In the meantime, I found an opportunity to go and see Eddie. Circumstances aligned just so for me to make it happen. My SO found he still had some issues to deal with so we spent a lot of time working through those before my trip. I thought that he had gotten to a pretty healthy place before I left, but perhaps I was projecting more than I should have. We agreed that while I was gone, we would not hold each other to any particular obligations: each of us could call at will, and each of us could take those calls, or return them later, or not as seemed appropriate at the time.

As things turned out, I ended up getting on a plane not knowing exactly what I would find when I got there – Eddie had been incommunicado for a week and I wasn’t sure what was going on with him. At the same time, another old and dear friend living in the same city had called me up – so we decided I would just go and if Eddie never appeared, at least I would get a nice visit with an old friend.

In fact, when I got off the plane, I had two messages from him and he called again before I retrieved my luggage. He had a few obligations to attend to, but we made plans to meet up after dinner and see where things went from there.

I had a fun evening with my old friend and his lover, then met up with Eddie, had a couple drinks and then headed back to my hotel for the evening. We sat and talked until almost dawn. Then woke the next day to hang out and talk again until 4am when I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. It was a really good thing – I had been afraid that we wouldn’t really talk, but that turned out to not be a problem. Some time that night, he asked me if I would leave my SO for him. I didn’t say anything for a moment and he said ‘well, there’s my answer’. I looked at him and told him I did not know what I would do if it came to that.

The next morning, I asked him what he would do if the answer to that question was yes. He didn’t say anything for a few moments and then said that he did not know, either. (He is currently ‘engaged’) It occurred to me then, and again now, that this was the only answer he could give me that would have been ‘right’ – because it was honest and un-framed.

That day we went to breakfast, then he had things to do so I spent the afternoon with my old friend, then went back to the hotel for a decent nights sleep. Unfortunately, I also spent a couple of intense hours on the phone with my SO, as he was feeling ‘out of the loop’ and he felt like I was not telling him what was going on and so forth. I indulged him, knowing that if he was feeling that way it needed to be addressed, regardless of whether it fit the ‘rules’ we had established or not.

The next morning, Eddie came and picked me up at the hotel and we headed out to meet his girlfriend for lunch. She’s a sweet girl. I understand why he loves her, after spending time with her. But I also do not think that they will ever have a life together that looks like what he wants for himself.

We lost track of time and suddenly realized that it was far too late for me to make it to the airport on time with public transit. This meant I ended up staying another two days before I could get on another flight. The next day, I tried to catch a standby flight home. About mid afternoon, I talked with Eddie and told him that it was quite clear to me that we each had to do our own thing, and once we figured out what that was, well, then someday we would talk. He told me that spending all of that time with both me and his girlfriend at the same time clarified things in his mind – and we would talk. Soon. That he was already mentally composing an email exploring his thoughts and he would write it out for me as soon as he was able.

I spent the entire day at the airport, only to find that the flight was overbooked and there was no way for me to get home. So Eddie and I spent that evening sitting in the cocktail lounge at yet another hotel and talking once more.

When I finally arrived home the next day, I was literally on the brink of exhaustion. My brain was running over things said and done over the previous several days: both with my old love and with my SO. I was physically drained. I was confused. And my SO had no patience left to wait for me to tell him what happened. So I got something to eat and sat down and told him the story of my weekend. I hoped that it would be clear to him that he had, in fact, already heard almost all of it. That this would settle his doubts and concerns, and then I could take some time to process the experiences for myself.

Instead, he decided that I was holding out on him and/or lying to him about what occurred. Things deteriorated from there.

(Originally Written April 2007)