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All over the world people are getting married. They marry in the United States, they marry in Russia, they marry in Kenya, and they marry in China. A marriage is a wonderful and joyous event. It is a time of happiness and the beginning of a new life. it is a very special time, and a very special event.
Here are some cute and fun traditions that the contemporaneous Chinese have incorporated into their weddings. I think that they are adorable. As such, here are some great wedding ideas from Chinese weddings. They are often very different from what you would find int he West.
For instance, the bride has more than one wedding gown. Typically, she wears four or more during the day. That goes double for all the brides’ maids. Al the gals will need to change in and out of the various outfits all day.
Also, The groom is never alone, as he is always with his buddies. Trust me, he’s gonna need all their help. Indeed, there are all sorts of traditions that are often colored upon with modern technology and pop music.
"A few years ago, I spent nearly a month in the small city of Panjin, in the far north of China, near Shenyang. At first, I was staying in a local hotel near the city center. Starting on a Thursday night, and going through the weekend, I kept hearing loud fireworks going off, in the MIDDLE OF THE FREAKING NIGHT!
When I looked out of the window, I would see pickup truck, or cars driving with a trail of loud firecrackers behind them. This was around 4 am, just an hour or so before dawn.
I asked our local agents what was going on and he described that this was part of their local wedding ceremony. AFTER the wedding, the bride goes back to her parents house. The groom has to go pick her up during the night, and bring her back to his house before dawn.... but, they cannot consecrate the marriage (ie, for those of you in Rio Linda, HAVE SEX) until dawn. As the groom is driving her, he sets off firecrackers to let everyone know how excited he is, and how GREAT the sex is going to be. So, of course... he wants them to be loud and long.
Apparently, the city center is the place where you want to do this, so the MOST PEOPLE POSSIBLE can know. I said, “hmm... fine.. Please move my hotel away from here”.
It was quite a tradition. They also have a very thriving business or renting Mercedes cars to drive the bride around during the wedding day. Also, big parties in several of the hotels where I was staying."
There are many interesting aspects to a Chinese wedding. From the regional variances to the registration process with the government. It’s all extremely interesting. However, this post is not about the technical in’s and out’s of a Chinese wedding. Instead, we focus on some of the more cute and playful aspects of the wedding. Enjoy.
Please note that this post comes with many embedded micro-videos. These are small videos that are from 10 seconds long to maybe 59 seconds. They are very important to help understand the points being made. If you have trouble loading them, please refresh your browser. You will not be disappointed.
To get the most out of this post, you MUST watch the videos.
The Knight comes to the rescue…
Before a Chinese wedding celebration, the groom will often go to the bride's house to collect her. However, the bride will be surrounded by a few of her girlfriends, who will tease the groom before handing over the bride.
The girls will have to be bribed or convinced by the groom with pretends or envelopes with money before they will hand over their friend, the bride. Then, the bride and groom will bow to the bride's parents before taking her to the groom's house. -Chinese Highlights
China has all sorts of traditions, and fun and games that the wedding consists of. Here, we begin with the idea that the groom must come over and fight for the bride.
He has to overcome all sorts of barriers that the bridesmaids put in front of him.
That’s part of the fun. You know, you make the groom fight for the bride. And, of course, he will have to fight. Sometimes playfully, and sometimes tested to the limits of his endurance. These battles and challenges are typically thought up by the brides’ maids, but in-laws and relatives often have a (nefarious) hand in this.
There are all all sorts of cute ways to do this. Here is a micro-video of the groom arriving to take the bride with him to the wedding ceremony. Here he arrives on a white horse (as in a knight in shining armor) and successfully battles the brides maids…
Oh, but it’s not going to be that easy…
Oh, you thought that it was just a matter of playing some games, eh? You thought that it was going to be easy. Well, sometimes it just isn’t. You see, you need to prove yourself to your future in-laws, and they often put mountains in your path for you to climb.
In China, drinking is considered a valuable skill. It is used to judge the merits of a person. This is true in friendships, business, and of course, marriage. Can you just imagine trying to go through this gauntlet? Good thing you’ll have your buddies to help you out. Yikes!!!!
"One point I can identify with is how drinking liquor is considered a skill, a valuable skill to many Chinese.
Think of it as “handling your liquor”, and how well you can “handle your liquor”. Most Chinese I know, by practice, talent or otherwise, can drink considerably more hard liquor than anyone else I know, and not manifest many attributes of being out right drunk. They certainly, all of them, can “drink me under the table”.
One of my good friends likes to play poker and drink - hard liquor. I think she knows that after any number of drinks, her game is as good as it was at the start, while those of us playing with her may not be playing as good as we might have with fewer drinks under our belt. I’m glad she agrees to play for small change. "
Once the groom manages to successfully free his bride from the clutches of the bridesmaids, now he needs to get her to the wedding. How is he going to do that? Because the job of the bridesmaids is to stop him. They are there to make him fight and battle for his wife. It’s not going to be easy.
So, how is he going to do this?
Often it is miles away or in a different town. Remember, in a Chinese wedding, not only do you need to get the bride from her parent’s house, but you have to take her to the government offices for the official documentation, and off to the chapel or dining hall for the proper ceremony.
It’s often a difficult journey, and there might be all sorts of road-blocks and troubles that could prevent you two from getting married.
The bridesmaids might have some tricks up their sleeve(s) as well.They will put up all sorts of roadblocks and things that the groom must overcome to take his bride away. Like siphoning out all the gas in the car… Yikes!
What is a groom to do?
Now that the Bride is near the Wedding Chapel (or it’s equivalent) how to get the Bride safe?
Once the bride is successfully removed from her parent’s house, and the Groom transports her to the town to be wed, just how is she going to be safe? After all, a pretty and attractive girl will have all kinds of suitors, and in China, if one can “steal her away” successfully, she is obligated to marry him instead. (China is a land of many unwritten traditions that will be enforced by the elders.) Yeah, the stakes can be that high.
She needs escorts and support. After all, you don’t want her walking alone, right?
Luckily, the groom will have his buddies to help. They will be there to escort the bride safely to the destination. They will be there to make sure that everything goes well and that there are no interruptions or problems.
And, yes, suitors can still interrupt and disrupt the marriage ceremony and “steal the bride away”. You need to protect the new bride. But how…?
Or, why walk when you can ride?
Here we have a cute video of the brides-men carting the troop of brides-maids off to the next stage in the smorgasbord of events…
How did it all begin? What is the first step?
Like in America, a man must propose to his bride. That is often a very simple event, but in China, it MUST be something very special. For starters, he should have a pretty good idea that she would agree to the proposal, or else he is just wasting his time. Secondly, he needs to make it special, and memorable. No Chinese girl worth her mettle would accept anything less than the best a man could provide. So the man must make a very special proposal.
This means that the proposal should be a surprise and as public as possible. His best men (best friends) must observe it happening, and her best friends must also be surprised. If possible both the best friends of the man, and the best friends of the girls must attend, but there’s a trick to it. The guys will know what is going on, but NONE of the girls must know. It must be kept a big secret from them.
It all starts with the proposal.
The man must propose to the girl. He must provide an engagement ring, and he must make the proposal as special as possible. I am not being trivial.
In the USA, the proposal is often considered a private affair. It is done in private, maybe over a quiet dinner or a romantic walk in the park. Not so in China. In China it must be as public as possible. There are rituals, formats, and setups that must be observed to make it a proper engagement.
In fact, it must be extremely special, public and noteworthy. The best men, will help set up the conditions for the wedding, and help him achieve it. The girls, the bride and all her bridesmaids must be kept in the dark about it. So it truly becomes a real surprise.
The proposal should be [1] public, [2] a surprise to the bride, and [3] witnessed by all her best girl friends (who themselves will all be surprised).
A little explanation is due here. In China, it is really not acceptable to show emotion or affection in public. The purpose of this surprise is to get the potential bride to break down. Often, if it is a real surprise the girl will tend to cry or get confused. The man, must take control of the situation and permit the girl to let the flow of emotion over take her.
Sometimes it is in an open and public square or place. At other times it might be in a rented dining room. The most important criteria is the top three points already mentioned above. Further, many Chinese like to have lit candles forming a heart and other meaningful symbology present.
And of course, here is another one…
The Wedding – The father gives the bride away…
Like in the United States, the father must give the bride away to the groom. Unlike the USA, however, the father must show that he blesses the wedding; that he approves of the groom, and that he publicly wishes the new couple great happiness.
Notice in the video below, how the father publicly motions that he accepts this marriage. We waves to everyone and leads the groom to the bride and puts their hands together. He makes a public display of acceptance.
About the Dresses…
In China, the wedding is much, much more complex than what you would find in the United States. In fact, the bride might change in and out of multiple wedding dresses. There is, of course, the white wedding dress, but there are also different dresses that the bride wears. Yes. The day of the wedding will require the bride to change in and out of dresses all day.
For most Chinese brides, picking the perfect wedding gown actually means picking three dresses. The typical traditional dress is called a qipao, which has been worn in China since the 17th century. Most women will wear one red qipao, a white Western-style gown, and a third ball gown throughout the night. The dresses are changed throughout the reception after courses are served. Some brides will even opt for a fourth dress, which they wear as they are saying their goodbyes as guests depart the wedding.
Almost every wedding has the traditional Red Wedding Dress that the bride must wear…
As well as other dresses. Such as this black dress that is used to accept the “red envelopes” and blessings from friends, family, extended family and just about everyone else.
Here is a nice catalog of come contemporaneous red dresses for the bride to wear. I personally find all of them quite fetching and attractive. My goodness!
I personally love the different types of wedding gowns. These are selected for various reasons as they have different purposes. Unknown to most Americans, China is criss-crossed with a network of minority Chinese. Each one has their own traditions and cultures, and the Chinese government does it’s best to make sure that these are not eradicated by the onslaught of technology and new ways of doing things (as part of cultural advances).
Here we have another pretty bride. Note the large amount of gold that she is wearing. This is not the same kind of gold that you would get in the United States; 14-carat or other “improved” alloys. This is pure 100% real gold with no alloys. You see, in the United States, the jewelry business has been running a long-running scam on the American people. Americans pay for gold rings and adornments out of gold alloys. Not real gold. Most American gold alloys are over 80% alloy with only a very tiny amount of gold.
Not so in China.
Second Marriages
In this case, below, the woman is older and this is her second marriage, with all the baggage and emotion that is involved. China, like traditional America, prefers a marriage without any kind of divorce. Here we have the bride going through a second full-scale marriage.
This is often a very emotional affair, and the bride publicly admits to a new marriage, and a new beginning. In the United States, second and third weddings are often quiet affairs with only the paperwork processed. Not in China. If you get married a second time, the entire town must know about it. You can’t keep it quiet. Everyone must know.
She has to face the community, her relatives and her family. All the memories of the trials of her former life; her former husband, and all the troubles and strains – the hardships and the emotions come flooding to her. If she has children, they are in attendance. Her classmates fly in from all over the nation. Relatives, even the rudest and most distant comes and attends.
Here the bride looks like a queen. She is ready to start all over again. She recognizes the trials and the mistakes of the earlier marriage and is willing and strong enough to move forward with her new husband in the direction of a new life. Doesn’t she look stunning!
The Wedding Song…
Often there is a performer that will sing to the bride (and groom). In China, many people love to sing. It’s a very popular sport, far more popular than it is in the United States. Sometimes the groom will sing to the bride. Sometimes the bride will sing to the groom. And sometimes trusted close friends will sing to the bride.
Often, the singer is very close personally to the bride and the meaning of the song and the emotions involving the wedding becomes evident. As the singer and the bride often are great friends. As friends they would share their hopes and dreams as they grow up. They would share dorm rooms, and clothes. They would know each others darkest fears and their grandest hopes and dreams. When a close person sings to you, they sing with meaning and emotion. For they honestly and sincerely wish the best for you.
American Traditions…
Many American traditions are incorporated as well. The children bringing the rings to the bride and groom for instance, the idea of a best man, and the ideas of the bridesmaids are all incorporated. Here, we have the bouquet being thrown, and captured to promptly gives it to the object of his affections…
Leaving for the honeymoon…
After an absolutely exhausting day, the bride and groom can leave the wedding party and begin their new life together. We can wish them all the best. For their life is only just starting. Here we give them all the best wishes possible.
Special Mention for all the friends…
Let’s not forget the bride’s maids. In China, classmates are much closer than they are in America. They tend to treat each other like brothers and sisters. Seriously. While everyone gets married and goes their separate ways in life, often moving to remote cities, the friendship persists.
If there is one thing that I have learned, it is the importance of friends and family. Do not take these people for granted. They are very important. We are not lone wolves fighting and surviving in the wilds. We are part of a community, and our life will run much smoother once we accept that truth.
Here’s to the wedding party…
Here’s to the beautiful bride…
Weddings are about many things. Firstly it is about leaving the old and starting a new family. In China, often the man will give 100% of his pay to the wife. She will then use the money to build up a family, a home, and a community standing. That is quite different from the United States, where the man may only give a small portion of his earnings to the wife.
In fact, a Chinese bride would rather get 100% of what the husband makes, even if it is a very small amount, instead of a small percentage of a huge wealthy man’s income. I know, 5% of a million dollars is much more than 100% of a hundred dollars. But, Chinese women are not like American women. They want 100% of their man. Nothing less than that would do.
So here’s to the beautiful Chinese bride…
Conclusion
Personally, the best thing that I ever did was get married to my wife. I have never been very rich, and our life has been quite modest. However, she still sticks beside me. Even though I get older and I have gained weight.
Here’s a Chinese girl wearing a ethnic Chinese minority wedding dress for a section of her wedding day. The hat that she wears is always 100% solid silver, and is often handed down from grandmother to mother to daughter.
I sincerely hope that this post can inspire others towards their marriage and their life together. A marriage in China is an awesome experience. May everyone have a great and happy future together!
A Final Word
I just want to add a little something that really means a lot to me, and that I want to impress upon you; the reader.
You know, fairy tales really do come true. Don’t listen to all those jaded folk who have had some less than pleasant experiences. If you are good, and you have a good kind heart, your world can be wonderful. Please keep that faith.
There is a boy for every girl in this world. You might think that you are too strange, too much of an odd-ball, but that is not true. There is a person out there for you. And…
And, when you see that person. Don’t be afraid. Go up to them and say hi. That other person is a gift from God. Don’t throw it away.
This is the full text of a very curious story (The April Witch) by Ray Bradbury. It is presented here under Article 22 of China’s Copyright Law. Enjoy.
The April Witch
By Ray Bradbury
Into the air, over the valleys, under the stars, above a river, a pond, a road, flew Cecy. Invisible as new spring winds, fresh as the breath of clover rising from twilight fields, she flew. She soared in doves as soft as white ermine, stopped in trees and lived in blossoms, showering away in petals when the breeze blew. She perched in a limegreen frog, cool as mint by a shining pool. She trotted in a brambly dog and barked to hear echoes from the sides of distant barns. She lived in new April grasses, in sweet clear liquids rising from the musky earth.
It's spring, thought Cecy. I'll be in every living thing in the world tonight.
Now she inhabited neat crickets on the tar-pool roads, now prickled in dew on an iron gate. Hers was an adapt-ably quick mind flowing unseen upon Illinois winds on this one evening of her life when she was just seventeen.
"I want to be in love," she said.
She had said it at supper. And her parents had widened their eyes and stiffened back in their chairs. "Patience," had been their advice. "Remember, you're remarkable. Our whole family is odd and remarkable. We can't mix or marry with ordinary folk. We'd lose our magical powers if we did. You wouldn't want to lose your ability to 'travel' by magic, would you? Then be careful. Be careful!"
But in her high bedroom, Cecy had touched perfume to her throat and stretched out, trembling and apprehensive, on her four-poster, as a moon the colour of milk rose over Illinois country, turning rivers to cream and roads to platinum.
"Yes," she sighed. "I'm one of an odd family. We sleep days and fly nights like black kites on the wind. If we want, we can sleep in moles through the winter, in the warm earth. I can live in anything at all - a pebble, a crocus, or a praying mantis. I can leave my plain, bony body behind and send my mind far out for adventure. Now!"
The wind whipped her away over fields and meadows.
She saw the warm spring lights of cottages and farms glowing with twilight colours.
If I can't be in love, myself, because I'm plain and odd, then I'll be in love through someone else, she thought...
+++
Outside a farmhouse in the spring night a dark-haired girl, no more than nineteen, drew up water from a deep stone well. She was singing.
Cecy fell - a green leaf- into the well. She lay in the tender moss of the well, gazing up through dark coolness. Now she quickened in a fluttering, invisible amoeba. Now in a water droplet! At last, within a cold cup, she felt herself lifted to the girl's warm lips. There was a soft night sound of drinking.
Ceсy looked out from the girl's eyes.
She entered into the dark head and gazed from the shining eyes at the hands pulling the rough rope. She listened through the shell ears to this girl's world. She smelled a particular universe through these delicate nostrils, felt this special heart beating, beating. Felt this strange tongue move with singing.
Does she know I'm here? thought Cecy.
The girl gasped. She stared into the night meadows.
"Who's there?"
No answer.
"Only the wind," whispered Cecy.
"Only the wind." The girl laughed at herself, but shivered.
It was a good body, this girl's body. It held bones of finest slender ivory hidden and roundly fleshed. This brain was like a pink tea rose, hung in darkness, and there was cider-wine in this mouth. The lips lay firm on the white, white teeth and the brows arched neatly at the world, and the hair blew soft and fine on her milky neck. The pores knit small and close. The nose tilted at the moon and the cheeks glowed like small fires. The body drifted with feather-balances from one motion to another and seemed always singing to itself. Being in this body, this head, was like basking in a hearth fire, living in the purr of a sleeping cat, stirring in warm creek waters that flowed by night to the sea.
I'll like it here, thought Cecy.
"What?" asked the girl, as if she'd heard a voice.
"What's your name?" asked Cecy carefully.
"Ann Leary." The girl twitched. "Now why should I say that out loud?"
"Ann, Ann," whispered Cecy. "Ann, you're going to be in love."
+++
As if to answer this, a great roar sprang from the road, a clatter and a ring of wheels on gravel. A tall man drove up in a rig, holding the reins high with his monstrous arms, his smile glowing across the yard.
"Is that you, Tom?"
"Who else?" Leaping from the rig, he tied the reins to the fence.
"I'm not speaking to you!" Ann whirled, the bucket in her hands slopping.
"No!" cried Cecy.
Ann froze. She looked at the hills and the first spring stars. She stared at the man named Tom. Cecy made her drop the bucket.
"Look what you've done!"
Tom ran up.
"Look what you made me do!"
He wiped her shoes with a kerchief, laughing.
"Get away!" She kicked at his hands, but he laughed again, and gazing down on him from miles away, Cecy saw the turn of his head, the size of his skull, the flare of his nose, the shine of his eye, the girth of his shoulder, and the hard strength of his hands doing this delicate thing with the handkerchief. Peering down from the secret attic of this lovely head, Cecy yanked a hidden copper ventriloquist's wire and the pretty mouth popped wide: "Thank you!"
"Oh, so you have manners?" The smell of leather on his hands, the smell of the horse rose from his clothes into the tender nostrils, and Cecy, far, far away over night meadows and flowered fields, stirred as with some dream in her bed.
"Not for you, no!" said Ann.
"Hush, speak gently," said Cecy. She moved Ann's fingers out toward Tom's head. Ann snatched them back.
"I've gone mad!"
"You have." He nodded, smiling but bewildered. "Were you going to touch me then?"
"I don't know. Oh, go away!" Her cheeks glowed with pink charcoals.
"Why don't you run? I'm not stopping you." Tom got up. "Have you changed your mind? Will you go to the dance with me tonight? It's special. Tell you why later."
"No," said Ann.
"Yes!" cried Cecy. "I've never danced. I want to dance. I've never worn a long gown, all rustly. I want that. I want to dance all night. I've never known what it's like to be in a woman, dancing; Father and Mother would never permit it. Dogs, cats, locusts, leaves, everything else in the world at one time or another I've known, but never a woman in the spring, never on a night like this. Oh, please - we must go to that dance!"
She spread her thought like the fingers of a hand within a new glove.
"Yes," said Ann Leary, "I'll go. I don't know why, but I'll go to the dance with you tonight, Tom."
"Now inside, quick!" cried Cecy. "You must wash, tell your folks, get your gown ready, out with the iron, into your room!"
"Mother," said Ann, "I've changed my mind!"
+++
The rig was galloping off down the pike, the rooms of the farmhouse jumped to life, water was boiling for a bath, the coal stove was heating an iron to press the gown, the mother was rushing about with a fringe of hairpins in her mouth. "What's come over you, Ann? You don't like Tom!"
"That's true." Ann stopped amidst the great fever.
But it's spring! thought Cecy.
"It's spring," said Ann.
And it's a fine night for dancing, thought Cecy.
"... for dancing," murmured Ann, Leary.
+++
Then she was in the tub and the soap creaming on her white seal shoulders, small nests of soap beneath her arms, and the flesh of her warm breasts moving in her hands and Cecy moving the mouth, making the smile, keeping the actions going. There must be no pause, no hesitation, or the entire pantomime might fall in ruins! Ann Leary must be kept moving, doing, acting, wash here, soap there, now out! Rub with a towel! Now perfume and powder!
"You!" Ann caught herself in the mirror, all whiteness and pinkness like lilies and carnations. "Who are you tonight?"
"I'm a girl seventeen." Cecy gazed from her violet eyes. "You can't see me. Do you know I'm here?"
Ann Leary shook her head. "I've rented my body to an April witch, for sure."
"Close, very close!" laughed Cecy. "Now, on with your dressing."
The luxury of feeling good clothes move over an ample body! And then the halloo outside.
"Ann, Tom's back!"
"Tell him to wait." Ann sat down suddenly. "Tell him I'm not going to that dance."
"What?" said her mother, in the door.
+++
Cecy snapped back into attention. It had been a fatal relaxing, a fatal moment of leaving Ann's body for only an instant. She had heard the distant sound of horses' hoofs and the rig rambling through moonlit spring country. For a second she thought, I'll go find Tom and sit in his head and see what it's like to be in a man of twenty-two on a night like this. And so she had started quickly across a heather field, but now, like a bird to a cage, flew back and rustled and beat about in Ann Leary's head.
"Tell him to go away!"
"Ann!" Cecy settled down and spread her thoughts.
But Ann had the bit in her mouth now. "No, no, I hate him!"
I shouldn't have left - even for a moment. Cecy poured her mind into the hands of the young girl, into the heart, into the head, softly, softly. Stand up, she thought.
Ann stood.
Put on your coat!
Ann put on her coat.
Now, march!
No! thought Ann Leary.
March!
"Ann," said her mother, "don't keep Tom waiting another minute. You get on out there now and no nonsense. What's come over you?"
"Nothing, Mother. Good night. We'll be home late."
+++
Ann and Cecy ran together into the spring evening.
A room full of softly dancing pigeons ruffling their quiet, trailing feathers, a room full of peacocks, a room full of rainbow eyes and lights. And in the center of it, around, around, around, danced Ann Leary.
"Oh, it is a fine evening," said Cecy.
"Oh, it's a fine evening," said Ann.
"You're odd," said Tom.
The music whirled them in dimness, in rivers of song, they floated, they bobbed, they sank down, they arose for air, they gasped, they clutched each other like drowning people and whirled on again, in fan motions, in whispers and sighs, to "Beautiful Ohio."
Cecy hummed. Ann's lips parted and the music came out.
"Yes, I'm odd," said Cecy.
"You're not the same," said Tom.
"No, not tonight."
"You're not the Ann Leary I knew."
"No, not at all, at all," whispered Cecy, miles and miles away. "No, not at all," said the moved lips.
"I've the funniest feeling," said Tom.
"About what?"
"About you." He held her back and danced her and looked into her glowing face, watching for something. "Your eyes," he said, "I can't figure it."
"Do you see me?" asked Cecy.
"Part of you's here, Ann, and part of you's not." Tom turned her carefully, his face uneasy.
"Yes."
"Why did you come with me?"
"I didn't want to come," said Ann.
"Why, then?"
"Something made me."
"What?"
"I don't know." Ann's voice was faintly hysterical.
+++
"Now, now, hush, hush," whispered Cecy. "Hush, that's it. Around, around."
They whispered and rustled and rose and fell away in the dark room, with the music moving and turning them.
"But you did come to the dance," said Tom.
"I did," said Cecy.
"Here." And he danced her lightly out an open door and walked her quietly away from the hall and the music and the people.
They climbed up and sat together in the rig.
"Ann," he said, taking her hands, trembling. "Ann." But the way he said the name it was as if it wasn't her name. He kept glancing into her pale face, and now her eyes were open again. "I used to love you, you know that," he said.
"I know."
"But you've always been fickle and I didn't want to be hurt."
"It's just as well, we're very young," said Ann.
"No, I mean to say, I'm sorry," said Cecy.
"What do you mean?" Tom dropped her hands and stiffened.
The night was warm and the smell of the earth shimmered up all about them where they sat, and the fresh trees breathed one leaf against another in a shaking and rustling.
"I don't know," said Ann.
"Oh, but I know," said Cecy. "You're tall and you're the finest-looking man in all the world. This is a good evening; this is an evening I'll always remember, being with you." She put out the alien cold hand to find his reluctant hand again and bring it back, and warm it and hold it very tight.
"But," said Tom, blinking, "tonight you're here, you're there. One minute one way, the next minute another. I wanted to take you to the dance tonight for old times' sake. I meant nothing by it when I first asked you. And then, when we were standing at the well, I knew something had changed, really changed, about you. You were different. There was something new and soft, something..." He groped for a word. "I don't know, I can't say. The way you looked. Something about your voice. And I know I'm in love with you again."
"No," said Cecy. "With me, with we."
"And I'm afraid of being in love with you," he said. "You'll hurt me again."
"I might," said Ann.
No, no, I'd love you with all my heart! thought Cecy. Ann, say it to him, say it for me. Say you'd love him with all your heart.
Ann said nothing.
Tom moved quietly closer and put his hand up to hold her chin. "I'm going away. I've got a job a hundred miles from here. Will you miss me?"
"Yes," said Ann and Cecy.
"May I kiss you good-bye, then?"
"Yes," said Cecy before anyone else could speak.
He placed his lips to the strange mouth. He kissed the strange mouth and he was trembling.
Ann sat like a white statue.
"Ann!" said Cecy. "Move your arms, hold him!"
She sat like a carved wooden doll in the moonlight.
Again he kissed her lips.
"I do love you," whispered Cecy. "I'm here, it's me you saw in her eyes it's me, and I love you if she never will."
He moved away and seemed like a man who had run a long distance. He sat beside her. "I don't know what's happening. For a moment there..."
"Yes?" asked Cecy.
"For a moment I thought -" He put his hands to his eyes. "Never mind. Shall I take you home now?"
"Please," said Ann Leary.
+++
He clucked to the horse, snapped the reins tiredly, and drove the rig away. They rode in the rustle and slap and motion of the moonlit rig in the still early, only eleven o'clock spring night, with the shining meadows and sweet fields of clover gliding by.
And Cecy, looking at the fields and meadows, thought, 'It would be worth it, it would be worth everything to be with him from this night on.' And she heard her parents' voices again, faintly, "Be careful. You wouldn't want to lose your magical powers, would you - married to a mere mortal? Be careful. You wouldn't want that."
Yes, yes, thought Cecy, even that I'd give up, here and now, if he would have me. I wouldn't need to roam the spring nights then, I wouldn't need to live in birds and dogs and cats and foxes, I'd need only to be with him. Only him. Only him.
The road passed under, whispering.
"Tom," said Ann at last.
"What?" He stared coldly at the road, the horse, the trees, the sky, the stars.
"If you're ever, in years to come, at any time, in Green Town, Illinois, a few miles from here, will you do me a favour?"
"Perhaps."
"Will you do me the favour of stopping and seeing a friend of mine?" Ann Leary said this haltingly, awkwardly.
"Why?"
"She's a good friend. I've told her of you. I'll give you her address. Just a moment." When the rig stopped at her farm she drew forth a pencil and paper from her small purse and wrote in the moonlight, pressing the paper to her knee. "There it is. Can you read it?"
He glanced at the paper and nodded bewilderedly.
"Cecy Elliott, 12 Willow Street, Green Town, Illinois," he said.
"Will you visit her someday?" asked Ann.
"Someday," he said.
"Promise?"
"What has this to do with us?" he cried savagely. "What do I want with names and papers?" He crumpled the paper into a tight ball and shoved it in his coat.
"Oh, please promise!" begged Cecy.
"... promise..." said Ann.
"All right, all right, now let me be!" he shouted.
+++
I'm tired, thought Cecy. I can't stay I have to go home. I'm weakening. I've only the power to stay a few hours out like this in the night, travelling, travelling. But before I go...
"... before I go," said Ann.
She kissed Tom on the lips.
"This is me kissing you," said Cecy.
Tom held her off and looked at Ann Leary and looked deep, deep inside. He said nothing, but his face began to relax slowly, very slowly, and the lines vanished away, and his mouth softened from its hardness, and he looked deep again into the moonlit face held here before him.
Then he put her off the rig and without so much as a good night was driving swiftly down the road.
Cecy let go.
Ann Leary, crying out, released from prison, it seemed, raced up the moonlit path to her house and slammed the door.
+++
Cecy lingered for only a little while. In the eyes of a cricket she saw the spring night world. In the eyes of a frog she sat for a lonely moment by a pool. In the eyes of a night bird she looked down from a tall, moon-haunted elm and saw the light go out in two farmhouses, one here, one a mile away. She thought of herself and her family, and her strange power, and the fact that no one in the family could ever marry any one of the people in this vast world out here beyond the hills.
"Tom?" Her weakening mind flew in a night bird under the trees and over deep fields of wild mustard. "Have you still got the paper, Tom? Will you come by someday, some year, sometime, to see me? Will you know me then? Will you look in my face and remember then where it was you saw me last and know that you love me as I love you, with all my heart for all time?"
She paused in the cool night air, a million miles from towns and people, above farms and continents and rivers and hills. "Tom?" Softly.
Tom was asleep. It was deep night; his clothes were hung on chairs or folded neatly over the end of the bed. And in one silent, carefully upflung hand upon the white pillow, by his head, was a small piece of paper with writing on it. Slowly, slowly, a fraction of an inch at a time, his fingers closed down upon and held it tightly. And he did not even stir or notice when a blackbird, faintly, wondrously, beat softly for " moment against the clear moon crystals of the windowpane, then, fluttering quietly, stopped and flew away toward the east, over the sleeping earth.
Conclusion
This was a wonderful story. I hope that reprinting it here gave you, the reader, some pleasure in our crazy, mad and strange world.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
All over the internet you can see advice on what a woman looks for in a man, and what a man looks for in a woman. There are many such articles. Most are subjective and have cultural, regional and ethnic biases. Here is what I, as an American man looks for in a woman regardless as to what her race is, what culture she is from, and her age….
Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.
Introduction
When I was younger I didn’t really know what to look for in a woman. My ideas of beauty and relationships came from popular movies, television and the magazines of the time.
In fact, my uncles made fun of my first girlfriend because she was so very thin and petite. They told me “she’s too thin. Trust me, you want a girl with meat on her bones…“. I didn’t believe them then, but I can totally see the point that they were trying to make. Their wives (my aunties) were all hourglass-shaped with impressive chests.
My father told me once “Look at the girls mother to see what she will be like when she gets older”. Again, I had no clue what he was talking about. Now… well, let’s say that I fully understand the point that he was trying to make. No, it’s not a direct correlation, but there is a genetic component that cannot be ignored.
The List
Over the years I have learned and experienced various things. This has led me to come up with a few conclusions about relationships. Especially my own. When a man, such as myself, thinks about a woman we look at number of key features. These features are important. In fact they are critically important.
Appearance
Sex
Domestic Concern
Companionship
Personality
Self Confidence
Respect
Family Devotion
Spirituality
Shared Values
Of course, there are many other factors that we could include here. But, this is not intended to be an exhaustive study, or some kind of PC narrative. Let’s consider what I, myself, look for in women. This is my list. The things in it are absolutely critical. You take one item out from that list, and there will be no relationship. Period.
But, I’m not other people. So if you want to generate your own list and criteria for comparisons, go straight ahead. I’m not going to stop you. This is my list, and these are my comparisons…
[1] A Woman’s Appearance
A man looks for a woman that he is physically attracted to.
Is this a truth or what? I have read some websites on the internet, obviously from a woman’s perspective, and they don’t even list appearance as a criteria. Yet it is perhaps the most important, and the most common NO MATTER WHERE YOU LIVE. Girls in Zambia Africa will get all dressed up and perfect, as will women in Communist China.
All over the world, women have bodies that scream “look at me”.
Appearance is the first thing that a man looks for in a woman. This might sound so trivial in today’s modern progressive narrative, but it is a biologically proven fact. So, if you still want to believe in fantasies, Peter Rabbit, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, you can leave.
Sorry, but it has to be said. The good news is, every man is attracted to a different type of woman and has his own personal tastes. Meaning, I am in no way suggesting a woman has to fit a certain image of ‘beauty’ in order to be considered ‘wife material.’
But, as is true for both men and women, there needs to be a physical attraction between two partners to kick off a relationship, which also plays an important part in holding it together.-The Good Man Project
We men want a woman who we are attracted to.
Attraction has to do with a combination of [1] physical shape, [2] physical appearance, [3] personal grooming, and [4] behavior.
I have seen women who have “rockin’” bodies, who dress like trailer-park trash, and were a total turn off. I have seen women who look good and yet sound like a foul-mouthed sailor when they speak. I have seen women who didn’t know how to walk in high heels and went clunk-clunk-clunk as they walked down the street. Yuck!
This might be surprising, but us guys really like to look at women. I really don’t know why.
It’s not a sexual thing. Oh, I suppose that some assholes like to make cat-calls and holler at the ladies, but for the most of us we are just content to watch the girls come and go. In fact, if the restaurant has a lot of women inside, I am drawn to eating there. It’s a male quirk I guess.
That being said, some things often minor things can really detract from a woman’s appearance. For instance, I have seen beautiful women, who walked and carry themselves well, wearing black high heel shoes with the red under-sole. Only to have a big white price tag sticker on the bottom.
Instead of watching her, and the way she walks, you end up focusing on that stupid price tag on the bottom of her shoe. Talk about distraction away from the image form!
Remember, appearance is more than just physical shape. It is also about grooming and attitude. Here’s a Chinese girl dressed in a simple dress. She is clean and well-groomed. Her hair is clean. Her overall appearance is positive and nice. Who wouldn’t want to be with her?
I am not talking about it in a sexual way either. I am saying that she seems so nice. I would just love to take her to a coffee house and share a cheese cake with her. She would be nice to stroll along the boardwalk with. Wouldn’t you like to play in a casino with her? Come on!
In general, men and women are about the same in this regards. A woman wants a man that takes care of his appearance. She wants him to be well groomed, clean, and neat. She wants him to be tidy; to wear clean clothes and have good manners.
I think both men and women are the same in this regard.
Men are the same. We look for a woman that also takes care of their appearance. We like the women in our lives to be well-groomed, clean and tidy. Look at this beauty. Man! What a kind smile. She looks right at you and that mouth is so sweet. What is not to love?
Now, let it be well known that there are a wide range of American female body styles that I personally find quite alluring. This includes tall leggy women, to short chubby cuties. I think that many would be amazed at the things that they do, act, dress, or look like that I find amazingly attractive.
So I am not going to bad-mouth any of the particularly awesome women that live in America. I tell you the truth, there are some American women that think that they aren’t that good looking, that I would die to be with. For instance…
When I lived in Boston, there was a 30-something woman who worked in a brick-a-brack store in Brookline.
She was very curvy, and maybe wore a size 18. She had shaved her hair really short, and wore really red lipstick. Not my type. Yet, I had such the hots for her. OMG! Every-time I tried to talk with her, I would get so flustered. She hadn't a clue how mesmerized I was for her.
It is sort of like how a woman who looks at my shoulders (and arms) and wonders how nice it would be to rest their head there and be held. I too look at women in this way. However, I think more in terms of having my head resting on their chest softly, and their fingers in my hair.
Men and women are more similar than we will admit to in public.
All this being said, I don’t like to be with a girl that is heavier than I am. It’s a personal preference. I also am not really attracted to a woman who is taller than I am either. I don’t know why, it just doesn’t do anything for me. We all have likes and dislikes. Mine are strong, please do not be offended;
I don’t like to be with a woman that is heavier than I am.
I am uncomfortable with a woman that is taller than I am.
I also am a little skiddish about polydactylism. It’s not that I am revolted if the girl has seven fingers on each hand, but I’m a little freaked out about it.
I feel like this is similar to a woman that doesn’t want a man that is shorter than she is. Or that doesn’t want a man with a bald spot on the top of his head. Or, maybe a man that has a big scraggly beard that is full of crumbs and such. Or, maybe a man that chews chewing tobacco.
Men and women, we all have our preferences.
[2] Having Sex
Honestly, you have to be a fucking moron not to realize that men want sex.
Heck, it’s more that just that. We need it. It is genetically programmed into males and become the focus of everything that we do. From what career we enter, to what cars we drive, to how much money we make. The driving force behind it all is getting sex. Smart women understand this.
Any man who says that he doesn’t need, like or want sex, is either lying or homosexual. It is never the truth because sexual needs, and preferences are genetically encoded by the male chromosome. If you do not understand this, study biology 101.
What? You think that the woman’s “biological clock” is imaginary? It’s a well-known fact of life that transcends society and national boundaries.
Men and males have the same thing. Except is is called “the need to reproduce”.
This is how it works. Once we find an attractive woman that raises our interest, the very next thing we wonder about is having sex with her.
That is the way it is, and no SJW rewriting of culture is going to change the biology of males. In a way we are just like dogs and are led about by our “pecker” all the time. Smart women know this. Smarter women use it, and profit from it in numerous ways.
Online porn is not a multi-billion industry for nothing.
Prostitution still exists because men are men, no matter how hard society, religion and zealots try to stamp it out. Men are males with fundamental male interests and needs.
That being said, sex is an individual experience. What might be fantastic for one fellow, might be terribly boring for another. That is why there are fetishes.
Some men like big boobs, others like big asses, and still others like big feet. Some men are mesmerized by a nice set of legs, while others like strange and unusual sexual positions. And yes, some men really like huge women, and others like small tiny ladies. Everyone is different.
It doesn’t JUST vary from person to person, but from culture to culture.
Oh, and by the way, women like sex just as much as men do. It’s just cultural in how it manifests. For example, here is a cartoon discussing relationships between and man and woman in Thailand. LOL.
[3] Domestic Care & Concern
Here is where I sound like an old foggy-head man. However, a woman who is control of her home, tends to be in control of her life.
A woman who is in control of her home is in control of her life.
When I see that she takes care of her clothes, makes sure that the house is well run, ordered and that she knows how to cook, I start to get really interested in her. You see, in my mind, a woman who is in control of her life, would also be able to take control of my life as well.
Men will give their LIFE, their MONEY, and their very BEING to a woman deserving of it.
I once went on a date with a woman. She was nice, and attractive. To get ready for the date, I of course was presentable and clean, and I made sure that the car was washed and detailed. I picked her up. I then opened the door for her and buckled her in. (This was America, I'd never do it in China.) And we went off.
During the drive she pulled out some chewing gum and was chewing it. You know, for a pleasant tasting mouth. But, you know, she did something disturbing to me. She threw the chewing gum wrapper on my nice newly cleaned floor...
Later, after dinner, she couldn't find her lipstick, and emptied her purse on the table, and had to sort through old scraps of paper, receipts and brick-a-bract. The date ended, and we went our separate ways.
We had fun, but I never wanted to be back with her again. You know, she probably doesn't understand why.
Men need a companion that they can turn to, rely upon, and have a family with. This means responsibility. We need a good strong willed woman without baggage and problems. Seriously, isn’t that what women look for also?
Now, of course, most modern and "liberated" women don't think like this in the Untied States. They are "independent". They can get and have their own careers, and live their own lives. Sure they can. And, be childless and unmarried into their 40's.
The cost of being a "liberated" American female is quite steep.
It is not reality.
It is an artificially constructed narrative to seduce people into certain set behaviors. If you want to see what works for couples, then look at how families are set up in Africa. Look at how families are run in Poland. Look at how families exist in China. Five thousand years of experience won’t lie.
A traditional life WORKS. Most men WANT a traditional long-term relationship. They will give everything for it.
I fear many men, especially those afraid "to make the leap" in marriage are not convinced or ready to allow a woman to take over part or all of his life.
For a man, this is a BIG commitment.
He is not only letting the woman into his life, but he is giving her access forever to all that he earns. He is allowing her to dictate and instruct him on behavior, dress, and recreation. If the man is truly in love, and if he believes that this woman can take on that domestic role; she will GET EVERYTHING he can offer.
When a man gets married, he should be ready to share his life. This often means letting your wife take over portions of it so you no longer have to. A good, and strong, woman will be able to manage the home. If she can manage the home, she can help the man become a success.
We have a saying that goes something a little like this; “Behind every successful man is a strong woman.”
As I get older, I see how true this is. My friends who are all very successful, all have strong and well-organized wives. They all also have relinquished some things to the wife in exchange for her domestic support. This includes [1] all of the finances. [2] What he eats. [3] How he dresses. [4] His exercises, and [5] how they relate to family matters.
Oh, and please forget that nonsense Hollywood narrative of what a traditional conservative woman is. (Where a traditional woman wears Amish style hats, and lives a life right out of the “The Handmaids Tale”.) That is propaganda. Do you, yes YOU, personally know anyone that is really like this? You don’t. That’s my point. It is an artificial narrative. It’s all Bull Shit.
Today, a conservative wife might have a body covered in tattoos, ear and nose rings and purple hair. She will wear leggings, take selfies on the smart-phone, and have multiple university degrees. My Lord, it isn’t about appearances. It’s about what is inside.
That is true. It is about what is inside. It is the light that resides inside the woman’s body that that special man can see and can appreciate. yes it is. It is all about the energy that lies inside…
Chinese women, as well as African, Polish, Russian, and Indian women don’t sit around watching the boob-tube, or play games on the cell-phone all day long. They do what ever is necessary to make THEIR household a success.
The manage the fiances.
They budget the household.
They allocate resources to jointly improve their standard of living.
They make sure everyone is eating well and healthy.
They are a model for their community and familial relations.
They make sure that the husband has everything he needs.
They push and help the husband grow as a provider.
They instruct the husband on how to behave, and act.
They make sure that the husband is presentable and carries himself well.
While they do occasionally play games, take selfies and have fun, their primary role is as a family manager. Traditional women are like full-on lionesses.
Over the years, in America, this has become treated like some kind of joke on contemporary television, on collage campuses, and in female magazines. That is a real shame. Because when both the husband and the wife work together for their family anything is possible. I tell you the truth. This is a fact. All of my friends that are successful work hand-in-hand with their wives in this manner.
Their wives take care of them.
They (the wives) set the pace, they control the family fiances. They establish the diet. They determine where to live. They set the goals. They establish the direction. The man in turn, give his everything to his wife in the complete 100% loyal trust that she will get both of them where they both want to be. For if you really do this, anything is possible.
[4] Companionship
I always look for companionship when I see a woman who interests me. I wonder if they would they be fun and interesting to be with. I wonder if this woman would be THE woman who I can devote my time with.
I always look for companionship when I see a woman who interests me. I wonder if they would they be fun and interesting to be with. I wonder if we could talk about really deep and interesting subjects. I wonder if they would be willing to share in my hobbies. I look for companions.
This is true for most men.
Now, most women are confused with what this means. They search for romance. They could care less about companionship. This is sad, because romance comes from companionship.
Romance is spawned from companionship.
My wife and I took a trip to Thailand, and while on a drinking binge, the taxi driver drove us to the middle of no where and abandoned us there. We had to struggle and make our way back to the hotel. That bungle was an adventure, but my wife well remembers the rural village BBQ meal as the dawn broke through the clouds, and the orange light that shined on our toes in the sand. Romantic times are unplanned. They come from companionship.
Every man that I know (with cultural differences, of course) looks for a companion. We feel empty inside without a companion; a special friend that we can share our life with. This is so very important. Forget the James Dean Rebel narrative. All men need a special lady in his life. This lady is a person that he is very comfortable with and one that he wants to obtain experiences and adventures with.
The idea that men are worthless and useless, especially white traditional Americans, is a progressive narrative. It has been around since the late 1970’s, but has really picked up speed during the Bill Clinton years, and completely got out of hand during the Obama years. This narrative has been promoted in the American media and software for quite some time. Check out this screen capture;
[5] A Woman’s Personality
Another thing that guys look for in a woman is personality. We are attracted to kindness, softness, sweetness, and compassion.
This is such a true statement that I feel that I need to repeat it. We are attracted to kindness. We are attracted to softness. We are attracted to sweetness. We are attracted to compassion.
When I come across a particularly militant American woman, I am immediately repelled. Especially when that person wants to lecture me on “white privilege” or some kind of populist nonsense that other weaker men accept. Don’t be a ugly bullyish brute of a woman. It’s not becoming.
Become the ideal. Your life is within your hands.
To be honest, when I meet a woman and I get to know them, I am looking for companionship. I look for kindness. I look for care. I wonder how they treat animals, and the waitress. I watch how they behave around others, and what they think about things.
When I meet a new woman, I wonder if they would like to accompany me for dinner, dancing, and any of the hobbies that I love to partake in. Since I love wine, a non-drinker and myself might not fit together well. Since I love animals, when I am talking to a woman, I wonder if they would also be part of my life with dogs and cats. Since I love tomatoes, bacon, and gardens I wonder what their thoughts are on these subjects.
The personality that a woman has eventually dominates a man’s interest. In other words, while a man is firstly attracted to a woman’s look, and sexual appeal, it is her personality that will keep him by her side forever.
Never forget this. A kind personality will be the glue when the stresses of life become too unbearable.
[6] Self Confidence
One of the most important traits for both men and women is self-confidence. This is something that is hard to describe, but is fundamental to success in life.
The truth is that I am not at all handsome, but women are interested in spending time with me. When I ask them why, they tell me that it is for other reasons. They just chuckle, and smile. They say I’m being silly. Sometimes they push me on my chest and say “oh, you know why!“.
I chalk up the reasons to being positive, happy, interesting and having good self-confidence.
Because that is exactly what turns me on in a woman.
When I take a woman out, I want to be able to talk about things. I want to be able to talk about tomato plants, favorite foods, dogs and cats, and thoughts about life. I want to be with a person that isn’t so fucking sensitive that I am afraid of being who I am. I want to be accepted for me, and if you don’t like it, to Hell with you. The same goes double for women.
I would NEVER tell a woman that she shouldn’t eat dessert because she needed to count her calories. I would never order for a woman unless she specifically asks that I do so. I would never say anything hurtful to her in public, or in private. Any arguments that we might have would be honest, and intentionally scripted to avoid emotional out-lash. As such, I would not tolerate sitting down with a woman who wanted to lecture me on the injustices of the world. No one likes a scold. Really.
No one.
People with confidence typically try to help others. They don’t try to change anyone. This is because they are happy with who they are, and other people do not factor in their personalities. People with low self esteem are the opposite. They feel that they have to control everything around them.
Men and women want to be around people with high self confidence. They will be accepted by them as they are without question.
[7] Respect
I have dated American women who have berated me in public. I have seen them talk bad about me behind my back. I have seen them make jokes about me. I have seen them be rude to me to my face. I have seen them think it was fun making fun of me while I just sat there and took it.
That was years ago. Now I know better. Now I know my place in this world; good or bad, right or wrong. I just don’t tolerate that nonsense like I used to. No more.
Today, now; my tolerance for this nonsense is zero.
Let me explain. Let’s begin with a story about an experience I had while I was working at GM. This story illustrates that different places has different cultures, and failure to understand and adapt to that culture can have serious consequences.
In this case, the story revolves around the public display of a lack of respect of a wife towards her husband.
I once was involved in some business in Brazil. As such, I had to travel back and forth between the United States and Brazil. I was, at that time, working for Delco Electronics (It's who we are), which was (at that time) a division of General Motors. I was involved in a Car computer project (ECM) for CEV, which is a pretty big Automotive company within Brazil.
This event took place in Brazil.
One day, all of the foreigners on staff were invited to a big banquet with other white-collar workers at CEV. We had some pretty important people from GM there. It was held in a big auditorium within a equally impressively large restaurant and hotel complex. Everyone sat at these very large round tables with a nice table layout on a large white tablecloth. Each couple (for the most part, everyone came as a couple) would sit in groups of two at the table. Thus, maybe five to 6 couples would sit at the table.
At a given cue, all the ladies (the wives and girlfriends) got up and went to the buffet to get their man (husbands or boyfriends) dinner. They got up, went to the buffet, selected what their husbands would eat, and returned to the table. They would place the plate in front of their man with respect, and then go up and get their own food.
The men would accept the meal their wife chose for them, and began eating it. They would sit there and eat, while all the ladies were fussing about their food, and making sure that the man's plate was full. They, each one, was particularly careful in what they selected for their man's plate. Some wives selected mostly vegetables, while others made sure that the man had goodly portions of meat.
However, the local section manager, a man who came from Michigan, well his wife refused to go up. He kept on elbowing her. She refused. And everyone at the table noticed. In fact, people at the other tables were noticing as well. They started talking. But she was adamant.
She said things like "you're not my boss", "I'm not doing it, uh uh, absolutely not. No!", and "I don't care what other people think. Do it yourself.".
Eventually, he got up and joined the rest of the ladies at the buffet counter. He was the only man to get up. He was the only man to carry a plate back to the table. He was alone in the big hall that maybe held a few hundred key employees of the company.
All of the key employees, the bosses and the supervisory staff, watched him do this. The President of CEV, the division managers, all the middle level managers, the supervisors, and all the engineers, and their secretaries all witnessed this. They all noticed and ate. Their local conversations at their tables became subdued and quieter.
Meanwhile, his wife sat there smugly and proudly. They ate in silence. The wife, sitting proud and strong. He sat there facing his plate and afraid to look up. This happened in front of everyone, while everyone else in the room kept glancing their way.
The dinner ended. Everyone went home.
The next workday, on Monday, he noticed that his parking space was being used by someone else. (Unless you have worked in GM, you don't know how important this is.) He went into the lobby, and the guards wouldn't look at him, and just waved him in. This was a big change from what he accustomed to.
It continued. His secretary didn't come in. Then, started coming in very late. She would not do anything that he asked. No longer would she make him a morning coffee. No longer would she answer him, or even talk to him.
No one responded to his emails. His work was getting piled up. Nothing was getting done. After a month, it got so bad, and I was sent down to look into the matter, as I held an important role in the joint-venture project. Our Division manager wanted me to look into this issue as it looked like the entire multi-million dollar project might collapse. That's right, millions of dollars of corporate investment was at risk.
So I flew down.
I talked to XXXXX. I talked to his secretary. I talked to the CEV Division Manager. I talked to the rest of the staff.
At first no one would open up. Oh, sure they were friendly to me. They showed me deference. They treated me well. But when it came to the subject about what was going on, everyone shut up. Obviously something was wrong. But no one told me anything.
Eventually, to make a long story short, I went out and started drinking with the CEV workers. That's always a great way to break down barriers and get to the heart of the matter. Of course, GM never approves of drinking, but this was back in the late 1980's and I was in another country and immersed in another culture.
Over some beers, the first person who let me know what was going on was his secretary. She looked at me straight in the eyes. She put out her cigarette. And she said in her broken English, loudly with defiance and pure hate;
"Why? You ask. Why? Because he's a fucking wimp. He's not, NOT, N-O-T a Man. He's castrado!"
Then she spit on the floor. Now granted, most ladies don't go to bars, smoke and spit on the floor. But she had a few beers, and was really agitated.
She wasn't just angry. She wasn't just pissed. She had this kind of deep burning ember of a rage that amazed me when it came out. I thought she was going to tear my throat out. She spoke viciously. She spoke in a way that the words were spit out venomously.
It turned out that in Brazilian culture, the man must be the MAN of the house. It is a very traditional nation and has unspoken social rules. One of which is that the woman must look good for her man. She must do great things for their Man, and for her family.
In Brazil, the Man is the titular head of the family. He controls everything. He is the "face" of the family. He is what everyone sees. However, the wife has full control over what goes on inside the house. She is the driving force that strengthens the man.
The Man is the head of the family, and he must LEAD. If he cannot be a Man; if he cannot act like a Man, and if he cannot control the behavior of his wife and family, then he is a loser.
in Brazil, you do not want to associate with losers. Not in the least. It is like being a leper.
The point in this is that he wasn't just a wimp to his wife. He was a wimp to society. From the secretary's point of view, she went from being a high assistant to an international boss, to the slave of a beggar. No, to someone worse than a beggar. Her status in the company fell right off the cliff.
Not only that, but that was true of everyone who associated with him. It was as if he had a serious contagious illness. no one wanted anything to do with him. No one would even talk to him.
It was like he was a child predator who had aids.
Shortly after that, I returned back to Indiana and talked with the Division Manager at Delco. We had a long and interesting talk. To cut down on all the details, let it be understood that my boss sent him back to the States. His two year stint in Brazil was cut short.
He was only there for four months.
Now, this is important. The thing is, when he returned home, there was no role for him to fill. His old job and position was already filled. He was a high-priced expensive executive with no home. Yes, for a short while they put him on "overhead", but eventually he was told to leave. They gave him a severance package. And that was it.
Years later, I heard that he spent a few years unemployed. He could never go back to GM, and his experience was too specialized. Eventually he took up contract work at a much lower pay grade. I do not know what happened since then, except that I know that he had to give up his free car, and had to sell the house at a loss. I do know that he moved into a small apartment later on. And, well, that's about all I know about him and his situation.
+++
What does this all mean?
A good wife can make a man into a strong leader. He can become important, successful and wealthy. His family would profit and benefit. His life, and the lives of all those around him would improve. A weak or poor wife would do the opposite. A bad woman can destroy the life of the man that she is with. This can be through destruction of his self-esteem (which needs to be maintained for career success) to improperly managing family finances, to everything in between.
Men, choose your wives carefully.
In my little story, a true one at that, Mr. XXXXXX ‘s wife not only destroyed his role (and great career opportunity) in Brazil, but also wiped out his stable career at GM. Unable to find work, he had to settle for a different kind of labor, one without a career, without any kind of advancement. I am sure that his piece-of-shit wife berated him the entire time. Telling him what a loser he was for his life, and not taking responsibility for all the destruction that she herself, wrecked.
People. This is real life. This is not a television show. This is not a movie. This is not all unicorns prancing under a progressive rainbow, where gay people, and LGBT folk are all living in united harmony. This is the real frigging’ deal.
Learn, from my experiences, or don’t.
What does this mean?
Different societies have different roles for men and women. This is an important part of culture. When you come from one society where washing your ass with your left hand is acceptable, you might have trouble adapting to a society where you shake everyone’s left hand. Yikes!
Over the years, I have lived in numerous non-American societies where the man is treated very special. I had a girlfriend from Zambia, Africa who would prepare my dinner like I was the Head of State.
She would get dressed up after she cooked my meal, with makeup and attire, and feed me while I sat at the table like a King.
After making sure that I was well fed, she would clean up afterwards. While I sat there drinking my after dinner coffee.
Once you experience first-rate care, love and concern, you no longer tolerate anything less.
I had a girlfriend from Mexico that always made sure that I was well fed, and insisted that I am comfortable in “my” chair. In fact she guarded it so that no one else would be able to use it. She was there for me, how can I say this, on demand (if you catch my drift).
Once you experience first-rate care, love and concern, you no longer tolerate anything less.
My Chinese wife selects the food I eat, the clothes I wear, and the exercise I do. She wants me to be better than everyone else. She makes sure that I am up to it. She is strong like a tiger in this regard.
She treats me like a powerful mob boss. And, when I leave the house, I act that way in public.
Once you experience first-rate care, love and concern, you no longer tolerate anything less.
Yet, when I visit the United States, I see women acting just horrible. It is as if there is a war on males in the United States. It is disgusting.
To me, it is actually horrifying, as typically the women doing this look like big white water buffalo’s to me, acting like mean and horrible white-trash. They look like they belong on Jerry Springer, more than walking on the public street.
As someone who is used and accustomed to being treated well by extremely beautiful women, I do not tolerate being treated poorly. This is most especially true for any woman that is not up to par in my (personal) attractiveness scale.
Once you experience first-rate care, love and concern, you no longer tolerate anything less.
I am not alone in this. This goes for all Americans who have traveled outside the Untied States. So, in my world, and in my reality, you can either adapt or leave. There is no room for the lowest common denominator.
American women really need to “up their game”.
American men need to stay away from disrespect in all forms.
When both men and women are single, their interests are directed towards other things. The woman wants to be attractive, have fun, and maybe work on a career. A man, working on a career, have fun, and meet girls. Once both get married that all changes. They now have a family and together their family needs both of their attention.
This ability to focus on a family is not something that you learn about on a first date. It is something you discover over time and over numerous dates. The woman discovers just how comfortable the man would be letting her run things. The man discovers whether or not this girl is THE one who can build up a family for him.
It is not only about raising children, working on career goals, a devotion to the elders in the family and a shared sense of adventure. It is also about every aspect of a family. Just how willing is the woman to devote to building up a family, creating a home out of a house and just how important she places a family life in her scale of things.
Here is a transcription of a woman lamenting her decision to forego building a family and instead having a career. Read it and cry.
Every Wednesday, the second hour of my national radio show is the “Male/Female Hour.” A few weeks ago, a woman named Jennifer called in.
For reasons of space, I have somewhat shortened her comments. Every young woman should read them. This is precisely what she said:
“Dennis, I want to get right to it. I’m 50 years old with four college degrees. I was raised by a feminist mother with no father in the home. My mother told me get an education to the maximum level so that you can get out in the world, make a lot of money. And that’s the path I followed. I make adequate money. I don’t make a ton of money. But I do make enough to support my own household.
“I want to tell women in their 20s: Do not follow the path that I followed. You are leading yourself to a life of loneliness. All of your friends will be getting married and having children, and you’re working to compete in the world, and what you’re doing is competing with men.
"Men don’t like competitors. Men want a partner. It took me until my late 40s to realize this.
“And by the time you have your own household with all your own bills, you can’t get off that track, because now you’ve got to make the money to pay your bills. It’s hard to find a partner in your late 40s to date because you also start losing self-confidence about your looks, your body.
"It’s not the same as it was in your 20s.
"You try to do what you can to make your life fulfilling. I have cats and dogs. But it’s lonely when you see your friends having children, going on vacations, planning the lives of their children, and you don’t do anything at night but come home to your cats and dogs. I don’t want other women to do what I have done.”
I asked, “Was it hard for you to make this call?”
She responded: “It was. I want to be anonymous because I don’t want people that I know to really know my true feelings. Because you do act like ‘My career is everything. I love working.’ But it’s a lie on the inside for me. It’s unfortunate. I didn’t realize this until it’s too late. I don’t know if it’s too late. I would like to find somebody to go on vacation with.
“You have other concerns when you get older and you live alone. Who’s going to take you to your medical appointments? If something should happen to you, there’s no other income there to help you. These are things you don’t understand when you’re in your 20s because you don’t think you’ll ever get old and have health problems.
“I’m stuck now because I go to work every day. I smile like I love it, but it’s very painful to not plan a vacation with someone. It’s painful to not have a Thanksgiving dinner with someone. You sit home alone and you do nothing. I avoid my friends now that have children because I have nothing in common with them.
“Somebody asked me the other day, ‘Why did you stay single and never have kids?’ There’s answers: Because I was brainwashed by my mother into this. But it’s hard and it’s shameful to tell people, ‘I don’t know. I ran out of time.’
“There’s not a good answer for it except: ‘I was programmed to get into the workforce, compete with men, and make money.’ Supposedly, that would be a fulfilling life. But I was told that by a feminist mother who was divorced, who hated her husband—my father.
“She tried to steer me on what she thought was the right path, but feminism is a lie. That’s what I want women to know.
“I didn’t realize this until late in life. I want to tell women: Find someone in your 20s. That’s when you’re still very cute. That’s when you’re still amiable to working out problems with someone. It’s harder in your 50s, when you’ve lived alone, to compromise with someone, to have someone in your home and every little thing about them annoys you because you’re so used to being alone. It’s hard to undo that, so don’t do what I did. Find someone in your 20s.”
I said, “I’m thinking of transcribing your call and making it a column.”
“Do that, Dennis. I want to help whoever I can,” she said.
-From the Daily Signal.
A man looks for a partner. He searches for someone to make his life COMPLETE. He looks for a life partner. It is biologically programmed into him.
A devoted woman will do whatever it takes to make the family work.
Here’s two micro videos showing hard-working, but poorer girls, supporting their families and building their homes. For in China, the man MUST work, and the woman MUST take care of the family. Many times, that means building of finishing up a home while the man works far away.
A woman does what ever it takes. She is fearless. She is capable. Help her and empower her. You will receive blessings on your life beyond compare.
Let me explain these videos.
Many times a couple will get married in a poor village. The husband would have to accept a job in a far away city, while the wife stays home. Many times the wife would get the paychecks from the working husband and use that money to build their home. This is not at all uncommon.
She would take this money and budget it.
First thing on the agenda would be building and making a house. Sure she might get help from uncles and classmates. However, ultimately, much of the work would be up to her. So many of those houses in rural China were physically made by wives in support of their families.
People! This is what a traditional family looks like.
The man works and the woman stays home and takes care of the family. For young families, the man works like crazy in far away cities and sends the bulk of what he makes to his wife. He, in turn, lives either in small dorms or barracks or, alternatively inside very tiny apartments like this one…
All the money he makes goes to his wife.
Maybe he will only make a few hundred yuan ($30). All of it goes to his wife. The Chinese women that I know differ from the American women. A Chinese wife would rather have 100% of what her man makes – even if it is only $30, rather than a small portion, say 5% of what he makes. That’s true even if he makes a million dollars.
I don’t quite understand it. Really. Because the millionaire would give the wife more money than a mere $30. It doesn’t make sense economically nor financially. But, there you have it. That is the way it is.
Chinese traditional women demand 100% from their man.
American progressive women look to men as a resource.
Culturally, Chinese women are very different from American women.
It is not a scene out of progressive liberal propaganda out of the American urban enclave. These are not little waifs that huddle in fear, or scenes out of the Handmaid’s Tale. This is real life. This is how the rest of the world lives. Open up your eyes to the reality.
And for Pete’s sake, get your friggin’ nose out of the propaganda being spoon-fed to you by the American elite.
[9] Spirituality
Look for a spiritual woman. I always look for a woman who understands that the universe is bigger than we understand. I look for a woman who can feel the presence of God.
I am a Catholic, but I am not referring to a religious person. I am referring to a spiritual person. My first wife was a Baptist. My second (the one who retired me) was agnostic, but raised as a Catholic. My current wife is a Buddhist. Find a woman who is spiritual.
Check to see if she is really spiritual. Watch how she treats animals. Watch how he feels about tradition, families. Pay attention to the role that she has in her own family. Just how functional or dysfunctional it is. Pay attention.
[10] Shared Values
Finally, I look for a woman that has the same values as I do. We do not have to agree politically, but the fundamentals must be comparative. If I am going to give her 100% of all my money, I should be able to trust her that she won’t use it on coke, crack, and casino trips.
If I am going to devote my life to one singular woman, I expect her to do the same. If I am planning to have a family, I expect her to want a family as well. If I want to travel and have an adventurous life, then I would expect her to want it as well. Alternatively, if I want to have a quiet sedentary life in a rural cottage, I would expect her to want it as well.
Shared dreams, shared values, and shared life are fundamental to a couple’s success.
Conclusions
We, men and women, can be choosy in who we select to be our mate. It is important because your mate, the person you marry, will have the greatest influence in your quality of life. Therefore, we need to choose wisely.
This is true for both men and women.
I live in friggin’ communist China and the women here are extremely attractive, with long beautiful hair, mesmerizing eyes, tight butts and astounding chests, and are very traditional at home. They take care of their man and their family. When I am with these wonderful ladies they treat me like I am a VIP and I am treated like a God. I cannot stress how wonderful being treated special is. Most especially from an amazingly attractive woman. I mean, it is just amazing.
Conversely, many (but thankfully, not all) the women in “free” America look like they belong on the set of Jerry Springer. Are rude, crass, selfish and treat me like a piece of nothing. The differences between women in China is just astounding. I mean, what the heck happened?
For me, and most men would agree, you pick the wife that is suitable for you. Let the rest of the world howl. All that matters is what you decide and the reality that you create.
You can get an ugly, fat, foul-mouthed woman who will constantly make fun of you.
You can be with an attractive, kind, caring and thoughtful woman. She takes care of herself, and will treat you like a king.
You can choose the lady that is most suitable for you. If you cannot find that woman in your town, go to a different town. If you cannot find her there, go else where. Eventually you will find that girl. I promise you.
Finally, here’s a little secret. If you are having trouble, do this. Go to church. Many of the most eligible women attending church. They are God-fearing, traditional women who would make fine, just real fine, wives.
Women in General
There are amazing women all over the world. That includes the United States. It is my belief that the vast bulk of American women are great and kind and wonderful. It is just that the bad ones are so very awful that it makes everyone look bad.
I now live in China. So what I am going to do is post some micro-videos of some attractive and sweet Chinese girls to help illustrate that there is no set “type” of lady that is perfect. Everyone comes in different shapes and sizes. Each one is different and each one has their very own personal charms.
Enjoy.
Women come in all sizes and shapes. They come in all kinds of attitudes and personalities. I love every single one. Please, I urge you the reader not to get too hung up on the media narrative of what is attractive, instead find ladies that appeal to your own sensibilities. You might be surprised how refreshing and pleasant it is…
Here’s another gal. Sorry, but I am in China. So this is all that I have to work with. Here’s another Chinese girl. Isn’t she just adorable?
I am a big sucker for a nice smile and feigned shyness…
The point here is that attractiveness comes in all kinds of shapes and sizes. There is no set standard. If I were to specify some idea on what is attractive, I would have to say that it is the sum total of what a particular woman is. For each woman has their own charms that are displayed uniquely.
I, for one happen to like so many different kinds of women. I like different body types. I like different kinds of attitudes, and I enjoy a big healthy smile. Here is a nice Chinese gal with an impressive chest jumping around and having fun…
Each woman has their own personality. This personality can be seen how they move, and the their selection of the music that they play. Personality is one of the key aspects of attractiveness. Be kind. Be happy. Smile a lot. Let your inner being glow.
The point that I am making here is that there is no set formula on what makes a woman attractive to a man. The woman must be strong, be themselves, be kind. Sooner or later the man that fits her personality will come around. It could be you. So, be the best you can be, and look for a mate that is the best that she is. Together you will have a life that will be marvelous.
Take Aways
Men look for a mate that will best match his needs as a man, and who will be fitting for his future family.
Women who cannot fit within his expectations will need to find other men to be with.
These men, the ones that do not have traditional values, will tend to be short-term affairs or long-term relationships that will not conclude in a marriage. That is because the men’s absolute needs are not being met.
This post lists ten needs that a man has.
FAQ
Q: What if men have different needs than what is listed here? A: That is fine. There are all kinds of people and all kinds of men. It is the difference that are important. Not what makes us all the same. Personally, I don’t like going into a Starbucks in NYC and then going into one in Shenzhen. They are all the same. I like to go to a local pizza establishment in NYC and eating a New York style pizza. I also like going into a family restaurant in Shenzhen and eating some delicious dumplings. It is the differences that are important.
Q: So don’t you think that you are full of Misogyny? Aren’t you just defending the Patriarchy? Aren’t you Cisgender? A: I don’t know. Maybe.
If so, what’s wrong with it? What is it YOUR business?
I don’t hate women. I love women. I love my wife. I love my mother and my sisters. I love my girlfriends, and their friends. Besides, what is wrong with a Patriarchy? Can you explain that?
Your assumptions are all terribly faulted, and you discuss them as if they are proven and have merit. They don’t.
Q: What does “check your privilege” mean? A: In 1998, American feminist and anti-racism activist Peggy McIntosh wrote an essay entitled “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” In McIntosh’s sense, privilege is a set of special provisions that a person acquires — or doesn’t — because of their identity.
If you are a rich, white, heterosexual man, then you’ll have it easier through life than a working-class, lesbian, woman of color. The exhortation to check your privilege became popular on internet blogs dealing with social justice themes as a reminder that we are not all dealt the same hand in life.
What the real truth is that it is an insult, and veiled threat that says “you had it easy in life”. I personally find it extremely insulting. As the person saying this has absolutely no idea what I had to do to get where I am now.
Q: What does Heteronormative mean? A: Heteronormative was coined by the writer and academic Marina Warner in 1991. It means “a world view which regards gender roles as fixed to biological sex. It treats heterosexuality as the normal and preferred sexual orientation.” Which is pretty much an accepted norm globally.
However the intention is to use distorted group think to redefine the narrative and to use this word as an insult. I am a traditional man, and I think that women are attractive to me. This fact, apparently, makes me “heteronormative”.
No problem. So was George Washington. So was Jesus Christ. So was Gandhi. So was Jimmy Carter. So was Bill Clinton. So was Ronald Reagan. So were both my parents and all of my grandparents.
So, a non-heteronormative person is a societal abnormality.
Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are
some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you
might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up
in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society
within communist China. As there are some really stark differences
between the two.
Posts about the Changes in America
America is
going through a period of change. Change is good… that is, after it
occurs. Often however, there are large periods of discomfort as the
period of adjustment takes place. Here are some posts that discuss this
issue.
More Posts about Life
I have
broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones
actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little
different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are
reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly
impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal
library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come
and enjoy a read or two as well.
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
This is a walk down “memory lane” as I relate what it was like growing up as a young boy in the early 1970’s. I was in my early teenage years. I went to school, watched a lot of television, and played with my friends. Enjoy…
Introduction
As strange as it seems, there is very little on the internet about what it was like growing up in the 1960’s and 1970’s. It’s almost as if it was scrubbed from existence. In it’s place we now have the Obama narrative of a racist nation and terrible injustices. That narrative has nothing to do with reality. It is a scripted lie intended to manipulate people into believing something that just isn’t true.
Here, in my own little way, I would like to relate some stories of what it was like for me growing up as a kid. For “shits and giggles” I have chosen the year of 1971. It was the last year that I had as a kid before I had to go out and work at 14 in the coal mines.
This narrative takes place in Western Pennsylvania. We lived in a small town about a two hour drive from Pittsburgh. It was a hilly and tree shaded world, with railroad spur lines that snaked in and out of the hills and crossed over viaducts and into tunnels. I well knew those lines as I would often walk along them with my friends on hikes and adventures.
Visiting my Aunties
Many weekends my parents would drive into Pittsburgh to visit my relatives. Both were from Pittsburgh, though from different areas. We would take turns visiting the families. In the morning we would visit my father’s family, and in the afternoon we would visit my mother’s family.
Often times, there would be other relatives that would come and say hi. I would see my grandparent’s brothers and sisters, my great aunts and uncles, if you will. And I might be persuaded to go with them to their homes. For some reason, the homes always smelled like bacon and cabbage.
There was always a pot of coffee on the stove. If it was cold they would either reheat it or make a fresh pot. The coffee pot was a percolator design. The water would start to boil and would be forced up through a metal straw into a container that held coffee grounds. You could control how strong the coffee was by the amount of ground in the upper container and how long your brewed the coffee. There was this glass bubble on the top of the coffee pot that you could watch to tell if the coffee was ready or not.
They would almost invariably offer me a cup of coffee and a bowl of what ever is cooking on the stove. There was something always cooking. Sometimes it was spaghetti sauce, sometimes it was chili. Sometimes it was “pigs in a blanket” (pork wrapped up in cabbage). Sometimes it was chicken soup. I could always eat my fill when I visited my aunties.
Of course, every single relative had this painting of “the last supper” on the wall in the kitchen / dining room.
Everyone also pretty much listened to the same radio station as well. Each kitchen had this little plastic radio (of vintage electronic tubes) that was perpetually tuned to the AM radio station KDKA. Popular Music would often be heard while we were visiting.
Pop Songs
While I was pretty much listening to Jefro Tull, Traffic and other rock groups, my relatives and classmates enjoyed the popular music of the time. In 1971 we were listening to the following. Notable songs are highlighted in BOLD.
Three Dog Night
Joy To The World
Rod Stewart
Maggie May / (Find A) Reason To Believe
Carole King
It’s Too Late / I Feel The Earth Move
Osmonds
One Bad Apple
Bee Gees
How Can You Mend A Broken Heart
Raiders
Indian Reservation
Donny Osmond
Go Away Little Girl
John Denver
Take Me Home, Country Roads
Temptations
Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)
Dawn
Knock Three Times
Janis Joplin
Me And Bobby McGee
Al Green
Tired Of Being Alone
Honey Cone
Want Ads
Undisputed Truth
Smiling Faces Sometimes
Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose
Treat Her Like A Lady
Rolling Stones
Brown Sugar
James Taylor
You’ve Got A Friend
Jean Knight
Mr. Big Stuff
Lee Michaels
Do You Know What I Mean
Joan Baez
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
Marvin Gaye
What’s Going On
Paul and Linda McCartney
Tom Jones
Bill Withers
Ain’t No Sunshine
Five Man Electrical Band
Signs
Tom Jones
She’s A Lady
Free Movement
I Found Someone Of My Own
Murray Head and The Trinidad Singers
Jesus Christ Superstar
Jerry Reed
Amos Moses
Grass Roots
Temptation Eyes
Carpenters
Superstar
George Harrison
My Sweet Lord / Isn’t It A Pity
Donny Osmond
Sweet And Innocent
Ocean
Put Your Hand In The Hand
Daddy Dewdrop
Chick-A-Boom (Don’t Ya Jes’ Love It)
Carpenters
For All We Know
Gordon Lightfoot
If You Could Read My Mind
Sammi Smith
Help Me Make It Through The Night
Carpenters
Rainy Days And Mondays
Cher
Gypsy, Tramps And Thieves
Jackson 5
Never Can Say Goodbye
Lynn Anderson
Rose Garden
Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds
Don’t Pull Your Love
Ringo Starr
It Don’t Come Easy
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Mr. Bojangles
Fuzz
I Love You For All Seasons
Dramatics
Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get
Carly Simon
That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be
Stevie Wonder
If You Really Love Me
Aretha Franklin
Spanish Harlem
Helen Reddy
I Don’t Know How To Love Him
Osmonds
Yo-yo
Aretha Franklin
Bridge Over Troubled Water
Partridge Family
Doesn’t Somebody Want To Be Wanted
Tommy James
Draggin’ The Line
Ike and Tina Turner
Proud Mary
Chicago
Beginnings / Color My World
Bells
Stay Awhile
Stampeders
Sweet City Woman
Lobo
Me And You And A Dog Named Boo
Paul McCartney
Another Day / Oh Woman, Oh Why
Bread
If
Marvin Gaye
Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)
Brewer and Shipley
One Toke Over The Line
8th Day
She’s Not Just Another Woman
Freda Payne
Bring The Boys Home
Rare Earth
I Just Want To Celebrate
Delaney and Bonnie and Friends
Never Ending Song Of Love
Freddy Hart
Easy Loving
Three Dog Night
Liar
Honey Cone
Stick-up
Mac and Katie Kissoon
Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep
Andy Williams
Love Story (Where Do I Begin)
Cat Stevens
Wild World
Jerry Reed
When You’re Hot, You’re Hot
Beginning Of The End
Funky Nassau
Olivia Newton-John
If Not For You
King Floyd
Groove Me
Bobby Goldsboro
Watching Scotty Grow
Matthews’ Southern Comfort
Woodstock
Judy Collins
Amazing Grace
Dave Edmunds
I Hear You Knocking
Bee Gees
Lonely Days
Fortunes
Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again
Who
Won’t Get Fooled Again
Denise Lasalle
Trapped By A Thing Called Love
Jackson 5
Mama’s Pearl
Buoys
Timothy
Partridge Family
I Woke Up In Love This Morning
Isaac Hayes
Theme From “Shaft”
Gladys Knight and The Pips
If I Were Your Woman
Neil Diamond
I Am..I Said
Paul Stookey
Wedding Song (There Is Love)
Wilson Pickett
Don’t Knock My Love, Pt. 1
Doors
Love Her Madly
Richie Havens
Here Comes The Sun
Wadsworth Mansion
Sweet Mary
Brenda and The Tabulations
Right On The Tip Of My Tongue
Fifth Dimension
One Less Bell To Answer
Doors
Riders On The Storm
Perry Como
It’s Impossible
The song “Maggie May” was played to death, and radio stations in central Indiana were still playing that song long into the 1990’s. Ugh!
Donny Osmond was terribly popular with my sister and all of her girl friends at the time. Her bedroom was covered in pictures of Donny, and she had her class room textbooks covered in “lunch paper” covers decorated with Donny Osmond related praises.
I first heard “The night they drove ol’ Dixie down” when I was riding with my dad in our car. He was involved in technical sales at the time. I would wait in the car and listen to the radio while reading the “Last Whole Earth Catalog“.
Tom Jones was very popular with my mother and the mothers of my friends. He had a kind of sex appeal that really appealed to them.
Jesus Christ Superstarhit my generation hard. I cannot express how big an impact this movie made at my church and at my school. It seemed like every family had the album. I went and saw the play and it was really moving.
I saw Jerry Reed sing “Amos Moses” on “Laugh In” or “Sonny and Cher” I don’t remember which. Both were shows that hosted a mixture of singing, dancing and comedy routines that were quite popular in the day.
The song “Gypsy, Tramps And Thieves” was a big hit by Cher. Most people have forgotten about her today. You hear some blurb on the news every now and then, but she was a big thing back in the day. She was super popular.
The song “Don’t Pull Your Love” was very popular and got a substantial amount of airtime. You probably couldn’t get by a day without hearing that song at least once. Other heavily air-played songs included “Mr. Bojangles“.
Everyone in my school watched the Partridge Family . This was a television show about a family that toured schools all over the country and sang at them. Well, they also had a number of hits, as well as a had a following of fans.
The idea and concept of freedom to explore, of adventure and travel was very popular. The ideals of the 1960’s were fading away, and the 1970’s was a time where people wanted to just go forth and explore the world. The song “Me And You And A Dog Named Boo” was representative of this dream.
If there is one iconic song from that year (heck, for that decade), it is “One Toke Over The Line“. Everyone was listening to it, and everyone related to it. Even my mother who would make the “sigh” and gesture while saying “I guess I’m just one toke over the line…”.
This song “Never Ending Song Of Love” has fallen into obscurity. Yet it reflected the reality of the small town bars and the culture of friendship and love that was indicative of the era.
The song “Riders On The Storm” continued to be popular with me and my classmates long into our college years.
Barbershop
Next to my Father’s parents house was a barbershop. The shop was run by an old man, probably in his 90’s. He lived upstairs above the shop. The barbershop itself was a museum and probably hadn’t changed since the 1940’s.
My father would take me to the barber there and I would get a haircut. I really didn’t want to go because at that time, long hair was fashionable. I would go there and then pout the rest of the day. But, I’ll tell you what, those trips to the barbershop were some of the best memories that I have.
The barbershop was a “men’s only” establishment. On the tables were magazines about hunting, guns and adventure. On the walls were pictures of deer and ducks. There was a full length mirror on the wall that faced two very huge and ornate barber chairs. The barber wore an apron and wore his hair in a style that probably went obsolete in the 1950’s.
The chairs were big and comfortable. He would often have friends hang out while he worked. They would sit there smoking cigarettes and watching him cut hair. A small radio would be on and often it would be tuned to a baseball or football game.
The place had it’s own kind of unique smell to it. It was a cross between aftershave and and old house. The barber lived alone as his wife passed on a decade earlier. He just ran the shop until he died. After he passed on, the place was boarded up and then demolished.
Hiking in the Woods
At that time in my life I spent a lot of time hiking in the woods. I would often ride my bike all over town and up and down the back roads and railroad spur lines. In the Spring the air would be fresh with the smells of lush forest canopy. In the Fall, it would be a time of warm “Indian Summers” with red and yellow leaves that would blow in the light breezes.
I rode a gold Schwinn “banana seat” bike with “high bars” and a “drag strip” (non-tread) rear tire. Every one of my friends owned a bicycle. My sister had one with a white plastic basket in the front. My bike had these long streamers of plastic that plugged into the handles. I eventually tore those things off. But I would put a card (from a deck of cards) and attach it to the bicycle with a wooden clothes pin. That way my bicycle would make some “cool” sounds when I rode fast. It had a huge red circular red reflector on the back, right under the white “banana seat”. Like the GTO I would later drive when I was in High School, the bicycle was an orange color.
My bike was a personal selection. When my father took me to a store to pick it out, I chose a really simple and rugged model. There were no front or rear brakes on the handlebars. To brake, you would just use the pedals. There also weren’t any gears. There was one gear only. It came with a rear view mirror, that soon broke off, and that was about it. My friends all had more complicated bicycles, and over the years, they were perpetually repairing their bikes and trying to fix them. For me, I never had that problem.
Television Shows
At that time the only television channels that we could watch were CBS, NBC, and ABC. We also had “channel 13” which was a government channel. All of our news, and our entertainment came from these three sources. Since we never had the kind of selection that we have today, we didn’t find anything wrong with it. It was normal for us.
As sparse as the selection was, we were perpetually glued to the television set. There was usually a movie a night. They were often a few years old, after being shown in the movie theaters. If the movie wasn’t shown in the theaters it would be called a “World Premiere Movie”.
Television was rather primitive.
While we did have a color television, we still needed to walk across the room to change the channel. Imagine that! Remote controls were not available until the mid-1970’s. On top of it were “rabbit ears” until we were able to subscribe to cable in the late 1970’s. My grandmother had her “rabbit ears” with aluminum foil wrapped around it. She said that it improved her reception. Maybe it did. I don’t know, her reception really sucked, so it must have been really, really terrible.
I would watch the news reluctantly. For me it was pretty boring.
However, I did follow the news about space. You couldn’t miss it. Everyone was talking about space, and the moon. That is all you heard about as a child of the 1960’s. The television shows also helped to maintain this theme.
As the news that played on the radio concerned our exploration of space and the Vietnam War. Of course I didn’t know what was going on. It was a takeover of the United States government by dark forces embedded deep inside the United States government. When JFK was shot, my father insisted that I watch the television. He kept telling me that this was the most important thing to happen to the United States since the Civil War. He was a lifelong Democrat and he had real concerns that there was more to the story than what the government was saying. Later, after he died and President Trump released the transcripts, it turned out that my father was right after all.
The “Deep State” murdered our President.
“This fucker, johnson should be dug up and pissed on, and torn apart. Every modern ill can be traced to him.”
-sowhat1929
On Sunday we watched Mutual of Omaha’s “Wild Kingdom”, and “The FBI” (Starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr) after the Walt Disney hour. If I wasn’t watching television, I was building plastic scale models, or experimenting on my Gilbert chemistry (and electrical) sets.
The A. C. Gilbert Company was an American toy company, once one of the largest toy companies in the world. It is best known for introducing the Erector Set to the marketplace. A chemistry set is an educational toy allowing the user (typically a teenager) to perform simple chemistry experiments.During the Bill Clinton presidency (D) all sales of chemistry, electronics, and mechanical kits were put under investigation as possible routes for “home grown” terroristic activities, and were subsequently suppressed, if not outright banned. Over the Bush years (R), they resurfaced and eked out a small living. However, by 2017 most hobby kit suppliers went out of business. Ramsey electronics, Heithkit electronics RIP.
At that time in my life, I like the rest of my classmates, watched shows like the Partridge Family and The Brady Bunch. These shows were about “us”. It was how we interacted with each other, and our families and our communities. This all began to change when the television media decided to change their programming towards minorities in urban areas. Television began a slow phase away from white families living in suburbia and began to concentrate on poor urban minorities.
“The "rural purge" of American television networks (in particular CBS) was a series of cancellations in the early 1970s of still-popular rural-themed shows with demographically skewed audiences, the majority of which occurred at the end of the 1970–71 television season. In addition to rural themed shows, the purge also eliminated several high rating variety shows that had been on CBS since their beginning of television broadcasting. One of the earliest efforts at channel drift, CBS in particular saw a dramatic change in direction with the shift, moving away from shows with rural themes and toward ones with supposedly more appeal to urban audiences.”-Wikipedia
The shows we watched were funnier than what you see on television today. And, maybe, just maybe a little more innocent. “The Bob Newhart Show” was typical. The humor involved day to day situations and NEVER mentioned race (compare that to today), and had a real twisted surrealistic sense of humor. Consider “Mary Hartman. Mary Hartman”, or “Green Acres”. You can find out more here.
Ah, you’ve got to hear about the three yokel brothers in the (very surrealistic) 80’s “The Bob Newhart show”. I loved these guys. They might have been the highlight of the show. Heck, they could have had their own show (hint. Hint.)
“…discovering that a witch is buried in the basement of their Vermont inn. They want to find out who she was, but they also want her 300-year-old grave dug up and removed.
The silly-from-next-door tells him he knows some guys who`ll do anything for a buck.Next thing, three goofy-looking, backwoods brothers from the genetically weak side of Vermont show up. “Oh, Lord!” says Bob, getting a whiff. Larry--the only brother who ever talks--hands Bob their card.“We`ll do anything for a buck,” it says.”- Larry, Darryl And Darryl Are `Newhart` Hits
They were quite good hearted, and obviously lived a strange, strange life. Afterall, clubbed weasel was their idea of good eatin’. Larry’s totally deadpan delivery of some very bizarre lines was always a highlight of any Newhart episode. “We went to the bakery ’cause they were advertising ‘bear claws’, but it turned out to just be a come-on.”
Ah. Good times. Good times.
Movies and television portrayed westerns (with “white men” taming the wilderness), war adventures (mostly involving world war II fighting the evil Nazi army), space exploration (such as Lost in Space, Star Trek, Fireball XL-5, Thunderbirds are Go and Land of the Giants), and Spy Adventures (against the Soviet Union or against fictional organizations such as T.H.R.U.S.H.).
Scale Models
One of my favorite hobbies was the building of plastic models. These were often of ships, airplanes and military hardware. I made a few models of cars, but my favorites were of military tanks and figurines.
I had a desk in my bedroom. It was an old desk inherited from my father with four drawers. I used a fold-up “card table” chair to sit at it with. On it was a 1940’s style desk lamp that my parents must have pulled out of the garbage at some time. I had books on the desk, a “multiband” radio where I could listen to FM radio, and a pencil holder made out of a decorated metal coffee cup tin.
At that desk, I would assemble, build and paint my models. It was an enjoyable pursuit. The desk faced the window in the bedroom, and I would often have the windows open, but the shade drawn down about half way. The shades were in the old 1960’s style and were meant to last. They had this kind of “life preserver” style ring hanging on a string that you could pull down to raise or lower the shade.
I needed the fresh air, as the odor from the glue was toxic and would tend to get me all flustered when I used it. I remember once, that my sister was watching her television show and they were really pushing the Rigley Chewing Gum-gum-gum… Rigley chewing gum-gum-gum commercial. It must have been running every ten minutes. I was about going out of my mind with the combination of the toxic glue odor and the subliminal programming of the chewing gum. Ugh!
The airplanes I would hang from the ceiling with string. I would display my collection of tanks and military equipment on shelves alongside my collection of centuries-old bottles. (I was an avoid junk collector and was always on the lookout for discarded bottles that I would collect from ancient trash dumps in the nearby forests.)
I collected Tamiya 1/35 scale military hardware models. I had quite a collection of German vehicles and tanks. At that time, the Japanese model maker Tamiya made the best quality models. They had an innovative introduction process that added new model to the collection every few months.
Alas, when I graduated from university I discovered that my mother had thrown away all of my models. She didn’t want all the clutter in the house. I guess one person’s treasure is another person’s trash.
Science Fiction
I started reading Science Fiction avidly. With one of the first books being the “Mad Scientist Club”.
The Mad Scientist Club is a series of stories (and books) written in the 1960’s which fueled the imagination and adventures of us children in the 1970’s. (The son of the author has a website. You can visit the website HERE.) These stories inspired me. They inspired my dreams and led me down the path towards technical excellence.
The boys in the stories used science to create all sorts of pandemonium and mayhem in their little town. They applied themselves to using science to make devices and gadgets. They played pranks. The books showed how a boy could engineer a device from techniques that they learned in school. They made balloons, talked on ham radios, devised electronics, and they did it all on their very own.
The beauty about all this was that they never asked for help or permission. They took the initiative and did it on their own. They applied themselves.
Indeed, these stories are special. But, don’t take it from me. Read what others have to say.
“This is the best kids book ever.… In a way it saddens me when I re-read it. I don't think our kids today have as much freedom as these did (or my generation). I remember staying out until dark, riding my bike EVERYWHERE, clubhouses on vacant lots...Or maybe it's responsibility. Kids today have freedom but little responsibility. I'm getting off my soapbox now. but this is a cool book and it will make your kids fall in love with science. I imagine the Mythbusters grew up like this- or maybe their dads did!! ”-Holly commentary on the book. Found at Goodreads.
I am afraid that Holly is correct. American children (and adults) don’t have as much freedom as we all used to. (It’s our fault, you know.) These books are for kids and inspires them to accomplish things through study and action. These books are not about getting a group together and finding a group consensus. It’s not about how to cautiously speak so as not to offend anyone. Nope. It is about getting things done and raising hell in the process.
It’s books like these that inspired many of us to study science and engineering. It certainly affected me. It also affected others. I am not the only one who studied about rockets and space…
“This was simply a great childhood book for any inquisitive kid who likes science, haunted houses, dinosaurs, flying machines, etc. I read this book in about seventh or eighth grade and actually a couple of times since. I believe this book helped me on my career to being a rocket scientist but it also gave me many ideas as I was growing up.Brinley managed to capture the perfect mid-west US town and the guys in the book were great caricatures of fun loving, science minded boys with a bit of good natured mischief up their sleeves. Then Brinley took this setting and boys and produced a series of wonderful stories capturing so many things that so many boys growing up find so intriguing.I bought a copy recently for a nephew and he was enraptured by it. The follow-ups while good never really reached the level of this first book but were fun in their own right. It will always hold a special memory of growing up back in the '60s.”-Robert commentary on the book. Found at Goodreads.
He’s right you know. The stories certainly inspired me.
I like to think that there is inspiration in stories where you find adventure, freedom and independence. These are things that are absolutely missing in the modern realm of politically correct stories. Which, by the way, is a very important point. By following a “Politically Correct” narrative, you retard the growthof young boys. To paraphrase Clint Eastwood, you turn men into pussies.
“We live in more of a pussy generation now, where everybody's become used to saying, "Well, how do we handle it psychologically?" In those days, you just punched the bully back and duked it out. Even if the guy was older and could push you around, at least you were respected for fighting back, and you'd be left alone from then on.”-Clint Eastwood
A parent has a responsibly to PREPARE their children to venture out and grow. They need to go forth and carve a life out of the wilderness. But that is not what is happening today. Instead we have children that never leave the nest. Young men, in the United States, live at home until they are in their 30’s. Instead of investing their time in building, workings, making, and creating, they are too busy looking at cat videos on the Internet while they post their latest latté on Facebook. Boys must be taught to aspire to be Men, not to be a woman’s version of a sensitive man.
Pussies.
No amount of tattoos, unique hair or beard, or cool urban clothing style is going to make you into a Man. It comes from within. Education alone won’t do it. Money and wealth won’t do it. Polite conversation won’t do it. It comes from inside. It comes from deep down inside. It comes from a place that says “you can, and must do what you need to do”. You don’t ask for permission, or consensus. You go out and carve your life out. Alone.
By clutching on to your children like over protective mothers, the children don’t grow up. Physically they might age, but the brain and the emotions are still that of a young child. How else can you explain the SWJ mentality that demands a protective overseer? Which is what they want, you know. They demand to be coddled and taken care of by a big parental government Bernie Sanders style. Because, that is all that they know. They don’t know how to be independent. We don’t teach that anymore.
These books break us out of that mold…
“A gem. Almost unknown; but one of the most hilarious and memorable laugh-out-loud books you could ask for. It's never mentioned by anyone; it's never recommended, placed on book lists or chosen by reading-groups. This just might be because it's a series of books, which represents a 'philosophy-of-parenting’, which has fallen out of favor. That's my suspicion, anyway.I mean, just think about it. These stories are about kids who are unmonitored; who are allowed to just go off on summer afternoons and hang out on their own; and do whatever they want.... because they are trusted by their folks. Today, this is the last thing parents want to hear. No one in today's control-freak, micro-managing America wants to imagine that children can be trusted like this.Books for very young children ('Little Prince' or 'Giving Tree') are in abundance on Goodreads. They're sweet and harmless. There's also a new genre called 'YA' ('young adult'). But guess what? They're all very sanitary, careful, cautious, and timid. Antiseptic. Content-supervised and Content-controlled. They always instruct youngsters on the 'correct' thing to do, the 'sensitive' thing to do, the 'courteous' thing to do...blah blah blah.'Mad Scientists' is different. Instead of caution, the author praises problem-solving, solidarity, daring, and initiative. It's a book written for kids illustrating how NOT to follow the rules. It’s a book, which shows that rules are made to be flouted.These stories are from a time when today's endless complexities and anxieties just weren't around. It’s a book that deals with kids just... having fun. I say, there need to be a LOT MORE books like this.The gang of boys in Brinley's tales are pre-teens; somewhere between 11 and 14. This is a strange interval in a boy's matriculation, when they need to figure out a lot of things about life (and it’s also a time when adults have the least relevant advice to offer). This is the space Brinley plays in: the theme of personal responsibility.Teens NEED to create a few genuine catastrophes in order to learn the weight of 'cause' vs 'effect'. 'Intention' vs 'outcome'. 'Actions' vs 'harm'. They need to learn the ins-and-outs of friendship and loyalty and paying-one's-dues.The 'Mad Scientists Club' (this is the name carved on their clubhouse door) demonstrate these themes grandly. These young scamps are precisely in that age where you learn how to make a mess and how you clean it up afterwards. By yourself!The crazy scenarios which afflict these affable 'troublemakers' reminds us--should remind everyone-- that this process can be fun. Making mistakes and learning from them. The best way --nay, the ONLY way--to shape character.Far cry from today, huh? Yeah. Today, we don't let kids have 'secret clubs', 'hideouts', codewords, or 'mysterious friends'. We don't let them play with equipment or tools. They must not 'wreck' anything of ours. They're certainly not allowed to 'gallivant all over creation' (love that phrase).Modern parents are rule-mongers and control freaks. When our kids want to play, we take them to 'Sesame Place' and we monitor their nutrition and we deck them in flashing sneakers and put them in helmets and on leashes. We place them in soccer, swim class, softball, karate, dance, gymnastics.The result? Modern kids have no idea what real 'freedom' means. We never give it to them. They turn out to be vegetables.But Brinley's kids show the other way it can be done. This boy's club makes their own fun. They don't 'ask for permission' to do stuff--they just do it! They embrace wildness, zaniness, and unpredictability. The outcome? Well, they aren't brought up on charges from the Department of Homeland Security, for the trouble they cause. That's for sure. This is a part of small town-Americana we've let slip away.Just one example: in one of the adventures undertaken by the Mad Scientists, they build their own hot-air balloon (using scraps from a local junkyard) and they enter it in the town's annual homemade hot-air balloon race. With no adult supervision at all. Once aloft, (!!) they engaged in an air-battle with their arch-foes and fire potato-cannons and slingshots back'n'forth in mid-air. Finally, they manage to send the enemy gang's balloon into the lake! Can you stand it? I can't friggin' stand it, can you?This book reminds us that children used to be perfectly capable of taking care of themselves if we let them...if we weren't all scared out of our wits by molesters and semi-automatic weapons and drugs and porn and stalkers and computers, we'd still remember the kind of America found in this hilarious read. It's to our shame that we can't.”-Feliks commentary on the book. Found at Goodreads.
Let me simply posit this; to all those men (not to intentionally exclude women, but I am a man addressing myself to other men) who have made something of their life. Maybe you are a barber, a motorcycle mechanic, a car salesman, or a cook, isn’t it true? To make it in this world, you need to stretch your neck out. You need to take risks, bend the rules a little. You need to apply yourself.
Those times when life got tough, did you go and get permission? Did you go and ask for consensus? Did you politely ask for others opinions, or did you just go out and do whatever it took to achieve your goals? Was it easy? Nope, I’ll wager that it was hard, or at least uncomfortable. You might have to make sacrifices. Right? Right???
Part of the need to accomplish these tasks were goals. These goals were like this golden orb that lay there, just out of reach that you needed to obtain. You would work towards those goals. You would keep those goals in mind while you fought and persevered. A goal might be a car. A goal might be the love of your life.
A man is nothing without a goal.
A goal might be something more honorable and important, like saving the world. As everyone can’t be an evil villain like George Soros. Or, a wealthy trillionaire like Bill Gates. Someone needs to wear the mask of a hero…
The Idols
My bedroom was decorated as any boy of my my age would have. It was festooned with models and collections of brick-a-bract and posters on the wall. I had a poster of Farah Faucett on my wall. She was smiling with this amazing smile, and her huge hair. We all had a crush on her. That as well as Loni Anderson and Rachael Welch . Look at her!
How can you not smile?
I had numerous posters on my wall. One was the mandatory “black light” poster on velvet. (It glowed under UV light.) One was a picture of Richie Blackmore (Deep Purple) performing a guitar solo. (I had super imposed a F-14 on it for combined imagery. After all, space and high-performance aircraft and rock n’ roll was my dream.) One was a Roger Dean poster (anyone remember the group “Yes”?).
I became a fan of Loni Anderson in her role in the television sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati”. I think many of my friends did as well. We loved her and watching her on the show was always a highlight. That and the clueless manager who ran the office.
Telephones
There were no cell phones; indeed most phones hung on the wall, and fully 50% of them had dials instead of push buttons. Our home had two phones. One was an old Bakelite black phone from the 1920’s hidden away in the basement. I loved the feeling of it. There was a weight to it that you just couldn’t get during the 1970’s. We also had a “main” phone in the kitchen. It had an extra-long cord. My sister was always “hogging it up”. So one year they bought her a phone for her room. She still spent most of her time on the phone, it’s just that she wasn’t talking in the kitchen all day.
In the house we wore “house clothes” also known as PJ’s, with a robe. Mother would make sure that there was always a pot of coffee brewing, and us kids would always fight over who would get to read the comics section of the paper first. Of course, our dogs and cats merrily participated in the morning ritual. Picture above is not the ideal, it was the actual.
Global Cooling and the “Green Movement”
In our schools we would go on field trips to clean up the environment. We would go on “collection drives” to collect money for our environment, and we ended up with absolute bushels of money. (Don’t know where it all went, though…) We attended classes on the environment and school rallies to lecture us on the up-coming global cooling that would soon turn the world into a snow cone.
We were terrified!
Every cold day was a sign that the world was plunging into another great ice age. Magazines, the media, and the news all had stories about the coming cold period and the need to raise taxes to save our environment. Experts were paraded on television to teach us the need to raise taxes, and fund more research.
The “Love Canal” fiasco acted as a terrible “kick start” to the “environmental movement”. Americans began to wake up that we had been really abusing our environment. As such, immediate action had to be taken. And thus the government took action in the only way that it knew how…
It set up the EPA, and…
Raised taxes.
Which was the entire purpose of the decade long propaganda push; To [1] increase the size and scope of the government, and [2] to raise more taxes to go to Washington D.C..
“What’s it mean, anyway? Do 97% of #Scientists agree that the climate is changing? Actually, everyone agrees with that – that the Earth’s climate changes over time is why we had an ice age. Well, we had an ice age a long time ago. We did not have one after the #Science people promised an ice age in the 1970s. But shhhh! We’re not supposed to mention that.
Want to know what the proposed solution for the ’70s ice age that never arrived was? Give the liberal elite more money and power. Overpopulation was another big crisis in the ’70s too. It never arrived either. The solution to that was to give the liberal elite more money and power. And when they were warning us about acid rain destroying us in the ’80s? The solution to that crisis was also to give the liberal elite more money and power. The ozone hole? Yep, more of our money and power to the liberal elite. Back in the 1990s, the Al Gores of the world were warning us that we had just 10 years left to save the Earth unless … wait for it … we gave the liberal elite more money and power.
Sense some themes?
Each of these crises all had two things in common. Thing One was that none of these doomsdays ever produced the promised doom. Thing Two was that each was a demand to give the liberal elite more money and power.”
One of the things that I have come to appreciate the most was the family meal that we had when I was growing up as a child. During my early childhood we would hold formal “sit down” meals in the Dining Room. Us children each had our own roles / chores in regards to this. On Sunday we would have the largest and most elaborate meals. Mealtime was the opportunity when we could all talk about our day, our hopes and dreams, and things that interested us.
At the time, I didn’t realize how important it was.
Then, during the 1970’s everything changed. Both of my parents had to work. (You can thank the American Federal Reserve for the decline in the value of the dollar that necessitated the breakup of our families.) A formal family meal was replaced with “help yourself” fix your own meals, out of a pot on the stove, or “make yourself a snack” out of the refrigerator. We would then scrounge something up, and eat it alone watching television.
Communication was via notes on the refrigerator.
Now that I am much older, I can see clearly the value of a family meal as well as a community meal. As such, I now dictatorially enforce an observance of this tradition within my own home.
Fishing with my Father
I will conclude with this little narrative of my experiences in 1971 talking about my father. He used to spend the time and take me and my siblings out to the river to fish. He had a couple of rods and a tackle box that he inherited from his (favorite) uncle. Using it, he taught me how to fish, and how to gut and clean the fish.
While it is a great memory of mine, the best part, and the part that remember most clearly is how he would drive out to the lake or stream, and we would then troop down to the area to fish. He was always on the lookout for isolated and secluded areas to fish in. He yearned for the “perfect spot”. One with deep water and plenty of overhanging limbs and trees that fish can hide in.
Oh, I would go fishing with my friends. They had an assortment of remote cabins, canoes and secret places that always provided us a great deal of pleasure. But, it was the times with my father that mattered the most to me. My friends were always up to something.
I once had a friend who placed plastic sheeting on his garage floor and dumped a dump truck full of soil on it. He, at age 13, had constructed a worm farm, and he somehow had this crazy idea that he would get “filthy rich” selling worms to the local bait and tackle shops. He did actually manage to sell some. I think he might have made $5 or so. Eventually, he gave up the idea and paid some one to haul the dirt away. His dream of instant millions went bust.
I never became an expert at fishing. I was, I guess you could say, an enthusiastic hobbyist. For me, the time with my father fishing were some of the best moments of my life, and moments that I will treasure until I too, will die.
Conclusion
This was just a little narrative that I wrote about what it was like for me in 1971. It’s a far cry from the United States today. The USA today saddens me. Every time I read the news, I get either depressed or angered. There’s not really too much that I can do about the slide into open civil strife that America is plunging towards, all that I can do is take care of myself and think good thoughts.
This includes what it was like growing up as a boy.
Take Aways
Global Cooling was a sham designed to trick Americans into permitting a larger government and giving away more of their money.
There were only four television channels that we American had access to in the early 1970’s.
The family meal is the most important part of having a family. It is important to nurture and cultivate relationships.
Television shows used to focus on American culture instead of bastardized urban minority culture.
My favorite memories of my father was when we were fishing together.
Posted On Free Republic
This article was posted on Free Republic in the chat section and collected a number of interesting comments. Many of which, I really do need to write about. Particularly what it was like for my sisters at that time, the cars that we drove, and the cultural things going on in society at that time. You can read the comments HERE.
Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
Up until the 1980’s, the “hazing” of new employees was a time-honored tradition. Here, the new employees would be given the crappiest jobs, told to do the hardest things, and treated horribly. This all seemed to disappear in the middle 1980’s. This article is dedicated to all those older workers who had to endure the “hazing” period and what it was like…
Introduction
Today, little remains of the old days of Hazing. You can see it on College campuses and universities when people “rush” to join a sorority or a fraternity. That’s about it. The hazing during High School has pretty much been eliminated. With the only vestiges of it being the movie “Dazed and Confused“.
People have forgotten that “hazing” was an important part of life. You went through it numerous times in your life, and one of the most harrowing was when you started work at a new job. Here, we look at this aspect of life. In it, I describe the hazing rituals that I experienced in Western Pennsylvania in the 1970’s.
Hazing in the Coal Mines
One of the first jobs that I had was in the coal mines when I was 14 years old. My father believed that the role of a man was to work, and to earn enough to provide for a family. That was what “being a man” was. Now, the law put limits on the hours and the conditions that I would work under. Never the less, I was introduced to work on the rock crusher at 14.
The job itself was pretty darn straight forward. I would stand above the rock crusher on metal slats. These were steel flat bars that formed a grid over the crusher. The goal was to stand on top of them, and not slip between them. They were spaced about a yard apart to left the huge chunks of coal to fall down below. I was given a large pole to help push the coal into place, and a hand sledge to break up the rocks.
Many a time I would slip on the slippery mud covered slats. I would fall down between the slats and have to climb my way back up to the top again as the coal would be moving towards the crushing death below. I would often lose my helmet as it was ultimately ground up into tiny busted up flakes of plastic.
That was my normal job. Now, let’s talk about the hazing aspect of it…
Sure, I took a lot of gruff from the older workers. Most people that I worked with were in their 20’s and 30’s. The real older men were over their 40’s and tended to work at other roles in the company. I was doing the “grunt work” that pretty much didn’t pay well, and that no one wanted to do.
There were “independent” haulers that would drive their dump trucks to the mine and dump the ore into the hopper. These tended to be grizzly old truck drivers, and they all wanted to give me a hard time while I weighed out their load (they were paid by weight). They would love to call me names like “fucking-dumb pollack” and “pecker dick-boy” all the time berating me for “cheating” them out of a few pounds of ore. All nonsense. It was just a bunch of harassment that I would have to endure as they would pull in and I would need to weigh their loads. Other than that it was harmless.
However, nothing was like the shit storm that I dealt with by the older kids, only slightly senior to me. There, they would steal my helmet and throw it into the hopper and I would have to dive in and retrieve it. You know, if I lost the helmet it would be deducted out of my salary.
They would, for instance, take my lunch and hide it in the tipple somewhere. Or, lock me in the outhouse, or out of it and put ex-lax in my coffee cup.
My supervisor would make me crawl into the trash cans and scrub them out with a hose and a brush. He would also try to cheat me out of my salary. In those days we were paid in cash. Sometimes, instead of the $45 that I was due, I would find a $5 and some change inside the envelope.
Other tricks of the trade included flattening my tires so that I would have to drive real slow to the nearest gas station, rolling down my windows (in the car) so that the inside would be soaked in an afternoon rain, and putting grease on the handle of the hand sludge so that it would slip out of my hand when I used it. The worst was putting an empty can of oil on the hood. After a 16 hour day in full sunlight, the ring impression it made could never be buffed out.
Hazing in the Steel Mills
The steel mills were a little bit different than the mines. Once I turned 16 years old, I was able to work full time. This meant that I could get a “starter job” at one of the local steel mills. I was fortunate. Edgewater Steel needed someone to stand under the ladle and hold the ingot molds in place while the hot steel poured into it.
The work was necessary. You had to use these long poles to hold the ingot molds in place. If you didn’t do a good job, one of the sides of the ingot mold could come loose and the liquid could flow out, covering you and killing you instantly. We would work two people per ingot. Typically, we might be able to come up with ten ingots of steel from each poured ladle.
The work was hot, tiring and very dangerous. Never the less, it didn’t stop the older folk from “hazing” us newbies.
I suppose it was all in good fun, but at the time I thought that it was mean and cruel. Some of the tricks included shitting into the boots that we had to wear on the shop floor, taking carbon dust and spraying it on to our lunch (sandwiches), turning off the lights (at the breaker) when we were getting set up under the ladle. Dangerous stuff this. Though, on the other hand, no one ever got really hurt. That I know of.
Other tricks included stealing our time (punch) card, dropping pallets (off of a fork lift) from three feet up, making a terrible racket and startling everyone. I’ve had my car keys dipped in paint, my motorcycle helmet (outside) filled with urine, and my locker door removed.
This kind of hazing would continue for months until the guys “felt” that you had “earned your place” in the “pecking order” and could be left alone. There were modifiers of course. Say you had an older relative working there, or you were close friends with some of your buddies. All of this would modify how long the hazing treatment would last. Though, in my case, they always called me the “token pollack” at the company. That never ended.
Hazing in the Grocery Stores
For a while, I worked as a stock boy for a local grocery store. The kind of work was quite different. I wore a short sleeved white shirt, with a bow tie and a large apron that I tied around my waist. As different as it was, the hazing continued unabated. In fact, each time you started to work at a new place, you would have to go through the hazing procedure all over again.
The hazing depended on the person who did it. The other “bag boys” would play tricks and “jokes” on the new-comer. The department managers would give you a hard time, often assigning the most terrible and awful jobs for you to do. The female cashiers would pester you mercilessly and do little things that would make your life harder than it should have been.
Hazing tricks included hand delivery of groceries to the wrong house. Having you do the hardest clean up jobs in the store; like honey, or olive oil. It would include such things as constant call-ups to bag groceries, and not being able to get your core tasks assigned, which always resulted in a bitch-out session with the floor manager.
Some of the tricks seemingly got out of hand. Like fire extinguisher soak downs as you started a long day of work. Or, scrub downs of the inside of a freezer, while it was still running. We would have to do things like move the two ton safe, scrub the floor under it and then move it back. Other tasks included parking lot cleanup in the pouring rain or snowing blizzard. It was all harmless and innocent hazing for the most part.
Of course, everything would eventually die down. This was especially true when there were new employees to bear the brunt of all the hazing. Thank goodness.
Hazing on the Drag Lines
A drag line is a huge machine that eats into the earth, and processes it into rubble from which ore is then extracted. They are common all over Pennsylvania. They tear into the hills and extract the precious coal and ores from the land.
For a while, I worked on a dragline. Being the new kid on the block, I of course, became the “go-fer”. Which means “hey, kid! go fer that…”.
My first “go-fer” task was to get a hook brace located at the top end of the dragline boom. So, yeah you guessed it, I had to climb all the way up to the end of the boom and retrieve the part. Only to find that I got the wrong part, and had to go back up a second time and get it again. Being the “new kid on the block” really did suck.
Conclusion
Many times I lament “the good old days”, but not with this. I am happy to say “good riddance”.
I really do not know why humans require any type of “hazing” activities. I am sure that there must be scientist or two who can explain the phenomenon. I, for one, would like to hear why we all seem to utilize hazing as a passage into adulthood. I know that it is used in Zambia, China and Japan. What’s the point?
"In my research I've found that group benefits that could quickly accrue for newcomers –– automatic benefits –– predict people's desire to haze," he said."This isn't the only variable that matters –– there's some effect of age and sex, for example –– but the effect of automatic benefits suggests that potential vectors of group exploitation alter people's treatment of newcomers in predictable ways," -Cimino
Today, I think that most of this type of hazing is now absent in the work environment today. I haven’t seen it. However, it is possible that it has taken on new form, and has manifested in other ways, like at Google, for instance…
Take Aways
Hazing was an important part of American culture up into the 1980’s.
Schools hazed the new students.
Workers in industry hazed the new employees.
Since the 1980’s and into the 1990’s people stopped hazing the new employees at work.
Younger workers today have no idea or concept that hazing was a rite of passage that they would need to deal with when they started a new job.
FAQ
Q: Why isn’t hazing permitted in American industry any longer?
A: I really do not know. I think it is partly due to the rise of HR standardization of policy, the merging of government laws, and HR enforcement, and a rapid swinging volatile labor force. I would guess that any hazing today would be grounds for dismissal of an employee.
Q: Why you think that hazing was an important part of industry?
A: The work environment consists of a tiny microcosm of society. They structure themselves in a tribal manner and creature written and unwritten rules of behavior. New members to that society must prove their value prior to them obtaining membership in the group.
Q: Are there any formal policies against hazing?
A: Yes.
Posted on Free Republic on 10SEP18. The post can be found HERE. Some highlights…
I recall reading about how when Mario Lemieux was a rookie with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1984, even he did not escape that bit of hazing as when he fell asleep on an airplane in the midst of a road trip, a teammate snuck up and covered his head in shaving cream. And also the well known tale of Bobby Orr in about 1966 being dragged into the dressing room shower, covered in liniment oil, and shaved from head to toe.
- OttawaFreeper
The retired Naval aviation guys I work with tell stories about sending the noobies for a bucket of “prop wash”. lol
- V_TWIN
20+ years ago my daughter was in an award winning marching band that had a time honored "hell night" for new members. That was until one newbie went psycho and has stayed that way. The band director, school, and boosters are likely still paying off the seven figure judgement.
- buckalfa
There's no hazing at all in the Navy these days. I remember making 3rd and then 2nd Class Petty Officer and getting my crows "tacked" on (getting punched in the arm). My arm was black and blue but I wasn't any worse for the wear. I was proud. Of course, there's always some asshole who takes it too far and someone winds up LLD with a broken arm after his arm was jumped on.
Around 2010 or so, about the same time as DADT was repealed, the Navy cracked down hard on hazing. It had long been officially banned but still tolerated. The Navy sent a message in the form of several publicized career ending NJPs that the days of hazing were over. When I made First Class, there were no punches to my arm. We got the message loud and clear.
-Drew68
Steam blanket. Prop wash. Key to the sea chest. Metric crescent wrench. Fetch a henway. And on and on and on......
-rktman
There’s hazing, and then there’s hazing. When I stood my first messenger watch as a US Navy Seaman Apprentice, I was sent to a location on the ship to see a particular petty officer and obtain a container of red running light oil. That petty officer sent me to another location and another person, and so on for a number of contacts. Of course, there’s no such thing as running light oil...but the travels seeking it helped familiarize me with the ship’s layout and some of our senior petty officers.
Then there was the “Sea Bat” ploy. A number of sailors were gathered on the fantail around a cardboard box partly covered with a towel, and were peeking inside at it. A couple of others were doing some desultory sweeping nearby. One of my shipmates asked what was in the box and was told it was a Sea Bat. He bent over and lifted the towel to have a look, and one of the broom wielding swabbies swatted him on the rear as all the others yelled “SEA BAT”!
A new junior officer was the next victim; his swat was a bit less aggressive than the other received.
- JimRed
One of my first summer jobs was at an amusement park. The tradition there was to be sent to hunt for a bucket of steam. Some of them are still looking.
Then there was my first “real” job at a huge factory complex. I was taken to the remotest part of the place and left to find my own way back. Took all afternoon.
- Some Fat Guy in L.A.
Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
When the Chinese come and visit the United States, they are often spellbound in shock and amazement. They find that they LOVE, absolutely L-O-V-E the United States. I have many friends who have told me this. Another thing that they have told me is that it was not what they expected.
Here are some of the misconceptions that Chinese have of America…
1. Donald Trump is despised and is going to prison if not executed outright.
Well, this is what you would expect if all you watched was CNN and MSNBC.
In fact, most “Western media” that the Chinese see is the main-steam American media. While most Americans, not all, understand that the American media has a fatally liberal bias, the Chinese are unaware of this. Thus, the impression that they get is that the American media represents the hearts and minds of the American people.
As such, they are astounded that Donald Trump is able to get away with so much!
“1. Donald Trump is despised and is going to prison if not executed outright.”A few months ago I had a chance to talk with an engineering student from India who was visiting the US, and she had much the same impression. She asked me why the American people hadn’t risen up and removed Trump from office since he was so universally despised.
She was genuinely surprised when I told her that Trump was probably the most popular American president since Reagan and would surely be re-elected in 2020.I realized from this conversation how much the Mainstream media’s endless propaganda war on Trump is diminishing America’s prestige globally. People in other countries mistakenly think of America’s news media as being legitimate, and believe what they hear. (Even far-left Americans realize that most of CNN’s reporting is bullsh*t.)
We look like a third-rate banana Republic on the verge of collapse to the rest of the world. I doubt the current Supreme court confirmation hearings are helping matters.
- Junk Silver
They are amazed that he is not being hung from scaffolding or being lynched. They, thus believe that he must be a most capable politician and a supreme businessman; a man not to be trifled with. The reactions that I see from my fellow Chinese friends is a mixture of awe, admiration, and fear.
Just WHO is this man, they muse.
The Chinese believe the main-stream media and are impressed with President Trump for his ability to avoid hanging from a noose.
2. Everything is Free!
After nearly a decade of President Obama being televised giving away free things, most Chinese have the impression that that is what America represents. Free cars. Free cell-phones. Free citizenship. Free meals. Free housing. They do not realize that nothing is free, and ultimately someone must pay a price for it.
Today, when I mention that America used to be the “Land of the Free”, they respond with “What, you no longer get free healthcare, free education, free cell-phones and free housing?” They think that the current President is changing America away from a “Free” nation and moving towards something more practical.
Somehow, and I really do not know how, they believe that the government has an endless supply of money to spend. As such, they think that it was quite magnanimous of President Obama to spend that money on the American people. Now, they are afraid that the money will be spent elsewhere, like on wars.
The way the American government works is a mystery to the Chinese. But, that is ok. It is a mystery to most Americans as well.
3. Americans are Rich.
It goes to think, don’t you agree, that if all Americans are driving nice cars and living in nice houses that Americans MUST be rich. What the Chinese do not realize is that in America everything is rented. Very few people pay in cash to buy a car or a house.
Oh, certainly there are those who are driving older cars that we paid off years ago. That there are those who paid off their thirty year mortgages ten years ago, however, they are a minority. Most Americans pay both a mortgage and a car payment, with a sizable number now paying school loans.
In China, most people pay in cash. They save like crazy, sort of like the Amish, and then spend the money where necessary. While credit is available to the citizens, most maintain a traditional attitude towards frugality and savings. Thus they think that Americans must be the same.
Which is why many Chinese believe that Americans are quite wealthy.
The Chinese believe Americans are very wealthy, because by Chinese standards, you need to be a millionaire to be able to live like an American does.
4. All Americans carry guns and are Armed.
I chuckle at this one.
Nope, not at all true. But if all you watch is the American main-stream media, of course you would have this impression. From the “debates” on CNN, to the discussions on the Huffington Post, everyone talks about the free access to firearms. Of course, if that is all you have access to, the impression would be of an overly and unfairly armed American populace.
This puzzles the Chinese to no end. “Why does Americans need so many guns?” they ask. “The police will protect you”. Well, in China the role of the police is quite sedentary. Most of China consists of hard-working nerds. The police are there to deal with an occasional victim or crime. However, they never police behavior. Not like in America.
Anyways, when asked, I tell them how I miss my P99 and S3. They always ask me about the big caliber Smith and Wesson handguns, and ask if I ever owned a Glock.
I have to disappoint them, but I do tell them that I really enjoyed my old AK-47 clone (that I bought in California before they were banned). And I would get started on a conversation about the joys of black-powder (think Dixie Gun Works) and compound bows. It’s a world that really interests them. I’ll tell you what.
The Chinese are often surprised that Americans don't carry guns everywhere.
5. America is Full of Excitement and Happiness.
By watching shows such as “Friends” the Chinese have come to consider Americans as nice friend and family oriented folk; people who have come to believe that life should be lived to it’s fullest. It’s a nice illusion.
Something happened between 1975 and today. Americans have become less of what they once were. It’s kind of sad. We lost something.
Maybe it’s all the restrictions at the workplace, or the over-reliance on portable media for enjoyment. I don’t know why, but many Americans look forward to mowing the grass and playing on the computer instead of fishing with an ice cold six pack of beer and being with friends. I lament that.
Yet when they come to America, their first impression is quite different. “It is so, so, so very quiet” a friend told me. Businesses close before 9 pm, and residential streets seem abandoned like a post apocalyptic ghost-town.
The Chinese visitor often finds that America is a very quiet and peaceful place. It's a bit of a surprise.
6. Everyone is your Friend.
Just because someone smiles, does not mean that they like you and are your friend. In America, smiling is just a polite way of interaction with strangers. In China, however, smiles are something that is reserved for special people. People, mind you, who have earned their place in your heart.
When a Chinese person visits the United States, they are overwhelmed at how friendly everyone seems. Everyone smiles, opens up the doors for you, stands out of the way and is helpful. That being said, they are shaken to the core when they try to get into a conversation and practice their English. Aside from a polite minor conversation, most Americans just want to be left alone.
To a Chinese person this is like a best friend turning their back on you.
In America, a smile does not mean someone is your friend. It just means that the person who smiles is polite. In China, people normally do NOT smile. If they do, you know that they are a friend. Smiles are reserved for people who have a place in your heart.
The Chinese are often very comfortable in the United States, but find that making "real" friends is often very difficult to do.
7. Everything is Fair and Just.
Well, isn’t that what America stands for?
Ah, yes. The rule of law. But hey, when there are two standards of law; one for the super rich, and one for the rest of us, it isn’t fair. In fact, it is more than that. It is not a rule of law. It is a rule by favoritism, and there isn’t any real laws.
The Chinese understand this instinctively.
However, they are surprised that it exists in America. As they have been taught, and under the impression, that America was immune from this kind of judicial corruption. As a Chinese friend once told me, a nation that has two sets of laws; one for the powerful and one for the rest of us, is not a nation of law. It is a dictatorship.
The Chinese are often surprised that America works the same way as China often does. It's the "golden rule"; the one with all the gold makes all the rules.
8. The Government works for the People.
America was set up as a place where the government serves the people. This is part of American history. As such, it is taught that way. Even in China.
Now it does not work that way. Now, in America it is not taught that way in schools either. However, it is still taught that way in China.
A casual visitor to the United States thinks nothing of this. It is until they are pulled over by a police car for a minor infraction, stopped at a check point for “inspection”, or told to hand over their cell phone for scanning. These things are unheard of in China. And, thus, are a real big shock to a Chinese citizen.
Other shocks include;
Open container laws
Paying for internet access
Taxes on everything
Money that is always complicated ($9.98 instead of $10)
Huge portions of food
Lack of public transportation (or insufficiency of)
In China the police are used in much the same way as they are used in America. However there is a great divergence in philosophy behind their use. In China, the police are used to go after criminals who create victims. In the Untied States, the police are used to enforce behavior.
By the way, here is an unobstructed view of the police cars used in the arrest above. Pretty cool huh? Quite different from the military-grade hardware used by the American police…
The Chinese are surprised that America has such a large police and military presence.
9. There is Crime Everywhere.
While the militarized police is a bit of a surprise, the fact that they exist are not. Everyone in China “knows” that America is a land full of crime and corruption.
They know this, of course, from Hollywood. It doesn’t matter if it is white-collar crime like “The Wolf of Wall-street”, or street gangs from any one of a thousand movies. The Chinese tend to believe that America is a dangerous place.
Thus their surprise that they don’t see any crime.
Or course, if they were to visit Chicago, Detroit or Baltimore, their opinion might be quite different. When the Chinese visit, they see how beautiful and clean America is. They see police patrolling in nice new squad cars, and Americans behaving in polite and ordered ways.
They tend to be a little surprised that America is much safer than what they have been led to believe.
10. Everyone Speaks English.
I always get a big laugh out of this. Yet, it is a common misconception.
No, I am not talking about people speaking Spanish in Texas or California. Rather I am talking about what happens when a Chinese person goes into a area where people speak a heavily accented English. Like, for instance Arkansas, Louisiana, or Mississippi.
"My grandmother said things like, “over yonder,” “rightchere,” (right here), “likeyat,” (like that), and “haint” (spook). Any non-sleeping dog had a “wild hare up its ass,” and if Grandma was angry, she was “some kinda burnt up.” She was prone to redundant modal verbs (“I done told you before”) and a big fan of the circumfix “a-in”–such as an owl “ahootin’ and ahollerin’.” Similar to Barry Hannah and Singleton’s backwoods characters (consider Hannah’s use of “sumbitch” or “You’re all wore out from being nice,”
-Trying to write in a Southern Accent
My favorite story is when some Chinese stopped and asked for directions in Kentucky. The instructions went something like this…
“Yall done drive past wheer dat old tree used to be, hang a left. You’ll recon Auntie Suzie’s house dere. Cruze a few miles til you see the spot whare da town had dat fair last spring, and then swing a right. Be mindful now. There’s that old viaduct. You should be fixin’ to gander it around ten minutes or so later.”
The Chinese visitors are often surprised that many Americans speak differently than what they have been taught, and what is shown on television.
Other Posts
This is the second of two part post. You can visit the other post; ” The Top Ten Misconceptions Americans have about China”. It can be found HERE.
Conclusions
The Chinese, when they visit America, come back with tales of adventure and great stories that they tell to their friends. Their overall opinion and picture of America is a positive one. They tell glowing stories of how absolutely beautiful America is and how friendly Americans are.
They come back to China saying “America wasn’t at all what I expected. It was better.”
“America wasn’t at all what I expected. It was better.”
Take Aways
The Chinese believe the main-stream media and are impressed with President Trump for his ability to avoid hanging from a noose.
The way the American government works is a mystery to the Chinese. But, that is ok. It is a mystery to most Americans as well.
The Chinese believe Americans are very wealthy, because by Chinese standards, you need to be a millionaire to be able to live like an American does.
The Chinese are often surprised that Americans don’t carry guns everywhere.
The Chinese visitor often finds that America is a very quiet and peaceful place. It’s a bit of a surprise.
The Chinese are often very comfortable in the United States, but find that making “real” friends is often very difficult to do.
The Chinese are often surprised that America works the same way as China often does. It’s the “golden rule”; the one with all the gold makes all the rules.
The Chinese are surprised that America has such a large police and military presence.
They tend to be a little surprised that America is much safer than what they have been led to believe.
The Chinese visitors are often surprised that many Americans speak differently than what they have been taught, and what is shown on television.
FAQ
Q: What do most Chinese think of America?
A: Most Chinese, that I know of, think favorably of America. The ones that have visited the big cities such as New York, and San Francisco absolutely love it. The ones that have toured America in cars, and have visited the United States rave about how great America is. Their biggest complaint is that their trip wasn’t long enough.
Q: What areas should a Chinese person visit?
A: There are so many places to choose from. But, were I to make a travel plan, I would suggest a trip to the deep south like New Iberia, LA and a visit to the French Quarter in New Orleans. I would suggest a trip to Savanna, GA. I would advise a visit to Boston in the middle of October when all the leaves change. I would suggest a visit to some civil war battlefields.
Q: What can I do to entertain some visitors from China?
A: I would suggest a BBQ with some ice cold beer. Cook chicken and hamburgers and American hot dogs. The Chinese LOVE American hot dogs. It would be a real treat for them. Take them out and shoot some guns. Go swimming and if you have a boat go out and ride about in it. Go fishing, they would absolutely love it. If you have a compound bow, let them try their skill shooting it.
Q: Would the Chinese eat my dog or cat?
A: Heavens! No! Most Chinese love animals, and both dogs and cats have a special place in the hearts of most Chinese. The problem is that if you introduce your dog or cat to them, they might end up spending all the time with them instead of with you. If you dog can play frizbe, then show the Chinese visitor how to throw it and everyone will have a great time.
One of my favorite “hobbies” is to drink wine. I have developed quite a taste for this simple libation. It makes me relax, feel talkative, and helps me appreciate the food that I eat with it. It is a wonderful, and most excellent, beverage to share with friends and family alike.
That being said, you really need to be careful in what you drink. For, I live in China, and there are all kinds of “fake” products that will tempt you and poison you if you are not careful.
Don’t misunderstand. The Chinese police take making fake wines quite seriously and if you are caught making and selling fake wines the punishment can be severe. It can vary from a few years in jail to “death plus three”.
"Death plus three" is a criminal sentence that means that you are sentenced to death. However, you will live in a hard labor prison for three years where your organs may be harvested as needed by society.
Let’s talk about this for a while and the techniques that I have used to avoid bad and dangerous wines…
Introduction
This post is an elaboration of a response that I gave to a fellow expat who asked how to select wines in China. It was a simple enough question. It went something like this; “How do I choose a wine in China?“.
Well, as a wine drinker, as opposed to a wine connoisseur, I responded in the only way that I knew how. I simply told the lass that you need to be careful. I told her that the high prices for wine in China has led to an environment whereas there can be a sea of fake wines that you must avoid.
She responded;
Oh wow I am completely shocked at this answer! I had no idea some of the wines were fake -- I thought since it's not a heavy liquor, I would be safe!
I did have a headache for about 2 days last weekend and I wondered why... probably bad wine at Coco Park!!
So let’s get started…
China is a nation of drinkers. Unlike the United States where there are prohibitions on behaviors, and various rules and laws making it increasingly difficult to drink and socialize. China has none of that. You are free to socialize and drink and smoke to your heart’s content.
In China you can drink alcohol without restraint.
They do not care if you kill yourself in the process. It is not the business of the government to protect you from yourself. If you are going to drink yourself to death, the government simply says “what ever you want, just don’t hurt anyone else in the process“.
This is quite different from the United States.
In the United States, laws have become tools to enforce behavior. All sorts of things are enforced. From having to wear a seat-belt, to having “child-resistant” caps on medicine bottles. America is a land of policed behavior with severe punishments for non-compliance.
Of course, all “vices” are restricted. Alcohol, being a vice, is restricted, taxed, and used as a control vector to guarantee mass compliance.
Some of the restrictions that are placed on Americans, in regards to alcohol, are;
Road sobriety check-points, mandatory breathalyzer tests, and road-blocks.
Companies that fire and fine you for being hungover. Such as GM.
HR Set aside rules that require smoking off the property, or drinking during lunch hours.
Insurance plans that penalize social behavior such as drinking.
Requirements for proof of age to purchase.
Laws on “open container carry”.
China doesn’t have any of these restrictions on behavior. It does not force people to behave in a structured manner “for the good of the nation“. Rather it’s laws are similar to British Common Law.
Instead of enforcing behavior, they seek restitution for victims. It is a completely different mind-set.
The history of hard alcohol in China
China has over 5000 years of drinking hard, playing hard and working hard.
That is not going to stop by some progressive busybody with a catchy slogan, a nice song and attractive television personalities. In fact, there were times when Chinese SJW’s tried to do exactly this…
These social justice warriors tried to take over. They tied to make a nice progressive utopia where a new way of acting, dress, and behavior were implemented. They did this numerous times in the past. Perhaps you, the reader, have heard of some of the attempts…
Each time, the movement by Social Justice Warriors fell apart. In their wake was left ruin and destruction. The Chinese government would have none of that. It no longer will accept Social Justice Warriors to disrupt social harmony.
Here are some interesting posts on the subject if you wish to explore this venue further…
If the government suspects that you are a SJW, they will come after you. Trying to upset the social order, one that has been perfected for over 5000 years, is considered a serious crime. It is a crime against everything that China and the Chinese people stand for. You are thus considered a criminal of the highest order; a social misfit, with distorted views of your role in society, and a dangerous threat to those around you.
Ask how the SJW’s captured during the “Democracy Movement” have to say about their life today in 2018…
How wine is drunk
The Chinese do not drink wine like people in the West drink wine. They do not sip it, and enjoy the texture and flavor. No. Instead they drink it like they drink traditional 53° white wine; they gulp it down. They drink it down glass, by glass in big gulps.
I of course, only do so as part of business, and other Chinese social occasions. For instance like when I am with family, or with friends. At home, I drink wine like a normal person. I sip it. I taste it. I inhale the aroma and sample the complex textures.
In China, both red wine and baijiu is quaffed down.
The key here is an understanding that the Chinese culture places a great deal of importance in your ability to handle yourself when “shit face” drunk. Thus, the taste and aroma of a wine is of far less importance than the ability to get you staggering drunk.
In Chinese culture, Western wines opened up a new avenue to business and social get together’s. Here, instead of drinking 53° white wine we can drink 11° red wine. We can get drunk slower, and thus expand our time together for better fellowship and more time for social bonding.
It’s a win-win.
China opens to the West
China has always been partial to alcohol. It really doesn’t matter what it is. People have been drinking everything from beer to snake wine for many centuries. Long, long before the formation of the United States, Chinese poets were rowing out on lakes and offering drunken toasts to the moon.
There isn’t any political correctness here. If you are an adult, or a businessman, you drink. It’s pretty simple.
The Chinese have made all kinds of different types of wine and libations to suit their desire for strong alcoholic beverages. They have snake wine, frog wine, and all kinds of exotic herbal beverages that vary in taste and complexity.
Chinese adapt to Western wine
China has long been a friend to Western alcohol. Whether it was Shanghai in the 1920’s or Hong Kong and Macao, the Chinese love for Western wines and alcohol has continued unabated. When the United States had prohibition and forced everyone to hide their love of alcohol, the Chinese were merrily drinking themselves under the table.
For the most part, the Chinese have had access to alcohol from all over the world for a long time. This includes the leadership of Mr. Mao who implemented hard-core communist progressive laws, rules and behaviors. While the revolutionary zeal was taking hold on university campuses all over the nation, and inspirational slogans were being painted on large flowing red banner, the average Chinese family was happily quaffing down alcohol in spectacular amounts.
For the most part, these moments were “white wine” moments. Or to use a more appropriate term “moonshine”.
However, China underwent a drastic change when Mr. Deng started to implement his reforms.
You know, Americans have no idea. Absolutely ZERO idea about what Mr. Deng did. Oh, maybe one in a thousand heard of “Mr. Deng reforms”, but that is a rare person indeed.
What Mr. Deng did was threw out all the social policies, and economic policies of communism. That’s right. He implemented, what could best be termed “American Hard-right Conservative Free-Market” policies. Though you will NEVER hear the left-leaning mainstream American media ever talk about this.
One of the reasons why China is so successful is simply because of Mr. Deng. Every school child in China knows about the important role that Mr. Deng had. Everyone in China knows this. Though, of course, they don’t call it “American brand of conservatism”. They call it “Communism with Chinese systems”.
A name is just a name.
A demand is created
Once China “opened up” and free-market trade was promoted, a middle class of people suddenly appeared. Under a socialist nation, whether it is socialist-lite or hard-core full-on communist, there are only two classes of people. This is the [1] government ruling class, and [2] the workers that serve them. (Which pretty much explains the mentality of those in the American oligarchy.)
However, under a free-market society, society does not stratify. It blends. There becomes bands of society.It isn’t a homogenized society under a central government where everyone is”equal”. It is a society that is an aggregate of different people, different cultures, and different lifestyles.
Seemingly over-night a middle class appeared in China.
This middle class had an enormous appetite for Western goods. People started to dress better, enjoy the finer things in life, and strive to build up their lives from a socialist utopia where they could never be given the opportunity. For once the government has you in it’s little box, the odds that you will ever leave it, are increasingly remote.
The Chinese saw the opportunity and seized it.
Suddenly a demand for all things “Western” was created. The Chinese wanted to act, dress and be American. They started to copy American clothing, fashions, and ways of doing things. The desire was intense, and everyone wanted to be like Americans.
Which is why outside elements (non-Chinese) started to instigate the “Pro-Democracy” movement. here, Chinese social justice warriors, with financial backing from outside of China, tried to force China to implement “democracy” inside of China. The only thing was, of course, that they did not want democracy, they wanted an authoritarian socialist government with the name of democracy with them in charge.
Ok. Ok, I’m getting off the subject again. But to know China, you need to know what has been going on for the last number of decades or so…
Fake wine flourishes
Ah wine. It is good with everything.
With the middle class, came the desire for red wine. Not only will the Chinese enjoy white wine, but they will also enjoy red wine. And what a demand that it created! The Chinese demand for red wine was off the charts! Everyone was drinking it.
And…
And, with demand came fakes. People started to create fake wine, made out of all kinds of ingredients. They discovered that they could recycle imported bottles, and even have local factories make look-alike bottles. The ability to make a copy of a wine label was child’s-play. They could take the cheapest white wine, mix it with grape juice and sell it under some kind of American, French or Spanish brand and sell it for 1000x the cost to make it.
First off, let me make one thing perfectly clear; China has some most excellent locally produced wines. You can get a nice ChengYu or a GreatWall, both very common throughout China and enjoy a good budget bottle of wine. You can also get wines from smaller independent Chinese wineries that are quite magnificent.
I don’t buy wines by price tag. I look for a good, and real wine. I look for local or well known wines that are difficult to fake. I drink wine for the taste. So, with this being said, I am certainly not a wine connoisseur. Instead, I am a consumer of good real wine.
I like a good real wine. If it tastes good, than that is good enough for me.
But, you know, fake wines are a real problem. Here in China, fake goods are everywhere. Oh, yes. It was much worse a few years back. The Corruption Police out of Beijing has really clamped down on all this nonsense. They are going after all the evil doers. They are armed, trained and go after them like the IRS goes after an American taxpayer. They are that ruthless!
The thing is that there are entire communities that share recipes on making fake wines, and a network of distributors that purloin these fake goods to the consumer. This is quite an elaborate organization and consists of all sorts of people doing all sorts of questionable activities.
The police step in
In China, the police have a duty to protect the people. This is different than in the United States where the police have the duty of enforcing behavior.
So instead of arresting a five year old girl for selling lemonade, trying to seize someone’s children because the 11 year old was walking alone from school one day, and fining you for having dangling plastic “horse balls” on the hitch of your pickup truck, the Chinese will devote their time towards making China safe.
They have a long road ahead of them.
I will say this, In the United States we NEVER have to worry about fake wines. We never worry about fake beer, fake cigarettes, and fake cigars. We have come to accept this as normal, without giving the American culture the credit it deserves. People, America is what it is because of the people who live there.
Good or bad, right or wrong. It is the people that determine how a country works.
The underground market persists
Like it or not, this ability to make fake wine is a profitable venture. There are many who will happily concoct a few hundred cases of fake wine so that they can buy a new car or two. It’s difficult to eradicate. However, I can honestly say that the situation is much better than it was just five years ago.
Back then, you could not tell at all the difference between a fake wine and a real wine. Often most of the wines in a store might be completely fake. That all started to turn around in 2014 by the massive police crackdowns and raids in Dongguang.
The dangers of fake wine
The people who make these fake wines do everything from relabeling cheap local wine to concocting a toxic mixture of factory chemicals, and rat poison. You really don’t want to put any of this nonsense into your body. It could hurt you terribly.
The problem with fake wine is that you don’t know what is in it. Many times the chemicals that are put inside are done so for color, appearance, and to create the illusion that the liquid is real wine. I have heard of all kinds of things being added to the mixture. I have heard of rancid Duran fruit, I have heard of locomotive degreaser, and rubbing alcohol added to the “wine” to give it that rosy glow when sipped. You do not want to put any of these chemicals in your body. You could develop cancer, get a brain tumor or have your dick fall off.
What ever you do, stay away from fake wines.
How to avoid fake wine
Here’s some rules of thumb that I use…
Yellow tail is a fine import and it is real. It is from Australia. You can get it at the “D” supermarket. Prices fluctuate. Expect to pay at least 60 RMB a bottle. Normal prices are 75 RMB a bottle. Of course, I drink by the case, so I am always looking for real wine at decent prices. You can always find 350 RMB bottles of wine, and I think that you are just throwing your money away at that.
Great Wall has a good dry red wine. But there are many fakes out there. Expect to pay from 65 to 75RMB a bottle at a large name supermarket such as ren ren le. It’s the real deal and pretty good as well.
This is what a bottle or REAL “Great Wall” wine looks like. Note the top of the wine. When you remove the cork, you will notice that the cork is plastic synthetic. It is not real cork. Real cork is cheap and it is used in fake wines.
Great wall has many types of wines. They have bought up smaller vineyards, and often sell the cheaper wine under their logo. You have to be careful.
You can tell a fake bottle by the following guidelines… If you are sharing a bottle with another, a real bottle will make you feel warm. Two bottles will make you feel good, but not drunk. You will feel drunk on the third bottle. A fake bottle of wine will be quite different.
You will get drunk on the first bottle when you are sharing it. By the second bottle if your partner is sitting up with drool coming out of their mouth it is certainly fake. The next day both of you will have splitting headaches, and really bad fake wine will result in messed up stomach and body for at least a week.
Real wine will NEVER give you a headache the next day even if you drink four bottles yourself. Although, you might “potato head” for the duration of the morning.
If you buy in quantity, you can get real wine down to 200 RMB/case. Which is around 33 RMB/ bottle. But you will need to drink a few bottles first before you can tell the difference. In china, price has no bearing on the quality of the wine. Only the store’s reputation does.
Ten days ago I paid 71 RMB for a bottle of “Great Wall” that I felt funny about, but I figured that it must of been ok because of the name and the price. I was wrong. It took two days to get rid of the headache.
Fake wines are a REAL problem in China. If you drink like I do, you can really mess up yourself really bad by drinking that poison. Lord only knows what goes in it. I have read stories that they use rubbing alcohol, automobile antifreeze, oven cleaner, and horse tranquilizers to get the desired flavors. They take grape juice, and add the chemicals. and age it in a kind of heated tub in the back of a pig farm, and then bottle it in reused foreign wine bottles. YUCK!
Great wall has many types and shapes and sizes. But remember, only go to a good reliable grocery store, and buy the real stuff. Not the fake stuff. This is why most Chinese prefer either Beer or White Wine. You cannot fake either of them, but you can fake red wine.
A “copy cat” fake is a fake wine dressed up to look like a real wine. As most Chinese wines are unknown wines with made up names, labels and points of origin. You can not tell from the bottle shape. You cannot tell from the bottle labels, or seals. You cannot tell from the boxes that the wines come from. The problem is that all of the international wines get their labels, bottles, corks, and boxes out of China. So it is easy for the Chinese to make doubles.
Anyways, I once got some fake “Sharaz” that was Yellow Tail from a good store. So even if you know what you are doing, you can get tricked. You have got to be careful.
Always remember the cork. If the cork is made out of plastic or a synthetic, then it is probably good. If it is a made out of a real cork, then it is a fake. The reason for this is that anyone can by cork. It is cheap and easy to get. Synthetic cooks are expensive, and regulated. There is also a MOQ (minimum order quantity) with is often much larger than the volume of the fake wine batch.
If you want to get a good bottle that won’t cause any of your internal organs to collapse, then stick to beer, JinJiu, or white wine. Beware, some of the fakes are REALLY good and taste quite good. You might not realize it, but there are complete families that trade the secrets of good fake tasting wines. They improve their mixture over time, and some of the best can sell some very good tasting products that can bring them a lot of money. … Provided that only one or two bottles are drunk by non-drinkers.
Some rules of thumb. All wine from bars, or from the Internet are fake. All wines that come from Spain are fake. All wines that are in a store (even a good store) that are “on sale” and they only have one pallet of it (maybe fifty cases) are fake…fake…fake.
Stick to what you know. Stick to known brands, reputable stores and sellers.
Levels of fake
The quality of fake products are stratified.
Level 1 – The best fakes. Real wine from a local producer is placed in expensive bottles and sold as the expensive brand.
Level 2– Awkward nastiness. Real cheap local wine is diluted down with water, and dangerous non-potable alcohol is added to increase the potency of the beverage. This stuff can make you sick, and give you headaches that can last for days.
Level 3 – Horrible shit. Very little real wine is used. Instead a concoction of different local medicines, and liquids are compiled together. This can consist of such things as cantaloupe rinds and liquidized horse feed mixed with cheap denatured alcohol. This stuff will make you physically sick, and can cause you to be hospitalized if you binge drink with it.
Summary
Fake wine takes away from the beauty of life. Some assholes, and they really are assholes, are trying to profit at your expense. Fake wine is a problem.
Keep in mind the most important rule of wine.
The Rule of Wine
Wine should be drank with friends and family alongside some fine delicious food. The most important aspect is happy times together.
Wine should be enjoyed with friends and family. I think a nice song, and maybe a dance is also appropriate. Drink wine while eating food. I like fresh crunchy loaves of bread. I like nice chunks of cheese and a spread of olives, cutup fresh heirloom tomatoes, onions, lettuce, and peppers. Life is too short not to appreciate the better things in life.
And what is better than spending time with your friends and your family? Not too much else, I am afraid.
I think that wine goes great with food. When you are together with friends and family, the wine really makes the times cheerful. Our faces get red and rosy and we talk about our days, our opinions, and our dreams. I especially think that foods with sauces go great with wine. I really enjoy a nice “Italian style” dinner with a few bottles of wine. Oh baby, yes!
There are all kinds of foods that go well with wine. I like to think that sandwiches go best with an icy cold beer, but there are many, many foods that go well with wine. For instance, How about an Italian Grinder?
As I get older, I come to appreciate the importance of wine.
Wine is wonderful with food.
Wine is served best when it is served with friends.
Fake wine is a problem in China.
There are precautions that a person can take to avoid fake wine.
Remember the Rule of Wine.
FAQ
Q: Why are there so many fake products in China? A: This is because it is profitable. Many of the fake products are quite good and functional. For instance, there are “grades” of a fake product. You can have a fake LV handbag that is made from the same material, and the same suppliers as the real LV. This is a top grade fake. Then you can have a terrible cheap knock off that doesn’t look anything at all like a LV bag. It’s all a matter or degree.
Q: Can you drink a fake bottle of wine and not get sick? A: Yes. There are many fakes that are just simply local wines repackaged into expensive bottles, expensive labels and expensive price tags. The buyer is thus cheated. He is paying steak prices for dogfood.
Q: What is the Rule of Wine? A: Wine should be drank with friends and family alongside some fine delicious food. The most important aspect is happy times together.
Q: What if I don’t want to drink wine? A: That is fine too. You can go ahead and call some friend over and do something else. The important thing is to spend time together with people who are meaningful to you. Make a difference and appreciate the time that you all are spending together.
If there were some kind of words of wisdom that I could impart to the reader, or if there was some advice that I could give the reader relative to my experiences and my knowledge, what would it be?
Let me think…
“The most powerful thing that we can be is ourselves. I love what Zachary was saying because that's us. We were always that little kid. We're still that little kid. Right — just aspiring to be something better. Aspiring to be important.”
-Dwayne, The Rock
First off…
Put your phone away. Turn that fucker off. When you come home and throw your keys into a basket, catchall, or other small container, toss your phone in with them. When it’s with you — and in your pocket — the mental clutter of an entire Internets worth of headlines and viral videos can be too much to resist.
No. This is not about the NSA spying on you. Though it does. No. This is not about Google tracking your location. Though it does. No. This is not about privacy or peace, though those are significant issues. No.
Having your phone always next to you is like having a stack of newspapers and magazines on the floor that you have yet to read. Only when you ditch the newspapers because you realize they’re literally old news will the mental space they’re crouching on be freed up.
It’s true. I used to collect all kinds of magazines. If I was too busy to read the articles, I would save the magazines for later. Over time, I never read the articles. No matter how interesting or well written they were. Instead, the stack just got larger and larger. It became a “to do” item on a growing list of “to do” items.
Remember, regardless of the content, if it is not PHYSICALLY part of YOUR life, it is not important to you directly. Those memes don’t call to you if your phone isn’t within reach…
“Hold yourself to a higher standard than anyone else expects of you. Never excuse yourself.”— Henry Ward Beecher
Quick Summary
This is your life. It’s yours.
This is your reality that you exist within. Everyone around you are but very lively and interesting “shadows”. While they might be part of your reality, they are not part of who you are. They are not you.
To really live your life, as GOD intended, you need to live it on YOUR terms.
What about you?
Throughout this blog, I spent a lot of time describing MY own personal experiences. But what does that matter to you; the reader?
How can it possibly matter? What is the significance of all of this? Where does what I have written here lead to? Will you make more money? Will your body be healthier, and your personality improve? Will you find that members of the opposite sex will be drawn to you?
I really do not know. Every person is different.
Everyone who reads this blog reacts differently to it. Some of the comments are completely cruel and uncalled for. Some are just nonsense, maybe generated by a computer algorithm. Others seem to be from a middle school student who cannot spell very well. Honestly, I don’t keep up with the latest texting slang and abbreviations. To me, it reads like gibberish.
I find that most readers only read the first three paragraphs or so and then skims down the the bottom of the page before exiting. Very few ever read the entire article. Those that do, are the ones who derive full benefit of the topic content.
Would you try to understand?
This blog is not what everyone expects.
It is not intended to be set up like a conventional blog, news article, editorial, disclosure or “whistle-blower” statement. There is a completely different purpose behind this blog. If you are here reading this, perhaps you do UNDERSTAND.
I do not expect, at all, to have a following like Robert Greene has with his book the 48 Laws of Power. I would be nice, but it really isn’t necessary. I do not require a following to get my message across. I only need one or two key people.
The 48 Laws of Power has sold over 1.2 million copies in the United States and has been translated into 24 languages. Fast Company called the book a "mega cult classic," and The Los Angeles Times noted that The 48 Laws of Power turned Greene into a "cult hero with the hip-hop set, Hollywood elite and prison inmates alike."
You have read this blog for reasons unknown. You slugged through it. You persevered. You have reached this point in time, where you now are saying “What the fuck?”. What have you gotten out of this?
Understanding? What kind of understanding is this all about?
Men need to be “awake”
We have to realize that we live in a world that is increasingly confused, uncertain, and paralyzed that is calling out for men of action.
We need to stop thinking and start acting.
Stop looking at the big red button and push it.
Stop planning and take a step forward.
Stop talking about grit and take a hit.
In short, the world needs men. I’m not sure if you’ll answer the call. I do know some will, though, and that’s all we need.
I cannot provide a “one size fits all” kind of manuscript. I cannot describe things for a woman (or for a woman’s point of view), as opposed to that of a man.
Personally, I think preserving a few small differences in the expectations of male/female behavior, simply as symbols of our differences, keeps things fun. Rules and traditions give life texture and meaning, as opposed to living life in an entirely blah postmodern wasteland. Sameness is boring. Differences create attraction.
That being pointed out, all I can do is explain what I know in the context of what I understand.
I tried to be inclusive, but people are far too diverse.
We need a set and clear objective
Integration is the key word here. Each of us has to decide on the end game—is the goal to help people become more positive or a fully functioning, human being? The former is artificial and the latter is messy and nuanced. Choose to see the complexity of human beings, and we will be of greater service to helping ourselves and humanity.
Everything, and I do mean everything, is all about us and how we live within our reality. It is all about what we do with your life. It is what we do with our time, our friends and our purpose.
This is YOUR reality.
We need to integrate it. We need to integrate it with ourselves and be the person that we were intended to be.
Comparisons
You, the reader have read about my adventures, and perhaps wonder if you may also get this “kind” of opportunity in the future. I can tell the reader this; YES.
Yes. Eventually, depending on your conscious efforts toward sentience construction (in the physical embodiment) you will get this “kind” of opportunity.
The change in mindset will absolutely create a change in thoughts. This change in thinking will completely change your physical life; it will become more adventurous. However, the decision to live this life is a difficult one.
Indeed, the choice to live an adventurous lifestyle is not an easy one. It is very difficult to break free of the monotonous routine of daily life when you have been repeating it for years on end.
You can easily come up with a handful of excuses why you shouldn’t book that weekend whitewater rafting trip, travel to a foreign country, or make an appointment for your first SCUBA lesson. I can’t get off of work, I shouldn’t spend the money, who will watch the kids, etc. There is only one way to break the routine, and that is to just do it. Keep in mind the words of George Mallory, known for attempting the first ascent of Everest;
“What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to live. That is what life means and what life is for.”
Of course it will happen, this is your reality and it is ruled by your thought. If the reader is confused, then please reread the post on reality. But, no, it will not be identical to what I experienced. It will (probably) NOT be in some sort of a top-secret government project. You probably won’t be part of MAJestic.
No, it will not be that obvious.
No, you will not realize what it is until AFTER you have participated in it. However, like it or not, YOU will have this opportunity. (Maybe not in this physical reincarnation, but it will happen to one of your incarnations. Every person goes through a sorting process to settle their sentience configuration vector.)
The easy way…
Finally, and for the record; No, you cannot pay money and buy a ticket or education that will enable this transformation. It will only occur when you are ready. This means emotionally, mentally, physically, socially, and spiritually. Nothing that you can do physically, aside from altering of your thoughts, can enable this transformation.
As the saying goes; “You cannot buy your way into heaven.”
“When I envied a man’s spurs then they were indeed worth coveting.”― Zane Grey
Fundamentals
Stop placing your fate in someone else hands. It’s time to take control of your life. Instead of being the ship, be the captain that controls the ship.
Having a bunch of loose ends in your life is heavy psychological baggage. It’s like an orchestra where everyone’s playing a different piece. The music would be terrible. You have to step in as the conductor and get each instrument on the same page, all working together to create something beautiful.
Be the person in charge of your life.
You are no longer a student; a child. When we were a child our parents taught us. They guided us. When we were students, it was our teachers that guided us. When we got our first job, it was our supervisors that guided us. Later, where we got married, it was our spouse that guided us.
Stop that train of behavior.
You are an adult. Take charge of your life.
First Steps
Start by making a list of the things in your life that you’re not happy with. Pick one of the problems and come up with a concrete plan of action on how you’re going to tackle it.
Unhappy work, job or career.
Unhappy health or appearance.
Unhappy relationships or lack thereof.
Unhappy financial or health situation.
This simply means sitting down with a notebook and not getting back up again until you’ve figured out a solution, a few concrete steps you can take to solve the problem.
And then you follow-through with your plan with absolutely no excuses.
Now…
Now, if there’s really nothing you can do to change the situation, then come up with a way that you can change your reaction to what’s happening.
Change yourself.
Let the rest of the world adapt to the NEW you.
Don’t let other people dictate how you feel. Controlling your emotions and deciding how to feel on your own terms is one of the manliest and most satisfying accomplishments in life.
Second Steps
Once you successfully tackle one problem, your confidence in your problem-solving abilities will increase, your sense of being in control of your life will increase, your resiliency will be continually strengthened, and your confidence will be further enhanced. And the cycle will continue.
Your life is not fixed. It is malleable and it can be whatever you want it to be.
Therefore, I can at least provide some basic guidelines (The larger theme here demands ignoring the popular narrative and thinking both independently and unconventionally.) to the reader towards their own personal growth and behavior, Let me take a moment to address these issues…
I strongly urge the reader to accept the sentience that they are inclined towards. Do not try to be what you are not. Your soul determined this physical incarnation. Utilize it. Learn from it.
There are positive and negative aspects in everything. Try to bring out the positive in everything that you do.
Be you. Most importantly; do not take what I have written as a behavioral guide. It was my life, but not your life. It was full of errors and mistakes. Therefore, I urge you to be you. Be who you are; just as you are.
Consider your strengths. Start basing your self-concept on your strengths, not on external things. This isn’t some banal self-esteem affirmation where everyone is special just “because”. Your strengths are the things that truly make you unique and give you something special to offer the world.
You are unique. Allow yourself to feel confident in what you have to offer people. We may never be superheroes in the comic book sense, but you should look at your strengths like your unique “superpowers” that you can use as a force of good in the world.
Do your best in everything. Be kind. Accept others exactly as they are, and don’t try to change or mold them. (Trying to change others is a “service to self” mentality, but more importantly it causes quantum entanglements. You might want to avoid that carefully.)
Accept your belief structure as a fundamental part of who you are and recognize that it is neither good, nor bad. But rather an extension of your very being and essence. That means both the spiritual and political aspects of your being.
To Impart Information
I hope what I wrote in this blog, somehow and at some level, benefited you in some way. It is not my intention to change the reader, but to impart information that I have accumulated over the years.
I wish to distill it into a format for the greatest bulk of the population to enjoy. What the reader and their friends do with the information can only be speculated upon, but I do indeed hope that the end result will be a positive one.
Be who you are and what you are destined to be.
“My prejudice was that the ideal man is a woman in a man’s body. And I learned, no, that’s really not. There are a lot of women out there who really want a manly man, and they want his stoicism,”-Vincent
A lesbian feminist disguised herself as a man for a period of time to see first hand the differences in gender. She wanted to make a case in favor of male privilege and the need for men to change their behavior and act more like women for a just and fairer world.
She was wrong and this amazing article describes her discoveries. Because of her experiences her views about men have changed forever.
“Men are suffering. They have different problems than women have, but they don’t have it better,they need our sympathy. They need our love, and maybe they need each other more than anything else. They need to be together.”
Ironically, Vincent said, it took experiencing life as a man for her to appreciate being a woman. “I really like being a woman. … I like it more now because I think it’s more of a privilege.”
Trying to change the actions and behaviors of others to suit your own ignorance or needs is a selfish action. It is a sure fire sign of “service to self” sentience, however, when the person learns the objective lessons in the folly, then one is well on the road to altering their sentience. Though it might prove painful.
You have Strengths
Embrace your strengths as the arsenal of tools you have to meet life’s challenges. Unlike external things, your strengths can go anywhere and help you in any situation.
Consider what you have…
Energy to start the day.
Resiliency to keep at it, time and time again.
The ability to forge ahead and never give up.
The ability to do your best, while the rest of the world laughs at you.
The ability to endure.
If shit happens… and it will…
If you get divorced, if you are let go from your job, or you are forced to move to a new place, it will be your strengths that will be hanging around your shoulders like a bandoleer.
It will be your skills, your abilities and your raw power of personality.
They are there, ready to be employed to build something new. For you are the Rambo of resiliency.
Exercise your strengths. Use them. The exercise of your strengths are the path to true fulfillment, gratification, satisfaction, and happiness. Find ways to employ your strengths more often in your job, relationships, families, and faith.
The more fulfilled you feel, the stronger you’ll feel as a man, and the easier it will become to take risks and brush off setbacks.
For the Younger Fellas…
You’re only young once. This is the only time in your life where you don’t have any obligations– no mouths to feed, no mortgage to pay, no employees to look after.
You’re free.
Don’t waste your time and freedom indulging in endless leisure activities or posting pictures of your latest dessert on Instagram. This is the time to truly learn… to put your heart and soul into building the knowledge, skills, and character that can set you up for the rest of your life.
An end result
This blog is the end result (I believe) that former President Ronald Reagan intended way back in 1981. This is what he meant when I signed onto MAJestic. This is what he was talking about…
Make your life something significant. Make it worthwhile. Make it a positive impact. Try your best, and be the best “you” that you can be. Do not model your life after someone else life. Do not model it after mine. Design your own.
Make yours matter. Make your life count.
Start today
Start today. Say out loud “This is NOT how my life will end.”
Begin with kindness. Start slow, and just be yourself.
“…he was an idealist who went after the attainable; a dreamer who was a man among strong men; a man who faced life with superb assurance and who could face death serenely imperturbable. These were my first impressions; which months of companionship only confirmed.”-W. B. Hargrave
Every day, in little tiny ways, just be the best you that you can be. Groom yourself well. Think before you speak. Smile. Sit straight. Radiate. Park your car straighter.
Oh, but you’ve heard it all before… haven’t you?
“Once you declare an idea or person to be your enemy, you give them a room in your mind. Within that room you insert their history, strategies, tactics, strengths, and weaknesses. You dedicate more of your waking hours to understanding how to defeat them. As time passes, items from that room start to leak out into your being, until you look in the mirror and realize that you are not that different from your enemy.”-You become what you fight by RooshV
However, this time, yes this time, listen.
Be a man
Concentrate on yourself, and being the best you that you can possibly be. Don’t worry about everyone else. Do your best. Do more than the “next guy”. Be the one who shows up on time. Make your word your bond. Look people in the eye when you speak with them.
Be a MAN god dammit!
Present yourself in a businesslike fashion while on the job. Be kind to those around you. Be good to animals. Water a plant. Refrain from shooting off an angering post or e-mail. Stop reacting. Stop being manipulated by others. Visit your grandparents unexpectedly.
Have some class
Men get angry and resentful when they agree to something that compromises who they are, what they stand for. Men who have developed their “non-negotiable, and unalterable terms”, have no problem cooperating as long as they’re not asked to compromise what’s important, their non-negotiable, unalterable terms.
Be who you are, but work with others to achieve mutual benefit to all.
Help Others
Help others. We all have a calling in life. I believe it boils down to one thing: You are here on this planet to help other people. In fact, none of us can exist very long without help from others.
It is our higher calling.
This thought was brought home forcefully in a story that Garret Keizer recounts in his insightful book “Help: The Original Human Dilemma”.
Supposedly in hell the damned sit around a great pot, all hungry, because the spoons they hold are too long to bring the food to their mouths. In heaven, people are sitting around the same pot with the same long spoons, but everyone is full. Why? Because in heaven, people use their long spoons to feed one another. (Thus, my strong urge towards service to other sentience.)
Cultivate your relationships
Take your dad out for coffee. (That was my last memory of my father before he died. We went out for coffee and donuts.)
Buy your mother some flowers. (That will be a wonderful surprise! She would be so very surprised. You know that this is true. Do it. See what happens. It will just MAKE HER DAY. Do it, just “because”. I promise you that it would be a memory that she would treasure.)
Email an old friend and just say hi.
Be Attentive
Just act a little more attentively.
STOP multi-tasking. If you are going to eat, turn off the phone and eat, and talk with your companions. If you are going to play basketball, then play. If you are going to talk to someone on the phone, do not go watching television at the same time.
Multi-tasking is not at all appropriate for men. It is something that women do well, but not men.
Don’t believe me? Try carrying on a very serious conversation with your wife, while you are trying to watch a game on television. She will NOT accept your attempt at multi-tasking. She will demand your full attention.
Do good things
Do good things. Make your life matter. We are what we do every day. Make a difference.
Smile more often.
Slow down when you do things.
Turn off the news.
Take extra care being clean.
Eat better.
Spend time with your friends.
Try to say one nice thing to a person each day.
Do great works
Take what is presented herein and do positive great works with it. I implore you.
“Everything had its own little home, neat and tidy. The white linen handkerchief on the inside pocket. The little mints… A single key on a fob.”
-Nancy Sinatra on the contents of Frank Sinatra’s pockets
Begin with yourself
Begin with yourself. Be you, as unique as you can possibly be. Be comfortable with who you are and live yourself well. Then, once you are comfortable, improve the world that surrounds you.
Please pitch in and do your part to make the world a better place. Don’t rely on someone else to do the heavy lifting for you. As Martin Luther King noted,
“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
In other words, don’t wait around for someone else to fix what ails you, your community or nation. Don’t make demands on other people to “do the heavy lifting”. If you want to feed the poor, don’t demand others pay higher taxes. You go out and you feed them yourself.
Growth is participatory. Or, as Gandhi urged: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
- Maya Angelou
You can be the ONE who makes a difference
Realize that one person can make a difference. That person can be YOU.
I wish that I would have lived up to the expectations of my parents, friends, and family. I wasn’t a hero. I never became rich, popular or successful. I was just an average man, and while my story was unique, I could have done so much more with my life than what I did.
"The best employee engagements programs fail if the CEO doesn't say good morning when he walks to his office."
-Unknown
I urge the reader to become great.
Become GREAT
Follow other great people as role models. Try to live up to their ideals. For me, I consider Bob Ross, or Fred Rogers as role models. Another is Les Brown. They lived life on their terms. Make a difference. Live your life on your own terms. Start NOW.
After I exited my retirement from MAJestic, I had a nice talk with my father.
He shook his head. “What went wrong”, he lamented. He pulled out a old black and white picture of me and him when I was one years old.
He was holding me up by my two arms. He looked so young, and so proud.
He looked at it and in a slow sad voice… “we had so much hope and promise for you…” and trailed off. (I kept that picture. It is now slowly rotting away in a Newark, N.J. warehouse somewhere. Forever lost.)
A plea for positive change
If we’re going to see any positive change for the human species on this little planet, then we must change our view of what it means to be human and regain a sense of what it means to love one another.
That will mean gaining the courage to stand up for the oppressed. This is true whether it is an American Indian being kicked out of a 7-11, or a white male student being shamed publicly in a university for “White Privilege”.
Take a stand.
In fact, it’s always been the caring individual, the ordinary person doing extraordinary things, who has made a difference in the world. Even Mahatma Gandhi, who eventually galvanized the whole of India, brought the British Empire to its knees, and secured freedom for his people, began as a solitary individual committed to the idea of nonviolent resistance to the British Empire.
You don’t have to start big. Just take the time to care and show concern for those around you. This doesn’t just mean your friends and family. It means strangers as well.
“A while ago I met a guy on a flight. I was NOT having a good day myself but he started telling me how he had lost his job and he was on his way back from an interview. He then started to cry. He said that he really needs a job. They (him and his wife) also had a baby on the way.I listen to how passionate this guy was and how he wanted to get back to work. I asked him tons of questions and he answered them all. After we landed, and got off the plane, he laughed about how he felt like I was interviewing him.I looked at him with a smile and introduced myself as the Sr. Vice- President of Stores for a major retail company. He eyes widen as if he had seen a ghost because he was in retail as well.I hired him right there on the spot in the airport. I paid him more than he was making at his last job.Can I teach you three things? 1. As leaders, you should always look for great talent. 2. Always bring your best game to the table because you never know whom you are talking to. 3. You should never let the fact that you are having a bad day stop you from helping someone else have the best day of their life.
As leaders, the BEST thing that we can do is help people to believe in themselves again! As for me, I just want to leave people in a better place than I found them.”-John Moore
The Critters
As I stated earlier, this is not limited to strangers, and people. It is not limited to family and friends. It is not limited to humans. Consider the neighborhood animals as well.
“Please don’t take your pets for granted.Even if you’re frustrated that your dog has been barking all day or your bird has been screaming for attention, remember you are all they have in this world. Give your fish that extra water change. Give your dog or cat that tummy rub they’ve been begging for. Chop up some fresh fruit as a treat for your rodents or reptiles.
Just spend some time with them. Be compassionate to your animals. They are living creatures that are alive simply because you wish them to be. They may only be a small part in your life, but to them, you are their everything.”-phalaenopfish on Tumblr
Conclusion
My life is sun setting, it is up to YOU to carry the torch for me;
“Be the bright and shining star for all to see…”
Finally, let me close with a very prophetic excerpt from one of my favorite authors.
“The rocket leaped forward into greater accelerations.And just before the planet dwindled away in brightness and mist, Forester imagined that he could see Driscoll very clearly, walking away down from the green forest, whistling quietly, all of the fresh planet around him, a wine creek flowing for him, baked fish lolling in the hot springs, fruit ripening in the midnight trees, and distant forests and lakes waiting for him to happen by.
Driscoll walked away across the endless green lawns near the white stones, beyond the forest, to the edge of the large bright river . . . .”-Ray Bradbury.Here There Be Tygers
Be Yourself
All our life we were told, taught, to conform. If we failed to do so we were punished. But that was only because it was easy on them, and hard on you. You need to unlearn their corruptions.
“When I first got to Hollywood — Hollywood, they didn't know what the hell to do with me. I mean, I was this half-black, half-Samoan and six foot four, 275-pound pro wrestler. You know; I was told at that time, 'Well, you got to be a certain way. You got to drop some weight. You've got to be somebody different. You got to stop working out. Stop doing the things that I love. You got to stop calling yourself The Rock.' What?!”
He continued: “And for years I actually bought into it because you think, 'Oh, that's what I'm supposed to do.' And I was miserable doing that. So I made a choice. And the choice was I wasn't going to conform to Hollywood, Hollywood was going to conform to me. So, Hollywood conformed to me and here I am with all of you getting the Generation Award. Holy s---,” Johnson said as the audience erupted.
In Johnson’s speech, the funnyman and producer explained the importance of self-love and remaining steadfast, being true to who we are as individuals.
-Dwayne The Rock
Being different is our STRENGTH.
It is a great and wonderful thing. We should treasure it, cultivate it, and own it.
Check out these videos of different people. See how absolutely wonderful and UNIQUE each one is.
Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.
Do not buy into that progressive liberal nonsense that you need to conform to society for the common good. Hogwash!
You need to be yourself, and be the absolutely best you that you can be. To Hell with the people who think otherwise.
Your VALUE to society is in your own uniqueness.
Take Aways
MAJestic operations taught me the importance of living your reality under your terms.
Often, we are living a programmed behavior established by others.
We will never be happy if we do not follow our own course; our own reality.
Fundamentally, it is something that we define alone, in accordance with our sentience.
Accept who you are.
Be the best YOU that you can be.
Spread the best of you around. Let others get a taste of the best you can offer.
Your reality will grow in size and be far more comfortable…
…when it is defined on your terms.
FAQ
Q: Are you dying? A: No. Heck no. However, please kindly note, my existence is at the pleasure of others. When it is time to exit this reality, I wish to do so with some advisement under record. I don’t want to be a person which much to contribute who suddenly commits suicide with two bullets in the back of my head, or dies in a car crash, or has a cell phone explode near my ear. You never know.
I think we owe it to our friends and to our society, to contribute what we can NOW. Not wait until something happens. The “I will put it off until after the weekend” or some other nonsense. Forget that. Throw it out now. Do it now. Take care of your life NOW. You never know what will happen in your future. Live life NOW.
Q: Is there anything else? A: Of course there is. There is much to say and do. In fact, contrary to what the statists say, our universe and existence is far large, far more expansive and far more interesting than any of their trite solutions to scientific mysteries can define.
For all the geniuses that think they know everything, they have no idea about the building blocks of soul, and how they integrate into a consciousness. They have no idea about the makeup of the various heavens and how they interact with each other, and the mechanisms used. I will write about those things as soon as I get some of the more pressing issues out of the way.
Q: How do you feel about American politics? A: It saddens me. What ever you do, do not allow politics to define who you are. It is all manipulation one way or the other. Do not be manipulated. Define your reality on your own terms. Not on the terms defined by others.
Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
You know, many of us work for a living. As such, if you have a university degree, the chances are that you migrated to a corporate job in a corporate environment. You probably received a decent salary, a nice (if bland and sterile) working environment, and considered yourself well on the way towards corporate greatness in a solid career.
It’s a nice fantasy. It’s all a big lie.
Most Americans waste their lives working in this environment. They get up and go to work. They deal with traffic, an uncaring boss, and suffer through the various rules that HR implements. They endure mindless and mind-numbing meetings, answer a pile of round-and-round email trains, and fill out form after form.
That’s not a life worth living.
A life worth living is one with purpose, direction, participation and fulfillment. Within the now-popular “corporate model” we have the worst elements of 1920’s-style progressive social-engineering intermixed with 1980’s-austerity. It is a most horrible mixture. Couple that with modern surveillance technology, unified HR standards, and the sterile ideal, you have a nightmare.
Here are some thoughts on corporate life, particularly American corporate life, now that I moved on elsewhere. These thoughts are just general ramblings, and the reader should not get too offended by them. We are all different.
Those of you who own your own companies and who set them up can ignore this post. This is not written for you. This is written precisely for the people who have to work in the “corporate” environment. One that often springs up out of the model you created.
This is a Two-Part Post
This is the second of a two part post. To see the first part, please kindly go HERE.
The 360 Review
Sometime a decade or so ago, the reincarnation of Beelzebub came up with the idea of a HR technique known as a “360 Review“. This is a review of a employee where the employee is presented with all their good and bad together in a yearly review. It is based on the false premise that saying negative things about a person, to their face, will result in positive outcomes.
Eventually this policy will fade away into obscurity. Companies that implement this policy tend to have short turnover cycles.
Trust me, no one wants to sit by while people tell them bad things about their life, their work, their dress, their behaviors, and aspects of their personality. In fact, a real MAN should get up, say that they will not tolerate such disrespect and leave.
Imagine sitting down and telling Clint Eastwood all of his bad faults and things that you don’t like about him…
Thoughts affect our reality.
Now, the old saying “Sticks and stones might break my bones, but words will never hurt me“, is quite outdated. It is based on a Newtonian understanding of how the universe works. In the Newtonian reality, all that exists is what you observe. Things and objects follow predictable relationships with other physical things. There is nothing outside of the physical world. Well, surprise! The universe does not obey a Newtonian reality. It obeys a quantum reality.
That’s a wake up call for all you statists out there in internet-land.
In the quantum world, we now have a revised saying; “Sticks and stones will break my bones, and words will hurt me even more.”
In the corporate world you have a false reality that you have to exist within. You obey it, and you take the uncomfortable all for a paycheck. It doesn’t have nor need to be that way. So don’t accept it.
Don’t accept it. Just do not.
If need be, imagine your favorite television character and put on that “face” and role. Because, for what ever it is worth, this kind of behavior done in China is considered the height of “face loss”. It just isn’t done here. So imagine your favorite character, and take on their persona when dealing with this kind of nonsense.
[21] The corporate world is a fantasy. It is a fake reality that is designed to subjugate the worker into behavioral norms that benefit the corporation. There is often no concern to the needs of the worker.
Responsibility with no Authority
Very often, in the corporate world, you will be held accountable for tasks that weren’t even your responsibility in the first place.
In large corporations, you will be given tasks and responsibilities, and maybe a nice title. However, there will often be no authority with the new tasks. The end result will be a middle manager, or two, or three, that will hold up the entire process. One will be busy or on travel, or on vacation. You won’t be able to move forward on your tasks because this lone manager is “sitting on” the approval.
Yet, finally, once the approval is granted, you will be held responsible for the delay in the project and the task. Your supervision and your manager will not accept your excuses, even though they will be true and accurate.
[22] Any company that does not provide responsibility with individual authority is being managedpoorly. The inability to control a task you are assigned is a very stressful event. Stress is generated by things that are beyond our control.
One of the biggest and most significant lessons of working in a big corporation is that you exchange your time for money. You sacrifice your life; your time (your most valuable commodity), and yourself for a handful of paper. That paper is exchanged for baubles to enhance your lifestyle.
Over time, after working in this environment for a few years, we forget things. We start to assume that the purpose of the work that we endure is for the pleasures of collecting baubles.
That urgent need to get the latest iPhone when it first came out.
Upgrade your car with some niceties.
Purchase of that whimsy for your front yard.
Getting a better set of wrenches for the garage.
Buying that software game in the store, because it was on sale.
As nice as these things are, are they really important? I argue that they are not as significant as we tend to believe. America is a consumer-focused nation, and a sizable portion of our money goes into taxes, followed with things we rent (our house, our car – Yes “Rent”, you don’t own anything you are making payments on.), then what is left over is often gobbled up with the purchase of baubles.
It is important, for us to get off that treadmill.
Stop the accumulation of possessions. Only buy what you need. Downsize, and save what money you can. By doing this, we attain control over our options. Work and the salary that we derive from it is no longer so important. We have the ability to be flexible and start being in charge of our life, as opposed to a “slave to the company”.
Keep in mind that the more things that you possess fixes you into one physical location. It ties you down. Many of the things that you own loses their value quickly, and we tend to either put them in closets, garages or expensive storage units. They are things that no longer have any use to use. Quite the contrary, they force us with the need to earn more to replace them.
[23] The less you own, the more freedom you have. Do not fall into the trap of buying baubles to satiate a need that manifests from the corporate environment.
Do not confuse arrogance with confidence
One of the things that I have noticed in large corporations is that middle and upper management tended to have some very arrogant leaders.
This is not always true, and indeed, many of the upper management in the smaller companies tended to be well-rounded, stable people with great ability.
However, the point remains that the long-duration corporate environment tends to create monsters. That’s the best way that I can say it. Over time, they rise up through the ranks, they play the political games, and become very astute at it. Over time, maybe they rise up higher and obtain some real genuine perks. I saw this at GM, and there were some amazingly arrogant assholes in leadership positions.
Confidence is what you obtain through successfully navigating through the stresses of life.
Arrogance is what happens when the ego confuses confidence with ability.
The problem arises in the manifestation of arrogance. The coworkers and subordinates all suffer. This can vary in how it manifests. For instance…
I worked at a glass company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where the managers would throw chairs, and pots of coffee at you if they were unhappy.
I worked in Shreveport, Louisiana where the management fired the housecleaning staff and brazenly told the white-collar engineering staff that from then on, our Saturdays belonged to the company. Our new job was to clean the offices on Saturday for eight hours for free.
I worked in San Louis Obispo, California where I was told that I shouldn’t go straight home after work. Instead that I was to “stick around” for an hour after I clocked-out to show “support” for the company.
I worked in Hattiesburg, Mississippi where My salary was cut in half, and replaced with a few cartons of old products that they couldn’t sell.
I worked outside of Chicago and I was ordered to change my phone number to something easier for them to remember.
I worked in Kokomo, Indiana and I was told that during the Christmas holiday that I was forbidden to drink any alcoholic beverages at home. If they found out, I would be fired.
I worked in Erie, Pennsylvania where I was ordered to change my personal signature to something that my boss found more to his liking.
I worked in Northern Indiana, at GM, and I was told that my car (a Mazda) was not welcome in the parking lot. So I was told that I should either buy a new car, or park away from the factory and walk to work.
The world might have people who are absolute assholes. There might be people who have poor social skills, and who want to rule the world… (Facebook, Google, or Twitter… anyone) and there are those who are just flush with their success. Remember that is not YOUR problem.
Eventually, arrogance is always part of a boomerang effect. The universe has a way of evening things out.
[24] Be humble no matter what your success is. Avoid having your ego take over, least you become an arrogant SOB.
Don’t confuse comfort with success
Another thing we tend to confuse is comfort and success.
After fighting hard to land a “decent” job, we are often relieved and happy that the stress is over. We will be able to make our bills, and put some food on the table. Our spouse will stop hounding us to “get a job”, and we can relax somewhat.
The stress of being unemployed is much greater than any stress at a job (with some notable exceptions, that I had the misfortune to be associated with).
Corporate life can be comfortable. It’s only when you start your own business that you realize quite how comfortable you were in that world. Sure, there was a level of stress, there were angry bosses, there were early starts and late finishes; but there was always a pay check.
After a long, often too long, time looking for a job while unemployed, it is a major relief to be employed. Especially if you are working at a “good” company.
We have a tendency to relax somewhat.
As such, we go to work, day in and day out, and as we stay at the job we begin to associate our comfort at the job as a sign of our success. This is especially true if we have a raise or two in salary, and if we get along with the management. We think that we are comfortable and that comfort is a sure-fire sign of our success.
That is not true.
Not really. Indeed, that is ONLY true is your idea of success is working for someone else in comfort. Most people do not associate success with comfort. (Well, maybe those on Public Welfare might.) Different people define success differently. I, myself, will argue that success is the complete fulfillment of your purpose in this life.
Success if the fulfillment of your God-given purpose.
This can be difficult to ascertain. We weren’t born with an instruction manual. No one told us what our purpose in life was. Indeed, aside from the major religions who associate purpose with some kind of spiritual ideal or goal, most governments define success as total conformity with the laws of the nation where you reside.
What a messed up situation.
Now, the truth be told, you can find out what your spiritual purpose is. All you need to do is look deep inside of you and figure it out through contemplation, and prayer. You figure it out on your own. You might want to employ a hypnotist, or do some “past life regression” to help you in your quest. However, and whatever you believe, please understand that there is only one person who knows what your life purpose it.
That is you.
Is is not your boss at work. It is not your guidance counselor. It is not your psychologist or therapist. Is is not a major public personality on television. It is not someone on government and it is most certainly not your wife. There is only one person who knows what it is, and that is you.
Odds are that it has nothing to do with your work, or your job.
[25] Your success is defined by you, and you alone. It is not something that is associated with work, career, occupation, profession, salary or money in any way. The sooner that we realize this, the sooner we are able to realign the things that matter to us personally within our life.
You MUST have Passion for what you do
It doesn’t matter what industry that you are in. You could be making hooks for the fishing industry, or working at a golf course. What ever you do, you must have a passion for it.
For instance, consider those people who have started their own beer breweries, All of them, every one, have one big piece of advice they are constantly dishing out to would-be beer entrepreneurs. Don’t even think of doing it for the money. Only do it if you really, really want to brew beer for a living.
"All these folks have tales of spending their life savings on makeshift brewing equipment, traveling to a beer sampling event to find it had been canceled, having wayward distributors do nothing to sell their beer then asking for a rebate to pour it down the drain, sleeping on the floor of the brewery to brew overnight and many other confidence-bashing incidents."
It doesn’t matter if you are trying to run your own company, or if you are working in a corporate environment. You must have a passion for what you do. You absolutely must.
I know, I know, it’s hard getting excited pouring over test spreadsheets and checking the numbers for quality control. But, the truth remains. If you do not have a passion for what you are doing, then eventually you will fail.
I used to have a dog that liked to dig. Man, this dog was a digging machine. He would dig anything up anywhere. I once left him in my mother’s back yard for a weekend. I came back and found the entire yard littered with military-style “fox holes”. It was in his nature.
I tried to break him out of the habit. I kept him indoors, and took him out on the leash. I would let him sleep in the garage. I did everything that I could do, but the first opportunity that he could dig a hole, man he would go to town. He would dig and dig and dig.
My dog has a passion for digging holes.
Yet, here I was trying to stop him. I not only did not share his passion, but I actively tried to suppress it.
Has that ever happened to you? Was there something that you really had a passion for, and others didn’t care, or tried to suppress it? It sucked didn’t it? You bet. That’s life.
[26] Stay away from people, work, industry or anyone or anything that will suppress your passions. For a man without passion is a hollow, empty shadow of a man, indeed.
Time is more important than money
You can always make more money, but you can never make more time.
We waste time constantly. I am not talking about doing things that are unproductive. Because “productivity” is a relative thing. I am specifically talking about using time doing things that are useful and significant to you personally. Time wasters such as long and boring meetings waste your work time AND your personal time.
One of the most common mistakes people make is to look at the money that they make at a company and consider that the MOST important criteria in accepting a job there. They fail to take into account the time lost in commuting to and from the company. They forget to take into account the restrictions on vacation, and holiday time. They fail to take into account the requirements that place impositions on your private and personal time.
This is dangerous.
The most important thing that you have is your time. It is not the money you make. This is never clearer until when you get older. It is by far your most precious resource. And you start to realize how spending your time doing things for other people can actually be a waste.
One company in Pensacola, Florida required that you work every holiday. The pay would be at the normal rate, with no holiday pay.
One company in Waltham, Massachusetts insisted that everyone work on Christmas. The owners were not Christian, and thus felt that any workers can only take the holidays that they recognize in their religion. The result was that you had to work during the holidays at normal pay.
My commute, when I first moved to Fort Wayne Indiana, was three hours to and three hours from work. This was because a new GM factory had moved to the area and no housing was available for miles.
[27] The most valuable thing that you have is time. It is not explicitly money. Never exchange your time for something that does not have value. Value can mean relationships, people, hobbies or anything that matters to you.
All that little stuff is unimportant
We often have a tendency to get so caught up in the trivial. What someone said to us. A parking space that someone else took. A cup of coffee that was cold. A harsh email, or response to a post on the blog. It’s all just unimportant stuff. It’s all meaningless.
We need to take a good look at the world around us. Find meaning in what we do, find meaning in our friends and relationships. We need to connect with nature and see the world as it actually is, and not view it from the prism of a computer monitor.
One of the things wrong with many people in a corporate environment is the concept of “urgent” and “emergency”. A supervisor or manager sits on a report for three months and the project starts getting late. To correct his incompetence, he declares the situation an “emergency” and an “urgent” task that needs to be resolved.
Nonsense.
The only emergency that matters is if your child had a broken leg, or if you were suddenly being called to the IRS for a audit on your finances. Emergencies in a corporate environment are often artificial in origin. It is what is caused by piss-poor management. It is not caused by the workers who are jut trying to push their projects to completion.
[28] We need to categorize things in such a way that we only CARE and are influenced by things that actually matter. True and real emergencies are exceedingly rare in a corporate environment. Do not be fooled. One person’s emergency is their and only their problem. Often it’s just a name that is laid over the incompetence of others.
There is no guidebook on how to run your life
I know, I know. There are those that say to follow the Bible and everything will be clear. Others say, follow the United States Constitution and your life would be simple with liberty and freedom. Militant Muslims insist that the Koran has all the answers, while others have other ideas.
When we go into a company they will provide us a handbook on how to act and behave and what rules the company has.
Combined, a man such as myself, will end up with numerous guides that he will try to follow. For me, in fact, I followed the United States Constitution, the Constitution and laws of the state where I lived, the Bible (most especially the New Testament), and the guidebook provided by the company where I worked.
However, I noticed that even though I followed and obeyed these most brilliant of documents, that my life somehow did not match the ideal as portrayed on the main-stream media.
I saw people like Bill Clinton becoming very rich and powerful, openly flaunting both the Bible and the Constitution, without consequence. I saw people getting promoted over me who were (seriously) not nearly as smart or brilliant, but who were promoted based on their relationships with others in the company. I saw absolutely mundane people “gaming the system” and getting away with it.
The point of this is that what happens to other people are NOT your concern. We need to stop comparing ourselves with others. We need to develop our interests in ourselves and our lives selfishly.
As such, there is no “manual” that will “be the ticket” to success. Since success is an individual phenomenon, there can be no manual. There can be no guidelines. There is nothing for us to follow. We have to carve our life out on our own.
[29] Our individual success is predicated on our ability to understand our personal needs and translate that into a recipe for living among other people. As such, there will be a long period of trial and error, with the risk of many a dead end. We cannot give up on this effort. Because it is precisely this journey that defines our purpose in this life. (Remember, our reality is created by our thoughts and our purpose is colored by the life lessons we learn.)
TV is a waste of time
If you recall, time is the most important possession that you have. It is not money or any other attributes. So here, consider the various ways that we trivialize this most important of attributes. Let’s talk about the great time wasters of televisions, the internet, and games.
Granted it is a rare company that permits the employees to watch television during work hours. However, just about everyone in America turns on the television set once they get home from walk. Or at least they did. Now, that might be displaced by the internet or some other type of social media device.
Since what you do immediately after work is tied to your labor, let’s talk about it here and now. Television is a mindless device that is used to replace life.
The truth be told, as a child of the 1960’s and 1970’s, I wasted so much of my life spending 6 hours each day watching TV. Following shows that I just “had” to see, in order to “relax”. Today, I regret almost every second of it. The whole world outside was passing me by.
In what way did the show “Laugh In” improve my life? How did the “Flintstones”, “Mayberry RFD”, “Dragnet”, “My Three Sons”, “Star Trek” and “General Hospital” improve my life?
Ugh!
I know, I know, TV was an important part of the 20st century. It was important in bringing communication and news to the masses. It was important. It really was. However, you know, now today it’s terribly wasteful.
Let’s all be truthful with each other. People get biased news through it. They do so from habit, even though much better alternatives are available.
People watch terrible TV shows, and I do mean horribly terrible, they watch nonsense to substitute for living life in a reality that does not favor them. While it, teaches them nothing, it sucks so many hours of their lives away that they are oblivious to the damage. Overall, the people who live their lives vicariously through these artificial media delude themselves into thinking that they don’t have time to pursue real passions in life.
Let’s be honest, media such as the internet, computerized games and television encourage people to be antisocial. They cause people to hide away and cuddle with their media device. Whether it is a smart-phone, a television set, a radio or a computer, people now cuddle with the devices instead of with another person.
so…
[30] Live life in the physical. Do not substitute the electronic for reality. What ever you see or experience in any kind of electronic media is designed to manipulate you. Do not fall for this manipulation.
Limit the use of the internet
Speaking of the television being the great time waster, let’s go next generation and talk about the ruinous internet.
Unlike TVs, the Internet is interactive and allows you to take part and become virtually social. It connects communities all over the world. It connects people together in a kind of fake reality. Here, people can pretend to be others, and carry on as if they are experts in things that they nothing about.
Having said all this, we need to keep in mind that the internet is even a worse time waster than the television is.
Use the internet for function and purpose. If you decide to use it for pleasure, then do so judiciously. There are many things that are better to do in person than viewing them through the internet. May I suggest…
Play with your cat instead of watching cat-videos.
Go out with your friends and have a pizza together instead of sending pictures of pizza that you ate alone on Facebook.
Pay for a short-time girl and enjoy the moment in person, instead of looking at porn on the internet.
Things are always better in person. Always.
[31] The internet is more dangerous than television because it is interactive. Limit your use of it. When given a choice, opt for doing things in person instead of virtually. It is easy to become addicted to the internet as you can pretend to participate in life instead of actually doing so.
Americans view foreign cultures in a stereotypical manner
Most Americans do not deal with foreigners. Yet, increasingly, the world is a global marketplace. Sooner rather than later, many Americans will find that they are forced to deal with foreign entities, workers and staff as part of their business. I, myself was first exposed to working with Brazilians and Russians back in the late 1980’s, and all through the 1990’s I worked throughout Asia.
The world outside of America has really grown in the last four decades. There was a rising middle class, and then a rising upper-middle class. Now, many of the nations in Asia all have a kind of familiarity to each other. They look futuristic and high-tech. Yet Americans are oblivious to this. We tend to think that just because our cities hardly changed that the rest of the world hardly changed either. That is not the case at all.
Shenzhen, China as viewed from the suburb of Futian. I particularly like the synchronized building lighting that is very popular in China.
Yup, this light show is normal. It is an every-night event.
One of the things that I discovered was that Americans, and myself included, had a very two-dimensional view of non-Americans.
Perhaps it was the non-stop barrage of “Save the Children” commercials, or maybe it was the images of Brazilian children foraging for food in these enormous garbage dumps. Maybe it was the onslaught of the images of (so called) child prostitutes that seemed to be everywhere in the UK news, or maybe it was the dated library books that showed 1960’s era images of foreign nations.
In any event, the result has been that Americans have a terribly distorted idea of what the rest of the world looks like. Maybe we think it looks kind of like El Paso, or a poverty stricken section of Jamaica. In any event, it really isn’t that way at all.
Rural China. China has spent billions of dollars upgrading infrastructure and the environment. In America, the moneys that are “earmarked” towards infrastructure and repair are often wholly absorbed in crime and corruption in the forms of brides, siphoning of resources, and fraud. Not to mention, the enormous red tape and regulations that slow everything to a glacial pace. Not so in China. The money goes directly to the projects, with armed Corruption Police making sure that nothing gets siphoned away into some rich cat’s pockets.
Things are quite cheap in rural China. The government has made every effort to preserve history and heritage. Unlike the United States where Civil War statues are being bulldozed for political correctness, the Chinese preserve their history.
Every country in the world is modernizing but this does not mean that they are westernizing or Americanizing. What makes them unique does not have to satisfy your “quaint” tourist-brochure view of them. Leave ignorant stereotypes aside and have an open mind about how modern life is like in that culture.
We need to realize that the world is filled with many people who are just like us. They might speak a different language, and have slightly different cultures, but fundamentally they want to work hard, raise a family and support it. They are really not very interested in the kind of world that is portrayed in the American mainstream news.
The Western city of Shanghai, China…
Next time you read some news from CNN talking about some issue… question it.
Here’s an example;
"Leave Immediately" - CNN Records Chinese Warnings Aboard Naval Flight Near Artificial Islands
Found HERE.
If this news is to be believed, then CNN was [1] provided with a seat on a top secret monitoring aircraft. [2] That they booted an NFO or two, [3] somehow managed to get clearance not only to board the plane, [4] fly in the area in question, [5] listen in on the communication, [6] tape record the conversation, but also permitted to [7] publish the communication.
We are forced to believe that the Chinese Air Controllers spoke [8] American-style English [9] instead of Chinese, and did so in a [10] harsh tone.
All of this stretches the boundaries of credibility. Indeed, the comments on Zero Hedge just shows the disdain that people have for fake war-provocation nonsense from the main-steam American media…
The question has to be asked, why was CNN allowed on a US military aircraft in the first place?
- Keyser
Guangzhou, China. The heart of the Southern industrial region…
[32] The world outside the United States is nothing like we have been led to believe. It benefits those in power to keep Americans dumb, manipulated and complaisant through fear. For us to be successful in our personal life, we need to see things personally, and experience them directly. We should treat all news, and anything that we do not personally experience with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Finally, next time some crappy-assed American news-media is trying to promote conflict or another war, tell them to fuck off. It doesn’t matter if it is Syria, Russia, China, or Iran. The world is not like it is portrayed by the American media. Not in the remotest.
Modern Hong Kong, China…
Take your time
In the United States, I would often be berated to work at break-neck speed to meet these near-impossible (in many cases actually impossible) deadlines. Heck, a boss would promise that we could make a (mold) tool out of P3 hardened steel in three weeks. Three weeks!. That’s a 36 week project if done properly, not including billing costs, delays in getting the material and structuring the work-force.
Many times, I felt like an overheated engine that just finished a marathon race with the engine pinging while it was cooling down. To survive I was prescribed anti-stress medication. The thing is, the human body is not designed to have Adrenalin coursing through your body for months at a time. The “fight or flight” mechanism is a short time event measured in minutes or a few hours. It is not designed for sustained use.
America is a land where you NEED medication just to exist.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from living in countries that are more “easy going” it’s that they are much better in their pace of life. Brazil, Thailand and Cambodia come to my mind readily. On the other side of the coin are nations like the United States. People and countries that do everything quicker also do it worse. Take it easy and go slowly.
Enjoy every bite of food. Savor it.
Be mindful. Spend time outside. When the sky is electric blue, and the trees are lush green, take it all in.
When you walk, do it at a purposely slow pace and take in your surroundings. Take your time. relax. Spend time with your loved ones, your friends, and the environment that surrounds you. When they speak to you, listen.
When you work, do it at YOUR pace. Not at a pace defined by someone else. If you generate a timeline, and they tear it up and cut it in half, make sure that they (and not you) are responsible for any delays. If you know that they will not take on this responsibility, then start looking for another job. For you might be good, but you are not God.
[33] Take your time in doing any task. Go at the speed and the pace that works best for you. If you find that your pace is not suitable by your management, go elsewhere. Life is too short to change your way of doing something to fit the desires of others.
You can’t please everyone
As you get older, you start to realize that there is no way that you can please everyone. In fact, the chances are that there will be very few people that you will be able to please. Everyone will have an opinion. Everyone will have an idea of what you can do to better yourself.
If you make a mistake, they will loudly state that you were a fool and that they would have never be put in the situation that you were in. Yeah. Right. That is one of the most common things that is heard in prisons, that the inmates never thought that they would ever go to prison. They felt that they were smarter, better or wiser than others.
Nonsense.
You are you. You have your own experiences, and your own way of doing things. Do things your way and let the rest howl in frustration.
[34] Do what you do for your own purposes. Never try to please anyone else. Do not change your opinion for anyone else either. Be yourself or be a pale shadow of someone else’s image.
Trying to be cool is useless
Trying to be cool is something that we should outgrow in school. It is a mechanism that we use to enter various social communities. In the 1940’s, a “cool” person would eat goldfish. In the 1960’s a “cool” person would drop acid. In the 1970’s a “cool” person would wear a “choke collar”. Today, being cool” means being a metro-sexual, promoting LGBT diversity and eating guacamole on your whole-wheat bagels.
In the corporate environment, being “cool” means that you have decided to be a sheep and not a leader. You decided that you would rather join some clique or club group rather than go your own way. It means that your ego is so fragile that you would rather give up something that is fundamentally part of you to belong to a society of like-minded individuals.
You follow the rules and obey the written and unwritten laws. You are an accepted part of the work community and that is in itself… “cool”.
When you get older, you start to see the folly in all this.
Now, there is a very interesting thing that happens when you are in a corporate environment. With your ego supplanted by the corporate ideal, you need to start to do little things that scream “I am a man, I am not a number!”.
You put special pictures on your desk in specially selected frames. You might start using a colored pen, or pencils. You might purchase a desk mat that identifies your working cubicle as “yours”. You might put a pillow on your chair, or do some other kind of small rebellious action that is small but personally significant.
Whether at work, or at home, be yourself. Do so whether it is “cool” or not. many companies have an unwritten dress code that you are supposed to conform to. A cool person would obey the dress code, but have some kind of rebellious streak that might set them apart. It would be their statement of individuality.
This might mean swapping out the white buttons on a long-sleeved white shirt for colored ones. It might mean wearing sneakers instead of oxfords at work. It might mean wearing a black tie, when everyone in your department is wearing a red one.
If you feel the need to stand out, to act cool, then you should be made aware that something is wrong. Your ego is shouting at you that you no longer belong in the society that you are now a part of. You need to bail. You need to exit it quickly before events proceed beyond your ability to manage them.
[35] Being “cool” is something that adults grow out of. If you ever feel the need to rebel, then that need is a warning sign that you are in a situation where you do not belong. Listen to the alert. Take action.
Make mistakes – and make LOTS of them!
Mistakes are how we learn.
It is well understood that a person who has made no mistakes never made anything. For all the brilliant books and stories that Ray Bradberry wrote, he wrote many, many more that did not become so popular. For all the brilliant paintings that Daniel F. Gerhartz painted, he had painted many, many more lesser works (see the work above).
[36] Make mistakes. Keep on moving forward, never back. Do not try to live a mistake-free life. Mistakes happen to those who live life.
Stop thinking so much
You know, we all really have got to stop over-thinking so much. We really do. We all know the story about the person trying to shoot an arrow. It’s [1] Ready, [2] Aim, and [3] Fire. Yet many people don’t follow this advice. They either go…
Ready…. Ready…. Ready…. Ready….
Fire!
Ready… Aim…. Ready…. Aim….
I think the biggest problem that we need to overcome is the problem that we tend to over-think everything. We think this, and we think that. We wonder what others are thinking about us. We try to conduct an analysis of our particular situation. We think, and we think, and we think some more.
It tends to drive us crazy.
Stop. Just stop this nonsense. Do not over-think anything.
I personally believe that one of the causes of over-thinking things is when we spend time outside of nature. We are not getting enough fresh air. We are not walking about outside enough. We are not being near the beach, or hiking in the mountains enough. We need to reset ourselves.
We need to get out of the boxes that cause us to generate self-neuroses.
Because that is one of the aspects of over-thinking; neuroses.
[37] Stop thinking too much. To a task, and then forget it. Stop caring what other people think and what they do. Take care of yourself and spend more time outside in nature. It will help you get a handle and put some control over your thought process.
Dance and sing whenever possible
In the United States, it is culturally frowned upon to express yourself with the corporate environment. Everyone has a role within the extents of their job responsibilities. Once they leave the work environment, many can spend their free time involved in the things that matter to them. Often this is a mixture of television, the internet and household chores. Really, not too many Americans spend the time at the pub, brasserie, or KTV to dance and sing.
That is not true in other countries. In fact, it seems like everyone in Asia loves to dance and sing. Some of them are really, really good…
That is really sad.
Which is one thing that I really like about China. When I am out with the other bosses, we go out to the KTV and sing our hearts out, as well as dance the night away. Let me tell you, life is too short not to enjoy life. Stop doing what that old biddy down the street wants you to do.
Come on. Go out, get that cigar that you have been wanting to smoke. Go ahead, ask that girl out. Don’t be afraid and eat that deep-fried Monti Crisco sandwich. If you start to worry about everything, you are living a life in fear. Sing. dance. Drink the wine with both hands and then wipe your mouth with your sleeve.
Come on, if this fella can “beat it”, so can you…
Don’t be afraid what other people think. You can dance. Heck if 95 year old men can dance to Michael Jackson, then so can you. Or maybe you disagree with me. Maybe you think that it is classy to obey those whom you work for, be afraid to show emotion, style or class.
You know, you don’t need to know how to dance to dance. In fact, you can just do jumping jacks, or hop around to the beat. Do sort of a electronic version of “The Grateful Dead” when you dance in public….
Life is too short not to enjoy it.
I took professional dancing lessons, and for a period of time in my life, dancing was a very important part of my life. Still, whenever I get a chance I get up and start to dance. You know, you do not need to be able to dance well to be able to dance. You just follow the music.
Of course, one of the secrets about dance is precision. Really good dancers just have a very good control of some very simple and basic dance moves. They just move these basic moves in a very precise manner….
Now, I cannot sing worth shit, but when there is a chance to sing some country and western music, get out of my way. I am going to sing my heart out. Seriously you all need to stop being so serious. Get a little crazy. have fun.
If you cannot sing, then fake it. Lip sync.
[38] Who cares about what you do for a living, if you are not enjoying yourself? You must be living your life to it’s fullest. Otherwise you are not living. You are existing. Don’t do that.
Do not take anything for granted.
One of the things that you learn as you get older, is that you just cannot count on anything. You just don’t know when the rug will be pulled out from under you, and you will be stranded with your dick in your hand.
Please don’t take anything for granted.
Treasure every single moment you have. If you are in a corporate environment, then know that one day you will be replaced. maybe you are too expensive, maybe your customer decided to leave, maybe someone is bad mouthing you, maybe the company owner has a son-in-law that wants your job. You don’t know. Anything can happen. All that you can control is your thoughts and how you carry yourself.
Do you best. Know that things change. Do everything you can to enjoy the life that you have at that very minute, because life can change in a New York Minute. Don’t be caught off guard. It is a fact of life.
One day you will lose those that are closest to you. One day you might lose all your possessions, your bank account might end up empty. You might lose your health, become terribly scarred or paralyzed, or even worse. Don’t think it cannot happen to you. Anything is possible in this world. yes, and the bad things can happen just as readily as well as the good things.
[39] Don’t think that the situation that you are in will last forever. Things change. So do not take life for granted. Treasure every moment. Tell those you love how you feel about them. Say nothing bad or harsh, and appreciate the world around you.
Friends and Relationships are important
If there is one thing that I have learned over the years is the importance of a network of friends. If you lived the kind of life that I have, it’s hard to make friends when you have to move to another state every year or so. Eventually you give up and you all just keep to yourselves.
Yet the truth is that you need friends and family. You help them when they need it, and they help you out when you need it. So one of the first priorities that you need to do is establish a network of friends where ever you live. Cultivate them. This network can be associated with church, a hobby, or just random strangers. However, what ever you do, cultivate them. Do not take them for granted. Appreciate them.
[41] You NEED friends. Make friends, cultivate them. Cultivate and stay in contact with your family. No matter what happens at your corporate job, your friends will still be there for you.
Remember what friends are for…
Conclusions
As someone who spent most of his working life trapped with a corporate crucible, I wish to share my biases and thoughts in regards to the culture that has developed in corporate America. In short, it is important to be true to yourself and your purpose in life. If you are not careful, you will exchange your very being for some shiny baubles. So I would advise everyone to be careful.
Take Aways
The more hoops your jump through the get the job, the worse you will be treated.
Value does not equate with money.
You are only as valuable for what you can provide.
Companies operate above the law.
Meetings are a waste of time.
Everyone basically wants the same thing.
Don’t defer your happiness for the future.
You need game.
Efficiency is a lie.
Nobody cares.
Be practical.
There is no such thing as ‘Destiny”.
Desk Jobs will kill your creativity.
Avoid “Echo Chambers”.
Living a good life is the best way to convince people.
Nobody has the answer.
It’s fine to say “I’ve made a mistake”.
You are going to have to work hard.
More money will not solve all your problems.
Respect is earned.
The 360 Review is dangerous.
Responsibility should come with authority.
Possessions own you.
Do not confuse arrogance with confidence.
Don’t confuse comfort with success.
You must have passion.
Time is more important than money.
All that little stuff is unimportant.
There is no guidebook.
Television is a waste of time.
Limit the use of the internet.
Foreign nations are viewed stereotypically.
Take your time.
You cannot please everyone.
Trying to be cool is pointless.
Make mistakes.
Stop thinking so much.
Dance and sing when possible.
Do not take anything for granted.
Friends and family are important.
FAQ (For Parts 1&2)
Q: Do you think that all corporations are the same?
A: No. Not in the least. I think that there are many, many different types of companies, corporations and organizations. However, they all eventually develop their own types of individual social controls. When you work in the environments that surround these social controls you need to adapt. I suggest that the adaptation that we go though can be dangerous and limiting to our overriding purpose in life. Herein are my suggestions to assist in the survival of one’s purpose within the corporate structure.
Q: Why did you write this post in two parts?
A: I find that the trend on the internet has been to migrate posts and articles into two paragraph bite-sized chunks. People today have a short attention span. Yet my posts, by modern internet standards are enormous. Actually, this post could have been easily broken up into 40 blog posts were I to follow the culturally acceptable posting guidelines (and Googles SEO guidelines), but heck, I think higher of my readership than that. I broke it into two posts due to the size limitations on word-press (10,000 words max ). Other than that, the system crawls to a very slow pace.
Q: Were there other things that you could have added to this list?
A: Oh yes. Find love, for instance. Come in early for work, even if no one notices. Oh, and that oldie, but goodie, “Don’t piss off your boss“.
Q: Why are all your embedded videos from China?
A: I live in China, and that is what I have available to me.
You-Tube is an excellent resource, but since it is directly connected to the NSA servers (as is Google and Facebook, Pinterest, and Tumblr) it is banned, (The Chinese government does not want the American government to have complete files on it’s citizens.) and I would need to use a VPN to access. That’s not a big problem, getting a VPN in China is an easy enough thing to do.
But, you know, there is a bigger selection of choices in China than in the United States. It’s not because China is better, it’s simply because China is much, much, much larger than the United States in population.
In the United States you go into the grocery store, and go into the potato chip aisle. There might be a thousand different bags, of which there are five basic types, another five odd-ball types, and three brands. In China you would have three thousand bags, 300 different types, and 500 brands. The selection in China is much larger given the size of the nation.
Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
Have you ever wondered why there is such a lack of commonality in political discourse today? In America, you are either a Trump-supporter or not. There is absolutely no bridge or commonality between the two groups. It is almost as if there is one type of person who is composed of fire, and the other type of person is composed of water. Why is this?
Well, there is a theory that precisely explains this dichotomy of behavior. This theory is called the “r/K Selection Theory in Evolutionary Ecology”, and it is based on the observed survival behaviors of creatures.
This post is primarily concerned with the application of the r/k Selection Theory as it is applied to mass mob psychology in the United States today.
Can you imagine an idea or a concept so shocking that it is banned from publication? Like, for instance, the idea that the earth orbited the sun, or that high voltages can alter gravity? Well, there is a theory that is actually banned from public distribution. This theory is banned on TED, Facebook and Yahoo’s advertising platforms, for being too effective at supporting conservative ideals. Yet, the theory itself really isn’t political at all.
It is a theory that simply states that a given species, over time, will evolve by developing their own survival strategies.
Turtles behave the way they do, because it is the best way for them to survive in this world. Bees behave the way that they do because it is the best way for them to survive in this world. Giraffes behave the way that they do because they too have developed the best way to survive int his world.
What is interesting is that people who have studied American politics have noted that various human groups or organizations have also adapted these same strategies. They have done so organically. It wasn’t planned, it has just evolved that way. As such, they are both awed and disgusted in how it is playing out.
Politics
This theory, when applied to political organizations and objectives, directly defines the behavior of the organization. It asserts that both Conservatism and Liberalism are a programmed psychology. It bases this fundamental and foundational premise on the behaviors of known population groups.
Liberalism, no matter what it’s current name is, is designed to exploit resource excess within our populations.
Conservatism, no matter what branch or ideology, is designed to benefit competitive groups that succeed in group competition.
Science
The r/K Theory is a well established theory with a great pedigree. However, it is not applied to political belief structures. It is applied to species under the assumption that every member of the species falls into only one strategy.
This is a pretty BIG assumption.
As such, typically, it is assumed that humans are a K-strategy species. This is because we maintain a traditional family environment. Now, if this were true than any deviance from this would be an aberration. Wouldn’t it?
I argue that humans are not a fully developed species. Rather, we are a species in flux with significant membership in both survival strategies. In the United States we have two (apparently) equally divided segments of the population. One embracing the r-strategy and the other embracing the K-strategy.
In the “r/K Selection Theory in Evolutionary Ecology”, if you provide a population with free resources, those who will come to dominate the population will exhibit five basic traits. These traits are called an r-selected Reproductive Strategy. These traits are all designed to best exploit the free resource availability. In nature, the r-selected strategy is best seen in the rabbit, which lives in fields of grass it will never fully consume. The five traits are,
Competition and risk avoidance.
Promiscuity.
Low-investment single parenting.
Earlier age of sexualization of young.
No loyalty to in-group.
These traits are ultimately designed to maximize the numbers of offspring produced. Each of these offspring, though of lesser fitness, will be able to survive and reproduce freely themselves, due to the free resource availability.
In r/K Theory, there is also a strategy that is exactly opposite to the rabbit’s. This strategy emerges under conditions of resource scarcity. It is called the K-selected Reproductive Strategy.
There, where resources are scarce, competition for resources is everywhere. As a result, some individuals will die due to failure in competition. This produces the K-strategy, which is best seen in the wolf. This strategy also has five psychological traits. These traits are…
Competitiveness/aggressiveness/protectiveness.
Mate monopolization/monogamy.
High-investment two-parent child-rearing.
Later age of sexualization of young.
High loyalty to in-group.
This psychology is designed to form highly fit and competitive groups that succeed in group competition. It does this while capturing and monopolizing the fittest mate possible. This is a way of making their offspring genetically fitter than those of competitors.
Here, the goal is NOT to simply consume as much as possible yourself and produce as many baby-making machines as you can, with little regard to their fitness. No.
Here, the goal is to help your group succeed in its competition for the scarce resources, and then produce offspring of as high a fitness as possible, so they may carry your genes forward by succeeding in competition themselves.
Application to American Politics
The premise of this theory is that all of politics is really a battle between the K-strategist wolves within our society against the r-strategist rabbits. The wolves are designed to battle in a world of scarce resources and fierce competition, and the rabbits, are designed to freely graze the bounty of a sudden resource glut and rapidly explode in numbers to exploit such a glut.
Without labeling which political party is which, can you the reader, guess which political party is which?
The r-strategist rabbits want free food and a life of ease and abundant free sex. They want as many of their ilk as possible to share in the abundance. They want to produce as many offspring as possible, as fast as possible, without regard to offspring quality.
That’s right. The r-strategy fits the American Democrat party that is populated with Socialists, Progressives, and Liberals. Truthfully, Marxists are r-strategy rabbits in that they expect boundless support from the wealthy and successful.
The K-strategist wolves want order and defined limits on behavior. They want traditional two-parent families, and meaningful education and training for their young. They are competitive and protective of family, sexually selective and monogamous, imbued with regard for two parent family life, desirous that offspring wait until mature to mate, and loyal to in-group are designed to produce highly fit and competitive offspring, designed to compete in an environment of resource scarcity.
As you might have guessed, the K-strategy fits the American Republican party that is populated with Conservatives, Libertarians, and Neocons.
The K-selected Wolf
Let’s look at the K-strategy in more detail.
Wolves are a quintessential K-strategist species. Wolves are competitive and protective, because they must fight for food to survive. They carefully select the fittest mate, and monopolize that fit mate, so that their offspring will be as genetically fit as possible, relative to peers.
Both the male and the female have the same understanding that they are monogamous and will both mutually support the family and raise their children to the be the best. They will strive to teach their children to be as competitive as possible. Their children, if successful, will become dominant and would the best likelihood of successful procreation with the best and most suitable member of the opposite sex.
Traditional Family Values…
As such, they embrace two-parent family values, as offspring are reared carefully in a loving and supportive pack/family environment. This is so they will have the best chance of succeeding themselves in their own competitions. These values have been honed and proven over many generations. They rely on the proven techniques that provide the best likelihood of success. They typically shun new and unproven ideas as they carry a great risk of catastrophic failure.
Such things as family meals, family traditions, and traditional roles are all considered important. The man is expected to work, and the woman is expected to take care of the home and provide a nurturing environment for the children.
Competitive Schooling…
They do not allow offspring to mate until mature and proven in competition, so any immaturity will not lead to their offspring securing sub-par monogamous mates. The children are continuously educated and tested to make sure that they understand their roles and how to support and provide for the needs of the family.
Schooling and education is treated as of great importance. The subjects studied have a practical purpose and is intended in creating a long lasting and stable source of income from which the family can utilize to thrive.
They train and develop loyalty to the team…
Team work is very important to the K-strategist. They train and learn how to cooperate and work together to the mutual benefit of all. Everyone is expected to perform a role, and to do it to the best of their ability.
Finally, they develop a strong pack-loyalty to maximize the chances of their pack’s competitive success, and by extension, their own. Males evolve to be courageous and strong as they set out to provision the family and absorb any risk, while females carefully nurture offspring back at the den.
Rabbits are quintessential r-strategists. Rabbits live in fields of grass they never fully exhaust.
Their goal is to produce as many offspring as quickly as possible. They flee from danger, because to fight for food that they can get elsewhere is an unnecessary risk.
They mate promiscuously with any mate, because their goal is solely to reproduce, absent concerns for genetic quality – when resources are everywhere, even the most defective offspring can find food, mate, and pass genes forward.
While males are off mating as often as possible, females raise offspring alone, and quickly send them on their way to whelp a new litter.
Begin having sex at an earlier age…
Offspring begin having sex early, to maximize numbers of their own offspring. They have sex early and produce children often. Often their preference is not to work, but rather to “be with their children”, when the fact is that often their is no father that is earning money enabling them to stay home.
Instead, they become wards of the state, living off the public trust.
Loyalty to in-group is unknown to the rabbit, because there is no competition for resources, since resources are everywhere.
Men will become more feminine…
Men who are overly promiscuous do not need to concentrate on strength or skills. Instead they need to concentrate in abilities that permits them to attract as many females as possible. Thus, to a K-strategist wolf they appear odd, and even shameful. They do not act like a member of their species should act. They are a perverted distortion of the ideal.
In an editorial earlier this week the New York Times gushed over photographs of President Obama riding his bicycle at Martha’s Vineyard, at one point exclaiming the president was an example of “rugged masculinity gone wild!”
“If Obama rode his bike into my neighborhood I’d make him have sex with me in the street!”
After MSNBC’s Chris Matthews showed Obama’s bicycle photographs on his show Hardball, he trembled as he spoke to his guests. “I admit,” he snickered, “when I saw these pictures I felt a scorching-hot sensation shooting up my inner thigh and into my groin. And believe you me, my wife took advantage of that situation…if you know what I mean.”
The enthusiasm over the bicycle photographs stretches from media outlets coast to coast. The Boston Globe dubbed the photographs a “toxic elixir that soothes the aching heart” while the San Francisco Chronicle fawned, “If ever there was a time when America needed a macho, in-your-face, physical example of aggressiveness and old fashioned male moxie, that time is now and the man is Barack Obama.”
While the r-strategist rabbits might fawn and be enthralled with an impressive display of rabbit-like qualities, the K-strategist wolves take the opposite point of view. To them, this is perversion of the highest order.
Indeed, over time the r-strategist rabbits begin to adapt female behaviors and mimic the female gender. To make them stand out from the multitudes of like minded males, they create strategies to set themselves apart.
As such their strategies are those that appeal to the females of the species. They create other genders and dress, that on the surface appear silly, but who’s sole function is to fundamentally bring attention to them and their actions. They promote issues that appeal to the female gender, and downplay or even ridicule masculine traits.
Among r-strategists, males will tend to exhibit smaller, more feminine, less robust physical qualities. This is both to better facilitate fleeing and for showy displays of flash and beauty, to facilitate mate attraction, and mating.
While this is going on with the male gender, there are also changes with the female gender.
Females would tend to be bigger and more aggressive…
Whether it is rabbits or humans, those who follow the r-strategist end up compensating for their weaknesses. In a world where the male is feminine and abandons the children to engage in promiscuous behavior, the mother must compensate by becoming larger and more aggressive. This means that they will become larger, fatter, and more muscular. They will start producing more testosterone rather than progesterone and that will result in numerous changes to their body shapes and behaviors.
The changes in testosterone will make them more belligerent and aggressive. The reduction in progesterone would tend to make their biology rebalance itself towards a heavier and fatter (read “pear shape”) body.
The r-strategist females, by contrast will tend to grow big, assertive, and ill-tempered, to better occupy a more masculine family role, provisioning and protecting the offspring they raise alone.
Political Censorship
It’s funny how things work out. You try to restrict access to knowledge, people eventually want to find out what you want to keep hidden. I, myself, only really learned about the r/K strategy when it became a restricted subject content.
I personally, don’t know why.
Those who are trying to restrict dissemination of this theory are typically very liberal, or progressive-liberal in political philosophy. Yet, the strategy of the liberals fit the r-strategy exactly.
Heck, even ultra-liberal and Democrat donor, Hugh Hefner and his “Playboy” empire, used the rabbit as his symbol for his philosophy.
As of 2018, the American Democrats want…
Unlimited migration to the United States.
No limits on free access to food, shelter, medical services.
No limitations on birthing and abortions on demand.
Supportive of multiple genders and alternative lifestyles.
Supportive of sex at very young ages.
The more conservative members of the political spectrum are just being K-strategy wolves. They just want to be left alone, with their family. They want to live their life and not have their precious and limited resources siphoned off by multitudes of people who did not work for their labors.
The Problems and Source of Conflict
When the fields are filled with grass, and the rabbits can multiply at will, happiness reigns. The wolves tend to keep to themselves and all is good. However, problems invariably arise when the rapid population growth of the r-strategy rabbits depletes the food supply…
This results in a condition whereas the resources are scarce, and the wolves will have to use their superior survival techniques to exist. Of course, the r-strategist rabbits will complain and squeal. They will redouble their strategy. They will try to overwhelm the resources in an effort to control the K-strategy members.
They will try to increase their numbers rapidly. They will do everything to unleash the abundance of the land and make it possible to produce even more offspring.
The K-strategist wolves will, of course resent that their resources are being consumed by those who are undeserving. For they neither labored for the resources, or qualify for the resources through membership or participation.
Eventually, conflict arises.
There is always a very contentious and often bloody conflict. While the r-strategist rabbits will try to overwhelm the K-strategist wolves though sheer numbers and vocal screaming, the wolves will eventually win. That is because they have trained their entire lives to be superior. They have perfected techniques of warfare and conflict. While the r-strategist rabbits have been enjoying life and a bountiful harvest, the K-strategist wolves have been working, preparing and getting ready for conflict.
This is a cycle that repeats itself over an over though the course of history. It is advisable that we listen to the lessons that can be learned here.
Another Opinion
This was drafted by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog. Rather than attribute the rise and fall of human civilization to the push and pull of r/K strategies, he suggests that it is the social construct that is at fault;
The dynamics of decadence are easy to understand: as affluence becomes the norm that is widely assumed to be permanent, shared purpose and sacrifice for the common good is replaced by self-absorbed decadence and an ethos of maximizing personal gain.
In his seminal essay The Fate of Empires, Sir John Glubb listed these core dynamics of imperial decline:
(a) A growing love of money as an end in itself.
(b) A lengthy period of wealth and ease, which makes people complacent. They lose their edge; they forget the traits (confidence, energy, hard work) that built their civilization.
(c) Selfishness and self-absorption.
(d) Loss of any sense of duty to the common good.
Glubb included the following in his list of the characteristics of decadence:
-- An increase in frivolity, hedonism, materialism and the worship of unproductive celebrity.
-- A loss of social cohesion.
-- The willingness of an increasing number to live at the expense of a bloated bureaucratic state.
Glubb’s list may at first glance be largely psychological--self-aggrandizement and a focus on hedonistic pursuits--but the dynamics of decadence have economic, political and social ramifications.
First and foremost, the aristocratic financial and political elites secured their position at the expense of social mobility by erecting barriers that protect them from competition and accountability. In effect, they eliminated the risk posed by change by rigging the system to their benefit.
To fund their extravagant lifestyles, they took more of the earnings of those below them, widening the inequality between the aristocracy and commoners to extremes. Historian Peter Turchin reports that where the patricians of the Roman Republic had 10 or 20 times the wealth of an average Roman citizen, by the late Empire the elites possessed up to 200,000 times the wealth of the average commoner.
The heavier burdens on the productive class and the decay of social mobility divested commoners of a financial stake in the system, and the concentration of political power in an oligarchy disenfranchised them of political influence.
When social mobility and shared purpose are lost, there is little motivation to contribute to a system that benefits the few at the expense of the many. People respond by reducing their productive participation and becoming dependents of the state, a phase captured by the phrase Bread and Circuses in the late Roman era, when a significant percentage of the Rome’s populace received free bread and access to costly entertainments in exchange for their political compliance.
Disenfranchised commoners with few prospects for advancement form a volatile political class; a small event can trigger a non-linear explosion that threatens the stability of a status quo that benefits the few at the expense of the many. To counter this threat, the elites bought the compliance and complicity of the masses with Bread and Circuses. As Glubb noted, the willingness to live off the state is a reflection of general decadence; if there is no other hedonistic pursuit within financial reach, then Bread and Circuses will do.
As the eventual collapse of decadent empires attests, Bread and Circuses are no substitute for social mobility, low barriers to accumulating capital and a political stake in the system. In the present era of decadence, Universal Basic Income (UBI) is the modern equivalent of Bread and Circuses. But buying off the disenfranchised doesn’t transform an unstable system into a stable system; it merely masks the instability for a time.
The core belief of decadent eras is that the status quo is so powerful and permanent that it can withstand the predations of the few and the Bread and Circuses lavished on the many.
This is of course a false confidence. Every status quo is a social construct that is inherently non-linear. The decline of productive sectors, the divestiture of commoners from ownership of productive assets and the political disenfranchisement of commoners hollow out the economy and the society.
These dynamics of decadence weaken the social and economic order, creating conditions that favor a loss of faith in the status quo and the failure of key institutions.
Takeaways
In the United States today is a build up between two survival techniques utilized by the human species.
Typically, the r-strategist survival technique, is a “service for self” strategy based upon living in an area of abundance. It permits a hedonistic lifestyle. Which in itself is great fun, as we humans are genetically programmed to procreate. However, it is only viable as long as the resources are not restricted.
Typically the K-strategist survival technique is a “service for others” strategy that permits procreation in a land of scarcity.
The r/K Theory is often censored from many American-based progressive software outlets.
Famous r-strategist members include Hugh Hefner, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama.
Famous K-strategist members include Erwin Rommel, Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, Judge Judith Sheindlin (Judge Judy), Donald Trump and Bruce Willis.
FAQ
Q: What is better, r-strategy or K-strategy?
A: Neither or both. It depends on the environment. If there is an endless supply of resources, then the r-strategy is better. If the resources are scarce, or they fluctuate, then obviously the K-strategy is superior.
Q: Can American democrats be K-strategist wolves?
A: There was a time when the American democrat party was dominated by K-strategist individuals. For instance, when the democrat party founded the KKK, they were very family oriented and reacted to the changes in the political landscape by creating the militant KKK organization. Labels and species composition changes over time. Today, the American democrat party is dominated by r-strategist membership who is drawing the party towards radical r-strategist behaviors. Eventually it will either change, or be eliminated. Historically r-strategist behaviors do not possess longevity on this earth.
Q: What other creatures follow the r-strategy behaviors?
A: Aside from Democrats and rabbits, similar behaviors have been observed in mice, rats, mosquitoes and cockroaches.
Q: What other creatures follow the K-strategy behaviors?
A: Aside from wolves, similar behaviors can be found in many of the feline species such as domestic cats, lions, and snow leopards.
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
When we were young, we were taught how to act, and told how to behave. The opinions of our peers decided what we would do, who we would date, and how successful our life could be. For those of us who never left our home town, these demands have become forged as the tightest shackles that bind us to the demands and needs of others.
However, once we leave that environment, we find ourselves in a new place with new friends and a new life. We are thus given and provided the opportunity to reconstruct our life. We are provided with the chance for us to define our life for ourselves. We can break forth through the limits placed on us by others.
Not only is this desirable, but it is often necessary. For true growth, and to be the most that you can be, comes from you defining how you will live, and under which terms that you will define your life.
The 25th Law of power
Law 25Re-Create Yourself
Do not accept the roles that society foists on you. Re-create yourself by forging a new identity, one that commands attention and never bores the audience. Be the master of your own image rather than letting others define it for you. Incorporate dramatic devices into your public gestures and actions – your power will be enhanced and your character will seem larger than life.
The book “The 48 Laws of Power” is a classic work that defines methods and techniques by which a person may obtain power. Power can be defined many ways. It might be money, sex, relationships, ownership, control, or as pure military might.
The book goes into great detail on this subject, providing multiple examples that illustrate each technique.
One of the laws, or techniques, of power is the ability to recreate your life on your terms. This is law #25. Indeed, it is a powerful technique. For unless you have lived a charmed life, humans need to grow and expand beyond themselves. We are like a snake that sheds it’s skin, or a caterpillar who undergoes chrysalis to become a butterfly. We need to constantly strive, adapt and grow. For that is how we obtain experience.
For example motivational speaker Les Brown was classified as developmentally disabled. He was told that the best he could do was to become a janitor or a field laborer. Yet, he refused to believe that. With everyone of his classmates laughing at him, and most teachers shaking their head in sorry distain, we went ahead and forged a new life for himself.
He took on a new role; a better role as a motivational speaker.
Or consider, another radio talk show host; Rush Limbaugh. Always controversial, and bombastic, he was constantly hired and fired from jobs. No one wanted to touch him. We was considered a “wild card” and uncontrollable. Yet, by honing his abilities, and working on his strengths, he preserved and became a very famous and a very rich talk show host.
Often times, we need to move away from the thoughts, ideas, concepts of what other people think of us. Do you want to be treated as a successful businessman and not the class clown? Then you need to move away from your school mates. Do you want to be considered to be a brilliant scientist? Then you need to move away from people who call you a “book worm with no common sense”. Do you want to become a suave and sophisticated “ladies man”? Then, you need to remove yourself from the women who make fun of you and who don’t appreciate you qualities.
Now, you shouldn’t become confused. It is often more than just moving away geographically. You have to learn and hone the skills that you desire. If you want to become a “world renowned doctor”, you will need to study and cultivate your presence globally. If you want to be a “Ladies Man”, you will need to hone your relationship skills, and work on your presentation. If you want to live the life on your terms, you will have to work at it.
Have a Dream
We all need an objective. This is something that we can visualize and conceptualize. It is something that we can embrace as a target and an ideal that we can achieve.
"Bronco Billy McCoy: I've got a special message for you little pardners out there. I want you to finish your oatmeal at breakfast and do as your mom and pa tell you because they know best. Don't ever tell a lie and say your prayers at night before you go to bed. And as our friends south of the border say, 'Adios, amigos.' "
Have a Plan
Without a roadmap we are just lost in the wilderness. We need a plan to follow with a set goal to achieve. So set a goal. Describe the person who you want to be. Go into great detail. List what you want to be and what you don’t want to be.
You don’t need to use Microsoft Project to generate a plan, but you do need to take active steps. Get a notebook. It is cheap. Do not rely on your computer or cell phone to do this task. They are full of distractions. Go old school.
One cheap notebook. One pen (or pencil).
That notebook is your roadmap. Title it what ever you want, but in short it should be about one thing and one thing only; who you want to be.
Also note that it is going to be a journey. Right now you are NOT ready to be who you want to be. Some changes will be necessary. Indeed, you will need to change some things. Additionally, you will need to learn some things, and prepare some things as well. You will need to plan it out.
For instance, using the “Ladies Man” example above, you will need to read books on how to seduce. You will need to subscribe to websites, forums and feeds with like minded people. You will need to establish goals and a training program. The training program will not only be about learning new things, but it will also be about unlearning old bad habits.
You will need to do daily positive affirmations. These are sentences that you repeat to yourself over and over to undo the programming that you have endured over the years. For instance;
I am calm, cool, and collected.
I am always happy, smart, know what to say.
I am lucky.
I dress right, my hair is perfect, and I know how to handle myself.
Positive affirmations need to be written down, and repeated daily. They work. Let them do their magic.
Work your plan
Once you map out your goal and how to get there; do it. In life, it is better to be 60% ready than wait forever to be 100% ready. You need to learn the basics and then plan on “faking it until you make it”. Close your eyes and make it happen.
Trust me, you won’t die.
"Bronco Billy McCoy: Now look! I don't take kindly to kids playin' hooky from school. I think every kid in America ought to go to school... at least up to the eighth grade.
Young kid: We don't go to school today, Bronco Billy. It's Saturday!
"
You will experience hurtles and problems. So what? That is life. For instance, let’s suppose your dream is to move to Bangkok, Thailand and become a go-go bar owner. It is obtainable, but it will be a lot of work. You might need to break your plan into smaller bite-sized bites and then work those pieces.
Let’s suppose your dream is to become a sheep rancher in New Zealand. It is possible, but you will need to know some basics about sheep herding, and you will need to work on the immigration paperwork.
No matter what you do, you will need to have a plan that not only covers the physical changes that you need and want to bring about, but also covers the emotional and behavioral ones as well. But you know what? You can do it, because it is in YOUR nature.
You do not need a machine to make the world-line switch. You can do this on your own.
It gets easier over time…
"Lorraine Running Water: Do you understand what Bronco Billy and the wild west show are all about? You can be anything you want. All you have to do is go out and become it! "
The longer you work towards your dream, the easier it becomes. You always become what you think about. But actuating your thoughts with physical and tangible actions you will be able to achieve your dreams, and trust me you will be amazed how successful you will become.
When I was planning on moving to China, I studied Chinese. I had no one to practice with. I had no one to listen to. So I did it on my own, while the people around me snickered and made fun of me. You will overcome the nay-Sayers and losers. You just follow your dream and stick with your plan.
Don’t let anyone steal that from under you.
Other Sources
In the movie “Bedazzled“, a man who is helplessly in love, signs away his soul for a change to spend life with the girl of his dreams. The devil gives him six opportunities to remake himself (all, of course, with a devilish twist). The point in the movie is that you can remake yourself to obtain objectives, but that there will be a tradeoff in the process.
I won’t go so far as to say that you cannot change because it will have undesirable effects. But, I will say that what ever the image that you want to become… make sure that it is an extension of WHO YOU ARE inside.
Conclusion
"Antoinette Lilly: Are you for real?
Bronco Billy McCoy: I'm who I want to be."
The movie “Bronco Billy” is a full embodiment of the lessons of Law #25 of the “48 Laws of Power”. All of the members within his little band of entertainers were redirecting their lives toward their dreams. While it is only a Hollywood movie, and received moderate praise by the “geniuses” in Hollywood, the lessons are important and valid.
It certainly deserves a second look. Especially today with the way things are in the world today.
Don’t give up.
You can recreate your own life in the form that you want it to be in. If you are tired and exhausted in living the life as it is today, you can exit it. You are not tied to anything. You really aren’t. You can bail.
Set a goal.
Make a Plan.
Follow the Plan.
Implement it.
Live your dream. Do not let anyone stop you.
Takeaways
The 25th Law of the 48 Laws of Power suggests that we can create the life that we want to live. We should not accept the life that others want us to live.
This is attainable.
To achieve this dream, we need to set a goal, learn, and work towards that goal.
The movie “Bronco Billy” is all about the 25th Law of Power.
By watching the movie, you get a very good understanding of what the 25th Law of Power is and how it can be applied to your life.
FAQ
Q: Is my dream achievable, even if it sounds crazy or unobtainable?
A: Yes. However, it does need to be realistic. You cannot dream about being a turtle. However, you can dream about being a caretaker for turtles in Bora Bora.
Q: My spouse thinks it is a waste of time to pursue any dreams. What do I do?
A: This is a common problem. You have a choice. You can either enlist your spouse to share in your dream, or you will be forced to follow the dream without them. In any event, if you are forbidden to live your dream… that is not a life, no matter how anyone else tries to rationalize it.
Q: How can I find the time to do all that I need to do to obtain my dream?
A: If you do not find the time, your dream will never materialize.
Q: Where can I find the movie “Bronco Billy”?
A: Try Netflix or any decent torrent site. Torrents are free, and most movies can be downloaded in a few days. Rare movies might take weeks.
Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
This post was updated 5JUL19, when I received word that the FDA approved Bremelanotide PT-141 under the name Vylessi. I updated this post, andsubsequently added the name Vylessi to all mention of Bremelanotide PT-141, and added updated histories and commentaries at the end.
We have a tendency to think inside the box. We try to improve what we know. We try to work within the framework of what we have. We actually do need to think "outside the box"...
As a man gets older, your body changes. Your hair starts receding, and starts to fall out. You start to become bald. Your hair turns white. Your teeth start giving you problems, and you start to gain weight. Getting rid of that weight becomes problematic. No longer can exercise alone keep you trim and fit. You have to change your diet as well.
All men eventually start to have erectile disfunction (ED). Usually it seems to start in your early 40’s depending on your stress level, lifestyle, and general health. You can postpone it for a few years, but it will eventually strike. It will.
Typically, erectile disfunction more closely resembles a moderate soft erection. This is due to the blood pressure in the penis. As a man gets older, his ability to create solid rock-hard erections diminishes. Instead, when excited he produces short-lived soft and “spongy” erections, often cycling between a moderate “soft” erection and no erection at all.
This is what it is like to grow old.
Now, you can exercise. You can eat special foods, and you can have a stress-free life that can all significantly reduce these effects. For instance, leeks and eggs, bitter melon and oysters can certainly help the man in the bedroom. It will do wonders, as will a daily glass of red wine…
Viagra entered the world in the 1990’s and revitalized the world of the American male. No longer did older men need to live a sex-less life. All you need do is pop in a “little blue pill” and all your troubles are over.
Of course, there are some tradeoffs.
For one, you need to get a doctors’ prescription. America is just about the ONLY nation that has this bastardized restriction. Everyone can just get the medicine off the shelf just about anywhere. Secondly, you have to pay REAL money for it. In a world where the raw material of Viagra (sildenafil) costs $100 / kg, and where a single dosage of Viagra is 25mg, the price difference is astounding.
It costs ten cents a gram for sildenafil, or ten cents for 1000mg. That’s ten cents for 40 pills. But Big American Pharmacies and their associated industries are charging an insane amount for this pill.
The cost for Viagra oral tablet 25 mg is around $447 for a supply of 6 tablets, depending on the pharmacy you visit. Prices are for cash paying customers only and are not valid with insurance plans.
-Drugs.com
It’s a good thing that I live in China, where I can get a bag of 100 generic pills for under $1.20.
Ah, but I digress…
"Abroad, getting Viagra is no problem as it is readily available over the counter in many countries. In countries I’ve been to, it sells for $1 a pill. Then, it’s party on. No such luck in the police state known as America. Got to have a doctor’s prescription, and it’s pricey. But, it’s worth it for the occasional twosome or threesome when there’s blow involved."
-If you are going to use Cocaine use Viagra
Enter Cialis
While it is certainly convenient, the problem with Viagra is that it tends to give you a headache, and does not mix well with alcohol. Which really sucks as most of us older folk prefer to drink and have fun, often leading up to a sexual romp or two.
You take a Cialis pill on a Friday, and you are good to go up until next Tuesday. That’s four days, boys and girls. OK, well, three days of erection when you want it, and as long lasting as you need it. Four days it begins to sputter out. It’s erection on demand, and they are of high quality and long duration. Perfect for cuddling with that special person in your life. The real problem with this is that it takes around three hours to work, so it doesn’t lend itself to spontaneous sexual encounters.
It is ideal for a married man who wants to spend quality time with his wife.
Cialis is not licensed in China, so the only way you can get it at a pharmacy is to pay “full price”. Which is often 120 RMB/pill, or roughly $20/pill. That in itself pretty much sucks. Salaries in China are far below the salaries in the United States, so when you spend $20, it’s like spending enough to cover a weeks amount of food.
But then again, you can simply buy the (Tadalafil) powder here. Weigh it out. Mix it up yourself and use it.
I understand that a generic version is available in the UK, which would be a good alternative if you didn’t want to have a closet full of 500,000 Cialis pills lying around after your mix up your own batch. (BTW, India doesn’t really care about these licensed patents, and makes the pills anyways. Licensing and FDA be damned. So you can get great quality Cialis Generic out of India for maybe a fraction of the cost for what you would pay in the USA.)
It’s worth it, you know. You can spend quality time and focus on the time together instead of just one central activity.
As an aside, it does have a shelf life. After I made up a couple of million pills, I had to throw away large garbage bags full of old pills. They had begun to age. As they got older, they started to develop side effects, such as stomach gas, indigestion, headaches, and vision irregularities. So don’t use any Cialis that is over three years old. When I threw them away, there must have been five large green-black bags of pills that were thrown into the dumpster. Such a waste. Such a waste.
Anyways, I would have say that Cialis is the preferred conventional medication for ED, hands down.
Anyways…
The Design Team
Ah, but now for some bad news. What is really sad about it is what happened to all the researchers and developers who invented this product. You want to guess? Come on, what do you think happened to them?
Key team leaders in the ICOS Corporation developed the drug. They conceived it, they developed it and worked on it. However, the FDA has all kinds of testing and qualification hurtles that needed to be overcome. There was no way that the medicine would be approved. They were told this, and they knew that they had to link up with an “insider” or two to get the product approved. So the ICOS Corporation teamed up with Eli Lilly and Company to help get the drug approved through the FDA.
Of course, Eli Lilly is a big company with a lot of pull. They were able to “pull some strings” and get the drug approved.
As soon as they were able, Eli Lilly and Company bought the ICOS Corporation. They did so in 2007. It didn’t come cheap. They bought it for $2.3 billion. As a result, Eli Lilly now owned Cialis. As soon as they acquired the company, they immediately closed the ICOS operations. Thus they ended the joint venture and fired most of ICOS’s approximately 500 employees. Five hundred employees fired. Five. Hundred. Employees. Good Golly!
So…
Now you know [1] why the drug costs so much, and [2] why it sucks to work in corporate America.
Enter Levitra
This is an interesting little drug. It is a single dose drug like Viagra, but with a cost comparable to Cialis. It works a little bit differently than either of the two drugs already discussed. However, functionally it is like Viagra except it is made by a different company. You can consider it the Pepsi equivalent to Coke-cola.
I prefer it over Viagra simply because it interacts better with wine. I also like the (ahem) feeling I get when I use it. I feel (somewhat) better “packed” if you know what I mean.
What does it matter?
So now, men can take a pill and get an erection whenever they need it. Depending on where they live the access to this medication may be relatively easy (like in China) or restricted (like in America).
The thing is that life is not two dimensional.
It’s not ONLY about having a nice hard erection, it is about the mood, the feeling, and the emotions that you have when you are engaged in lovemaking. People, we are NOT animals. We have feelings and urges. Just getting hard and going through the motions is fine for a robot, but it is really weak compared to the real thing that you experienced when you were young.
For instance, consider the humble tomato. It was bred to look delicious, and ship safe. With taste being an afterthought. How we have thousands of tomatoes that look like plastic fruit and taste like cardboard. We have turned it into a two-dimensional shadow of what it was.
There are a host of things going on inside our brain when we are engaged in a sexual encounter. We express a litany of emotions, and feelings. We experience different sensations in our bodies. We connect and feel things that we share with our partners.
For both men and women, there are different aspects to a relationship that can be enhanced or (better yet) compensated for, instead just focusing on having an erection.
So…
Maybe we should start to pay attention to these other aspects of our life. Maybe we should consider them as playing an important role in our life. Maybe we should consider the entire aspect of who we are and what we are doing.
Enter PT-141 (Bremelanotide) Vyleesi
Instead of being a PDE5 inhibitor like Viagra and Cialis, consider a melanocyte stimulating hormone (MSH). MSH induces lordosis in animal subjects. Or in other words, lordosis is a sign of physical preparation for copulation. It is a hormone that tells the body “get ready, we are going to have sex”.
It is a hormone that puts an animal in “heat”.
It is hardwired in our brains. In animals such as dogs and cats, it tells the female to rise up their butts, and tells males to start thrusting. Now, as man has evolved this hormone has been repressed. We have replaced it with other cultural triggers. Or, in other words, what we visually see that has value has replaced this hormone. The natural lordosis behavior has atrophied in humans.
Not so when you take this drug. This drug reactivates it.
This drug was being developed by Palatin Technologies. It showed great promise as it works equally well on both the male and the female sexes. (Though who knows about the other 55 genders that somehow mysteriously popped into existence under the Obama administration.)
It’s not only that men can get a nice sold and hard erection. It is more than that. People who take this also feel differently. People who take it feel young and horny like a sex-crazed 16 year old.
There’s only one problem. The FDA decided to ban it.
The FDA refused to permit Americans to access this drug.
Yes, it was banned in the United States, much to the surprise to all the doctors, scientists, and research participants.
They were shocked, as they should be. This was not just a “so so” drug. The test results were ASTOUNDING, and yet…yet… it was banned.
So, in defiance, the staff who developed this amazing medicines put it ALL out on the internet. That’s right. All of the chemical formulations, all of the test plans, and all of the documentation was uploaded to the Internet.
Just like Keannu Reeves did in the movie “Chain Reaction”.
There, for everyone to see, is the amazing test results and the absolutely stunning levels of corruption at the FDA.
They put it all out there. Everything, including the formulation and sequencing information.
Scientists talk among each other. It’s a small world. Sure, maybe the well-paid FDA bureaucrats ($440,000 / year just to say NO!) are oblivious to this fact, and only chat with each other in their mansions and country-clubs, but the real workers, developers and key inventors care about their work and research.
In short order, it became obvious that the FDA was a corrupt organization, and that America had banned this medication because it would compete against Viagra. It also became obvious that this medication was very special. Very… very special.
If Viagra could be compared to a French Fry, PT-141 Vyleesi was a full thanksgiving meal with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, salad, cranberry dressing, pumpkin pie and soft fresh buttered rolls. There is no comparison. None at all.
Not only that, but now the formula was available for everyone to replicate. As soon as it got out on the Internet, everyone was making it. People could buy it and try it and use it. Everyone, that is, except Americans.
So for the last two decades, this amazing drug has been used all over the world (outside of America) with amazing success, and absolutely ZERO fatalities. (So much for the so called, concerns about possible high blood pressure in a fringe section of the population.)
It has since become a legend. PT-141 Vyleesi is the stuff of dreams…
Pfaus showed me stunning testimonials from human test subjects. “On the five-point scale, I would rate the erection I had as a six,” said one of the 1,300 anonymous testers.
"You get this humming feeling,” said another. “You’re ready to take your pants off and go.”The drug worked equally well on women, who chronicled “an intense arousal” that lasted from six to 72 hours. “I was focused on sex,” said one of the women.
Yes, but what is even more interesting is that this works on both men AND women. So while you might have a raging hard-on, your wife can now feel the same as you at the same time. She can feel like she was a sex-starved girl in the throes of “puppy love”.
Ah! What an amazing age that we live in!
“A dose of PT-141 results, in most cases, in a stirring in the loins in as little as 15 minutes. Women, according to one set of results, feel ‘genital warmth, tingling and throbbing’, not to mention ‘a strong desire to have sex’.”
-Julian Dibbell at ScienceBase
People can buy the PT-141 Vyleesi outside of the United States. And, they have been doing so for around two decades now.
The FDA has no jurisdiction off-shore, and people have taken advantage of this to try different kinds of medications for their own purposes.
You know, you don’t always have to listen to that busybody down the street to do things. So what if the FDA wants to FORCE you to pay outrageous prices for Viagra, and forbids you from using medications that you can get just about anywhere else on the planet.
You can hop on a plane and go to a nation that is freer, and get the medications yourself. I would suggest going to a nation that allows people more freedom than America allows.
“With PT-141 Vyleesi, you feel good, not only sexually aroused,” reported anonymous patient 007, a participant in a Phase 2 trial, “you feel younger and more energetic.”
Said another patient: “It helped the libido. So you have the urge and the desire. . . . You get this humming feeling; you’re ready to take your pants off and go.”
And another: “Twice me and my wife had sex twice in one night. I came in [to work] and I just raved about it: ‘Jesus, guys . . . 58 years old and you don’t do that.’ ”
Tales of pharmaceutically induced sexual prowess among 58-year-olds are common enough in the age of the Little Blue Pill, but they don’t typically involve quite so urgent a repertoire of humming, throbbing, tingling, and double-dipping.
Or as patient 128 put it: “My wife knows. She can tell the difference between Viagra and PT-141 Vyleesi .”
The stories about this drug are amazing. Consider this from TheIronDen;
My buddy said research the stuff and see what the dosing was supposed to be because me made a HUGE mistake and took to much. He took double what we took and I will tell you DAMN!!! DOSING is .10-.20cc NO MORE below is the story.
As many of you know I am a bouncer on the weekends well I was told take this 45 minutes before going to bed, I had read where this could take a few hours to take effect so at midnight we went to the car and took the preloaded insulin pins I brought with me.
Well I felt nothing and the wife didn't either by 3:30 when we got home. I was pissed at her and she didn't know it so watched TV awhile then I slept on the couch, she came in the next morning and woke me up, we went in the room and talked a min, then it was on.
We have never had sex 3 times in 4 hours and she has never orgasmed 3 times in 1 day, we were so tired from sex that we couldn't hardly move and wanted more but our bodies wouldn't let us. bremelanotide Vyleesi is AMAZING, I even wanted it last night, she was in the mood but couldn't as she has other medical problems and the pain in her hip was too much.
What it does:
Men - makes you horny as hell and increases blood flow to the cock making it more sensitive.
Women - floods the vagina with blood making it WAY more sensitive and very aroused.
Of this from a woman who took it with her husband…
3 hours after injection bremelanotide (PT-141) Vyleesi hit like gangbusters.*
We were sitting in the lounge area of a restaurant when my nether regions made themselves known. Increased sensitivity to any movement I made in my seat i.e. shifting or leg crossing.
This was coupled with increased sexual thoughts.
It is difficult not to think in sexual terms when some body parts are demanding your attention! My husband had a difficult time getting up from his chair to even approach the restaurant table. Next time we will time the injections better LOL
There are many, many…. MANY opinions by users, that actually run counter to the decisions made by the FDA.
I have to wonder if the agencies such as the FBI, FCC, FDA and IRS are actually being made to benefit Americans. I just seems like they all have their own agendas and treat American citizens like toilet tissue. It really seems that way. It really, really does.
Heck, if the FDA was around when ice cream cones were first invented, I am sure that they would have banned them.
The same goes for such staples as Coke-cola, bananas (they will need to have a Blue Ribbon Panel study the “banana issue”), and chewing gum. Of course they would have banned chewing gum “for the children”.
Absolute power CORRUPTS absolutely.
When any agency causes more harm then benefit, it should have it’s doors shuttered and the workers discharged. Perhaps these “protected” governmental agencies should start to feel what industry has been like since the 1960’s for us “fly over” folk.
Women state that the sensation given from injecting bremelanotide (PT-141) Vyleesi is like being in heat!
One colleague in particular stated that she didn’t know what was going on…but she had wanted “it” all day long after dosing the night before.
-TheIronDen
User details, dosages and experiences on AllThingsMale
Here’s a quick timeline of events that begins with Palatin Technologies’ submission to the FDA in the United States.
August 30, 2007
Right off the bat, the FDA declined Palatin Technologies’ application for approval of Bremelanotide to treat erectile dysfunction. The reason was there were “concerns” of increased blood pressure in a small percentage of the test subjects. Especially in light that Viagra was approved and it too had test subjects that had increased blood pressure.
...the rejection of Bremelanotide by the FDA is especially puzzling, at least to a "lay person", when seeing posts online (including this one on the Yahoo finance message board for Palatin Technologies) claiming Palatin insiders have told them that only 2% of test subjects experienced a significant increase in blood pressure.
"It was up to 30 for 2 percent (I spoke to Steven W aka investor relations). The avg was 3. Not a medical person but those few people that hit the 30 mark killed brem."
Click here to read about the FDA decision about Bremelanotide
There are all kinds of conspiracies as to why this drug was declined because one or two of the thousands of test subjects had slightly raised blood pressure, when other approvals (with higher percentages of problems identified by test subjects) were approved.
I, such as myself, have speculated that huge companies (like Pfizer for instance) may have strongly influenced the FDAs decision regarding approval of this relatively small company’s competitive product. If you don’t know what I am talking about, watch the movie “Tucker, a man and his dream“.
September 10, 2007
Palatin Technologies and King Pharmaceuticals end their collaboration. Palatin regains full rights to the Bremelanotide program.
September 11, 2007
Competitive Technologies announced they presented Palatin Technologies with a Notice of Termination of the PT-14 technology license agreement. For those not aware, CTT “discovered” the original compound that led to PT-141 (Brem’s initial designation) via the University of Arizona, and licensed Palatin to develop it in 1998.
This issue was resolved on January 22, 2008 with Palatin paying $800,000 to CTT and maintaining the rights to Bremelanotide.
September 28, 2007
Palatin Technologies announced positive results from an at-home Phase 2 trial evaluating bremelanotide for the treatment of female sexual arousal disorder (FSAD).
Post menopausal women "showed statistically significant improvements, compared to baseline and placebo, in desire and arousal success rates, and overall satisfaction at one and two months. In these patients, the FSFI domains of arousal, desire and orgasm were statistically significantly improved compared to placebo at one month. The arousal and orgasm domains were statistically significantly improved compared to placebo at one and two months."
Premenopausal women also "showed statistically significant improvements, compared to baseline, in desire and arousal success rates, and overall satisfaction at one and two months."
May 14, 2008
Palatin Technologies reported it was abandoning Bremelanotide as a sexual dysfunction drug. Instead they intend to resubmit it to the FDA as a treatment for shock due to blood loss.
They are beginning studies for a new compound called PL-6983. This compound works like Bremelanotide but with significantly lower problems related to blood pressure issues. Read Palatin Technologies’ 2008 Objectives plan here.
Then something happened... In 2016, Donald Trump was elected and immediately put businessmen instead of political hacks in charge of the FDA. Three years later...
July 1, 2019
The FDA approved the drug! I am absolutely shocked! As well as pleased. Very, very pleased. Now Americans can finally get what we in the rest of the world has enjoyed for almost two decades now.
It can now be bought in the United States under prescription. It goes by the name Vyleesi. I’m sure that it will be much more expensive for Americans to buy, but it will now be available, and that is a big step towards freedom.
Here is a write up that has been circulating online over the last decade or so. As websites come and go, it behooves us to keep this information alive and available for all the poor sops in America who are FORBIDDEN from using this wonderful product;
What is Bremelanotide (PT-141)?
Bremelanotide (formerly PT-141) is the generic term for a new medication for use in treating sexual dysfunction in men (erectile dysfunction or impotence) as well as sexual dysfunction in women (sexual arousal disorder). It is a synthetic aphrodisiac. Unlike Viagra and other related medications, it does not act upon the vascular system, but directly increases sexual desire.
Originally, the peptide Melanotan II that bremelanotide was developed from was tested as a sunless tanning agent. In initial testing, Melanotan II did induce tanning but additionally caused sexual arousal and spontaneous erections as unexpected side effects in eight out of the ten original male volunteer test subjects. In clinical studies, bremelanotide has been shown to be effective in treating male sexual and erectile dysfunction as well as female sexual dysfunction. It is currently being tested by Palatin Technologies.
Bremelanotide is a cyclic hepta-peptide lactam analog of alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (alpha-MSH) that activates the melanocortin receptors MC3-R and MC4-R in the central nervous system. It has the amino acid sequence Ac-Nle-cyclo[Asp-His-D-Phe-Arg-Trp-Lys]-OH or cyclo-[Nle4, Asp5, D-Phe7, Lys10]alpha-MSH-(4-10). PT-141 is a metabolite of Melanotan II that lacks the C-terminal amide function. Its molecular formula is C50H68N14O10 with a molecular weight of 1025.2.
Are these nasal? Oral, Injectable?
Currently the nasal and oral routes have not been made efficient. PT-141 is a sterile injectable made for sub-q injection, like insulin.
What's the dosing schedule...how much do I take?
0.5mg-2mg is the range which people dose. Taking 2-4 hours before game time is ideal. The window of opportunity is very unique.
Say you had a dinner and movie arranged. Taking before dinner may be the best route, however during the climax of the movie may interfere with one of your own…read between the lines there
Is there any reconstituting involved?
Yes and bacteriostatic water is the recommended solvent here.
To mix the vial with bact water, take one syringe (BD Ultrafine II 1cc or 1/3 cc are excellent and I recommend them) and grab your vial of bacteriostatic water. If using a 1 cc syringe (100 units), use the syringe to withdraw 1 full ml (1cc) and inject that into the vial of PT-141 through the rubber.
Be sure to aim the needle towards the glass, so that it will trickle down and not harm the peptide.
Swirl the vial to thoroughly mix and let the peptide dissolve. The key here is to be gentle.
Say you had the vial of PT-141 stored in the freezer, move the vial of PT-141 to fridge for an overnight stay. Then you are ready the next day to reconstitute the same temperature refrigerated bact water with the PT-141 in the most efficient manner. (Just some tricks of the trade here.)
So now you have 100 units (1cc) of bacteriostatic water mixed with 10 mg of PT-141 in your vial ready to go. A 1mg dose would be 10 units or .1ml (.1cc). Make sense? Hope so.
How is it stored?
The lyophilized powder (freeze dried state) can be stored in the freezer or refrigerator. Once reconstituted (mixed with water) it will be good for a month in the refrigerator before it begins to degrade.
Does this help give erections or just put you in the mood?
With PT-141, you feel good, not only sexually aroused, as reported anonymous patient 007, a participant in a Phase 2 trial, you feel younger and more energetic.
The precise mechanisms by which PT-141 does its job remain unclear, but the rough idea is this: Where Viagra acts on the circulatory system, helping blood flow into the penis, PT-141 goes straight to the brain itself. And there it goes to work, switching on the same neural circuitry that lights up when a person actually, you know, wants to.
Basically this takes men back to middle school. You may find yourself in a similar situation as you were in 8th grade science class with the teacher bent over helping the student in front of you. It may be necessary to do a "tuck up" if at the office or especially at the public pool!
This is an “improved” version of PT-141 that doesn’t have any of the “concerns” that the FDA has raised. Of course, no matter how successful the medication is, the FDA will probably ban it’s use anyways. Anyways, this medication is under development currently and the formula is secret. Maybe one day, we can find out more about this medication. However, for now, we will have to wait.
PL-6983 is a synthetic peptide and selective MC4 receptor agonist which is under development by Palatin Technologies for the treatment of female sexual dysfunction and erectile dysfunction. It was developed as a successor to/replacement of bremelanotide (PT-141) due to concerns of the side effect of increased blood pressure seen with the latter in clinical trials. Relative to bremelanotide, PL-6983 produces significantly lower increases in blood pressure in animal models.The drug has reportedly been in pre-clinical development for all medical indications since 2008. Palatin has stated that "We are focusing development efforts on bremelanotide for [female sexual dysfunction], but are continuing evaluation of PL-6983." The chemical structure of PL-6983 has yet to be made public.
-Wikipedia
You do not need to take various medications to enhance your bodies’ desire for sexual intercourse. There are hormones that do this. For example, Oxytocin is a hormone that also acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain and known as the “love hormone” or “cuddle hormone”.
In humans, it is believed to be released during hugging, touching, and orgasm in both sexes. Oxytocin is also involved in social recognition and bonding, and may be involved in the formation of trust and generosity.
A researcher at the University of Zurich has stated that women are more susceptible to oxytocin than men, due to enhancing effects of estrogen, so women may show a stronger effect.
If you are an American it would be pretty difficult to obtain. You would have to have your doctor prescribe it for you, and at that, it is heavily regulated and very expensive. Or, you could do what everyone else on the globe does. They buy it from China.
Now, of course, women have different biology than males. Their urges, needs and desires can not often be switched on and off like a light-bulb. Consider Flibanserin. Here is a drug that showed some real promise in helping women reengage their sexual desire.
It was developed by a small company called Boehringer Ingelheim, and they submitted it to the FDA for approval. Of course, the FDA halted all approvals, and the development of this product ended.
Well, some “back door” meetings were conducted. Some money changed hands. Then, suddenly the rights to the drug were then transferred to Sprout Pharmaceuticals. What do you know? Suddenly all the roadblocks fell and the FDA approved of the drug in August 2015.
Of course! Only certain companies are permitted to get products approved by the FDA. It’s a small closed club, don’t you know. Hum. I wonder how much money exchanged hands at the FDA. I’ll bet that it was significant.
The product was developed as BIMT-17. Current brand name is Addyi.
Flibanserin has been dubbed the “Female Viagra” and “the little pink pill”; however compared to Viagra, flibanserin has a distinctly different mechanism.
The proposed mechanism of action of flibanserin involves regulation of several brain chemicals that may affect sexual desire, although the exact mechanism is not known. Flibanserin is a post-synaptic 5HT1A receptor agonist and 5HT2A receptor antagonist, as noted in FDA briefing documents, and has action in the central nervous system.
The manufacturer states that flibanserin corrects an imbalance of dopamine and norepinephrine (both responsible for sexual excitement), while decreasing levels of serotonin (responsible for sexual satiety / inhibition).
Flibanserin is not a hormonal drug and does not affect blood flow like the class of drugs approved for men with erectile dysfunction.
-Drugs.com
Like all FDA approved medications, there are limitations. The medication has to be taken daily and is costly, about US$800 per month with a prescription.
But no worries. You can buy the materials by the Kg in China, and only end up paying $0.0000002/dose. Of course, you would need to measure the dose out on a scale. So it is not as convenient.
If you want to save money, and not have to worry about self dosing, I would suggest this far cheaper alternative.
Buy a round-trip ticket to China.
Get a five-star hotel room.
Go to a pharmacy, and pay $20 for a three month supply.
Return home.
You won’t need a prescription in China. The Chinese government trusts their citizens to know how to take care of their own bodies.
Contrary to what the American Media says, the Chinese government trusts their people.
What about Kisspeptin
Kisspeptin is a naturally occurring hormone, so it’s present in all men and all women. And it’s mainly found in the brain, especially in the center of the brain in the area called the hypothalamus.
At the moment we know that it works to control other reproductive hormones like testosterone and estrogen using its actions in the hypothalamus. There are receptors for this hormone in the emotional areas of the brain.
In trials, 29 healthy young male volunteers were given an injection containing kisspeptin. They were then shown a variety of images while in an MRI scanner, including sexual and non-sexual romantic pictures of couples bonding. The same men were also administered a placebo during the two-stage controlled study.
Researchers analyzing the brain responses of the men found that after the injection of kisspeptin, when viewing sexual or romantic images of couples, there was increased activity in structures in the brain typically activated by sexual arousal and romance.
The researchers say the findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, show for the first time that the hormone that is vital in all of us to stimulate puberty can also alter the way that our brains behave.
Roll Call
So we have PDE5 inhibitors like Viagra and Cialis that enable the male to have erections. It doesn’t do anything in regards to feelings and emotions. All it does is enable men to perform biologically like they did when they were in their 20’s.
We have melanocyte stimulating hormones (MSH) that induces primeval lordosis in humans. This works on both men and women. The FDA forbids Americans to use this medicine, but it is being used around the world with great and stunning results. This is available in PT-141 and possibly (one day) in PL-6983.
We have normal human hormones such as Kisspeptin and Oxytocin that regulates feelings and emotions leading towards relationships and sexual activities.
Finally, we have “designer medicines” such as Flibanserin (Addyi). Which is a post-synaptic 5HT1A receptor agonist and 5HT2A receptor antagonist for female use.
The Future
The future for Americans is rather bleak, I am afraid.
The House of Representatives voted on Friday to create a new schedule of banned drugs under the Controlled Substances Act, called “Schedule A,” and to give Attorney General Jeff Sessions broad new powers to criminalize the manufacturing, importation, and sale of substances that are currently unregulated, but not illegal.
The bill is now headed to the Senate, where co-sponsors Dianne Feinstein (D–Calif.) and Chuck Grassley (R–Iowa) will likely have little problem whipping votes.
-Michael Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog
Did you know that the natural betel nut is banned in the United States? Do you even know what it is? It is a nut from the betel tree, and people in South East Asia chew it, much like Americans chew birch bark and leaves. It’s not at all popular in the United States, but in Asian expat communities, they do chew this nut.
Well, the FDA banned it. Do you know why?
Was it because it was dangerous? Was it because of “the children”? Was it because it might cause addiction or develop into a desire for other vices? Nope. It was banned because they COULD NOT find anything wrong with it. So to be safe, they banned it until they could find a benefit in chewing it. You know, “better safe than sorry”.
What kind of backwards logic is this? That is America for you. There is absolutely no freedom. Now, if you want to chew a betel nut you need to go to a freer country that allows you this little pleasure.
You need to go to a country that has more freedoms than America allows. You know, like friggin’ communist China!!!!
Summary
As an American, all we know is what we are told. We think that there is only one medication available for men with ED issues. When in reality, there are a host of solutions. It is just that Americans are barred from trying any of these other solutions simply because…
Simply because…
You, know. Because…
But not to worry. These medications are easy to get outside of the United States. They do not need doctors prescriptions or any proof of age or other barriers that one often finds in the United States. You just go to a pharmacy, write the name of the drug on a piece of paper, and they sell it to you directly at the cash register.
As you get older, you start to realize that “someday, I will...” is actually right NOW. There no longer is a “someday“. All you have is the NOW, and nothing else. You have friends who have died, and you truly know how short life actually is. You don’t have the will to wait for “someday…“.
You don’t have the time, or the patience to wait until some well-fed bureaucrat in the American government grants you the right to do things with your own body. You say “piss on this“, and go do it yourself anyways.
Every day that you live could be the last.
That moment that you could spend with your wife, holding and snuggling, while the storm rages outside might be your last. Those bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. don’t care about you at all. They are not sitting at the table with you now. They have no idea what color your socks are, and do not know which side of the bed that you sleep on.
How dare they TELL YOU what to put in YOUR body!
Freedom actually means something. It is not just a meaningless slogan that you hear on the fourth of July. It means something, gosh darn it!
The freedom to live your life on your terms is what freedom is. And that is why I am in communist China of all places. At least here, I can take whatever medication I please. No over-paid Washington bureaucrat can do anything about it.
Hey! I’m not seeing an opioid crisis over here…
Oh, and by the way! I like well-cooked bacon as well, with sunny-side up eggs! I like “runny” yellows on my eggs. You don’t like it? You can go to hell.
This is MY time and I am living it on MY terms. I strongly recommend that you, the reader, do so as well. You go live YOUR life as YOU see fit.
PT-141 is illegal in the United States, even though it’s qualification trials were acceptable. This is true even though this drug is available world-wide with no reported problems what so ever.
To pass approval in the FDA, there is apparently a need for graft, kick-backs and large American-based company partnerships. Nothing is ever approved on merit alone.
Americans do not need to suffer the extremely high costs of medications in the United States. They can get them outside of the USA at a fraction of the cost (airfare included).
ED medication is often used recreationally by young men who don’t need it. However, there is a real and serious need for men over 40 years old.
The roles of touching, cuddling, holding and passionate embraces are just as important than the sexual act alone.
FAQ
Q: What is PT-141? A:Bremelanotide (tentative brand name Rekynda; former developmental code name PT-141) is a peptide melanocortin receptor agonist which is under development by Palatin Technologies as a treatment for female sexual dysfunction. It works equally effectively on both male and female humans.
Q: Is it available in the United States? A: No. The FDA has banned it.
Q: Why is PT-141 banned in the United States? A: The official reason is because a small subgroup of patients using the medication experienced higher than normal levels of blood pressure. The actual reason is because this is a small non-American organization, and they did not have any connections with large American pharmacy organizations to pay for the vice and graft that the FDA expected.
Q: Is PT-141 safe? A: Yes. Since the product went globally public since 2007, there has not been one fatality or hospitalization when using this medication. NOT ONE.
Q: Other medicines in other nations cheaper than in the USA? A: Oh, my yes.
"$8 per vial in competing developed-world nations and $38,892 in the U.S. That says it all."
-Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog
5JUL19 Update
The FDA approved Bremelanotide PT-141 for sale under the trade name Vyleesi. Amazing!
Dr. Robert Pearl, writing in Forbes last September illustrated the greed exhibited by the industry. He used the CEO of Nostrum Laboratories to make his point. Nostrum recently raised the U.S. price of their antibiotic nitrofurantoin from $474.75 to $2,392. It was developed back in 1953 and should have gone off patent during the Nixon era.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Nirmal Mulye Nostrum chief executive, said “I think it is a moral requirement to…sell the product for the highest price.”
Mr Mulye compared pricing decisions to that of selling “a painting for half a billion dollars”. He was “in this business to make money”. Of course, all businesses are in business to make money. But, none enjoy the monopolistic protections granted to the pharmaceutical industry here in the United States.
Note: a three day supply of nitrofurantoin tablets in Alberta sells for $15 Canadian.
The American system has been allowed to metastasize into an unaffordable monster. Our political leaders have allowed it. It is long past time for Americans to demand that they change it. This is not a matter of right versus left. It is a matter of right versus wrong. It is simply wrong for our government to allow sick Americans to be held hostage to the predatory prices imposed by these government protected monopolies.
Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
One of the things that I have come to appreciate the most was the family meal that we had when I was growing up as a child. During my early childhood we would hold formal “sit down” meals in the Dining Room. Us children each had our own roles / chores in regards to this. On Sunday we would have the largest and most elaborate meals. Mealtime was the opportunity when we could all talk about our day, our hopes and dreams, and things that interested us.
At the time, I didn’t realize how important it was.
Then, during the 1970’s everything changed. Both of my parents had to work. (You can thank the American Federal Reserve for the decline in the value of the dollar that necessitated the breakup of our families.) A formal family meal was replaced with “help yourself” fix your own meals, out of a pot on the stove, or “make yourself a snack” out of the refrigerator. We would then scrounge something up, and eat it alone watching television.
Communication was via notes on the refrigerator.
Now that I am much older, I can see clearly the value of a family meal as well as a community meal. As such, I now dictorially enforce an observance of this tradition within my own home. This post is about what I think about this matter. Of course, like anything else, it is all opinion driven.
My own, obviously…
Formal Family Meal
“Family meals. There’s nothing magical about gathering the family for regular meals; it’s what you do with them that matters. Use mealtimes (it doesn’t have to be dinner) as a chance for your family to slow down, get together face-to-face, talk without distractions, cement your values, create a feeling of support, and build loving bonds.”
- The 3 Families Every Young Man Needs to Grow Up Well
One of the most important events in my family is the hosting of “formal sit-down meals”. Every day we have a “sit down” meal. I like to refer to this is a “Family Meal”. We try to do this at dinner time. The most important meal is the Sunday meal, which may or may not be outside in a restaurant.
Living in Seattle we are surrounded by Liberals. And the public schools of course. It was (and is) a drag. The kids would come home and learn something and we would talk about it at dinner.
(Yes- we always had dinner together around the table.) Lots of learning goes on there, and LOTS and LOTS of opportunities to teach.
“So - you gave up the pennies you found hidden to others that didn’t find as many. And what did that teach you?”
Having twins in different classes it was interesting. In one the teacher hid pennies around the room and the kids went looking. Of course some found a whole bunch, and others not so many. So then the teacher asked the kids what they should do to make it fair. Second grade or so.
My one daughter said “So we voted, and we all decided that those that had a lot would give some to those that didn’t have many, and we made it all fair!!”
The other daughter said “Yeah - that’s what we did too. But I didn’t think it was fair. Some boys were just goofing off and didn’t find any. I argued why should they get any? But of course I got out-voted.”
My other daughter looked at her and said “Hey - you’re RIGHT!” We had a long talk about just because things are equal doesn’t make it fair.
As lousy as it is in Seattle, all three of our kids are staunch Conservatives now, and prepared them for when they are on their own. The one goes a more conservative state for college. Lots of friends from small western towns have complained how liberal the college is. My daughter laughs. “I think it’s great - I bet 30% of the kids here are conservative! Back in High School it was me, my sister and about 4 other kids out of 700!”
-Free Republic
The truth is that we did not plan things out this way. For the longest time we ate out all the time. In order to save some money, we started to cook our own meals. In a short period of time, we discovered that we actually preferred it. Over time, we started to mix up restaurant meals with formal home meals. The restaurant meals are now, not an afterthought. They are planned, and treated special.
We pretty much never had sit-down family meals, and if we did it was from a restaurant, we ate in silence, and then we’d just wander off from the table one by one to watch TV or go on the computer or something. It’s not that we hate each other or anything, it’s just pretty much the way it’s always been.
PolkaDotsOnThursday
Call me old-fashioned if you will, but I consider a family meal together as an essential component of our family unity. We try to do it every day, but that is not always possible.
Breakfast in the 1960s. Orange juice, coffee, cigarettes, toast, bacon and eggs. (Image Source.)
As a father, it is my role to pace and lead the family. It becomes an easy thing to do when you have rituals, routines, and roles. As such, I always lead the Family Meal.
In our house, we have rules. These rules are there for a reason. My rules might not work for everyone. As such, they are the rules that fit us. Rules are there to make sure that we all can concentrate on the food and fellowship together as a family. The outside media, and other distractions have no place at our dining table. Other people and other families might have their own rules. Here are my rules.
For us, in my family, we follow these rules…
We eat dinner in our Dining Room. The table is cleared and setup for dinner. The Family Meal is ritualized and treated special.
All cell phones are power-off, and are nowhere near the dining table. I know that many readers might not understand this rule, but it is very important. In my house all electronics are powered off. That includes the TV, games, monitors, all cellphones, or tablets if they are present.
The reason for this is that there is a purpose to a family meal that is defeated by electronic interruption. The family meal is to spend time together communicating to each other.
The fact is that you just can’t do that when you’re all silently staring at the TV or (more commonly) while everyone has their eyes glued to their phone. For us, it is a rule that is carved in stone. In fact it is the most important rule.
We started this rule when the children were really young. They grew up with this rule; without having any distractions at the table. However, their friends and others haven’t, and as a result, often some explanations are necessary.
(Sometimes we actually collect the phones, powered off, and put them in a basket in the kitchen. We explain that this is the way things are done in Top Secret military operations. That both amuses and silences the critics.)
All telephones (if not cell phone) are not answered. If they ring, we hang up and leave the receiver off the hook. (We no longer have a wired phone, but the rule stays intact never the less.)
Dinner time is OUR time. We form a “protective bubble” or “zone” that we exist in and NO ONE is permitted to interrupt it. Over the years, I have bent this rule from time to time, and it always gets misused. Today, every piece of electronics is powered off. No one cares about our family time. It’s up to me to enforce it. Otherwise, we are just sheets in the wind, and subject to the wants and desires of others outside of our household.
No one is permitted to interrupt our family meal.
Soft background music is preferred, usually jazz or soft Chinese love songs (but that is just us). We typically select a “station” on YouKou and let it play in the background (you’ve got to download the player first). Alternatively, we also use KouGuo for our streaming music needs. Both downloaded players will hang up during loading. You will need to disable your anti-virus programs if you use American anti-viral programs. You cannot use non-American government approved media sources, don’t you know…
The table is adorned with a table cloth. (Typically it is a linen table cloth, with an under-cloth to protect the table wood surface.) Typically it is a white or off-white color. We NEVER use a disposable plastic table cloth. Perish the thought! Additionally, we use special coverings for unique holidays. Such as a woven throw for Christmas, or for Halloween. It’s REALLY nice. If you make something special and you utilize ritual, it does eventually become very special.
Everyone follows ritual. This means that Western manners are followed. No one sits down until the father and mother sit down. Everyone says “please pass the…”, and when someone needs to get up and leave the table they ask “May I be excused?” and “Excuse me…”. This is not “guard the food during prison chow call”, but rather how to behave in polite company. I expect our children to know how to behave when they take on leadership roles. If you want your children to be everyday mill-workers, you can permit them to be crude and uncouth. It’s up to you. This is a formal Family Meal, after all.
“Formal” place settings are established for all participants. Each setting has the proper utensils. If we are eating Chinese food, then chop sticks (kuai zi) are provided on a cloth napkin (we purchased cloth napkins and tablecloths just for this reason). If we are eating American, then we lay out formal knife, fork and spoon. Everyone gets a glass for their beverage. Out of tradition, each place setting has a glass of water. People seldom drink from it, but it is provided never the less. On special occasions, we even lay out extra tableware (such as individual salad forks and soup spoons) so that the children can get accustomed for a higher class of life, and so that they are comfortable with it. A Formal Family Meal is an important learning and teaching opportunity.
Wine glasses, or VSOP (I am equally prone to drink “jin Jiu” (Chinese herbal alcohol) as I am to drink VSOP. It is healthier, don’t you know.) in a glass tumbler (with ice) for me (the head of the family). Hot tea for the wife, as it is her preference. Children get ice filled glasses and the beverage of their choice. (Nothing is more noteworthy than a frosty ice-cold coke.)
Dinner is the ONLY time when the children can drink soda or soft-drinks at home. Other than that, they must drink pre-approved beverages. This typically consists of milk or various teas. Dinnertime is a special treat for them. It is when they can drink soda, and have ice cream. We adults prefer dry red wine. Typically we drink mid-range red wines from China such as “Great Wall”, or from Australia such as “Yellow Tail”.
Family Meals is not only a time for togetherness, but it is also a time to relax and speak openly, freely with others. When my children start to work they will also earn the privilege to drink alcoholic beverages, just like I was granted that privilege when I turned 14 and began to labor.
I like to drink wine because it tastes great, makes me feel good, and it is good for me (at my age). Heck, when you the reader reach your sunset years, don’t allow anyone to tell you what you can do with your own body. It’s none of their friggin’ business.
Family Only, or occasional guests. If we have the housemaid make the dinner, she NEVER participates in it. She is forbidden from interrupting us during the meal, and does not interrupt for any reason. She is useful to answer any phone calls during the meal and tell them to call back later. (She is not part of our family, so she never participates in our family meals.) A family meal is for the family, and not shared with the domestic help no matter how friendly we treat them.
Prayer. All western meals have a Catholic blessing of grace. We all hold hands, and someone recites grace. (We take turns.) My in-laws just can’t get their arms around this ritual. My wife has explained to them that it is a American way of honoring Buddha. That seems to be enough to suit their inquiries. LOL!
Bless us, O Lord, and these your gifts, which we are about to receive from your bounty. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
End of Meal Walk. If the Aiyi (housemaid) makes the dinner, and the weather permits, we have a short walk outside. The family meal can extend to an after-dinner “cool down” period. We take the dog, and everyone gathers for an evening stroll along the ocean while she cleans up. We would go along the boardwalk and talk while the lights of Macao twinkle in the distance.
Dogs and cats are NOT fed from the table. (If you start doing so, they get all excited and make a real distraction during the meal. Cats will jump up on to the table, and dogs will try to eat off your plate. Dogs will pace around frantically, around and around the table, whimper and cry. It’s really terribly irritating.) For a while we put the dog outside. Now he knows that he must wait on the porch, or sleep in his bed quietly.
Everyone knows this rule, except guests, and we never give them the opportunity to spoil the critters. The rule is this: animals DO NOT eat with human family at dinner time. (They can eat at other times, depending on the individual. But that is a special human-dog or human-cat thing, and has no bearing on this particular discussion.) The family meal is for the human members of the family.
We have family discussions. Always they are of a light subject matter. Nothing emotional or serious is addressed while we all are eating. Here, everyone takes turns sharing something positive and negative that has happened to them during the day. I enforce this, and take the subject “off line” if it is important. It is impossible to digest food when someone is emotional. For the most part we talk about school, work and friends. We also talk about movies, hope and dreams, plans for the future and things we like or hate. The family meal is a time for sharing.
No fast-food. Meals that resemble fast-food are discouraged unless it is part of the meal “theme”. (Themes that are exceptions include the Baseball theme, or a birthday theme.) Typically, we spend time in making each meal a “theme”. This is true even if the “theme” is “just an everyday after work and school meal”. Everything must have a theme.
Warm food is preferred. We NEVER eat cold food as the main family meal. Everything must be hot or warm. We can have a salad, or a dessert that is cold. Drinks can be cold as required, but the meal itself is hot or warm.
Friends are fine. Children’s best friends are sometimes invited, as are their parents. (Dinner is a family event, but in China it is also a social event.) However, Man’s best friend has to stay outside on the porch.
Cigarettes. If we are eating Western style, an after dinner coffee and cigarettes (typically 555 brand) are served. The ash tray is clean. At the bottom of the glass ash tray is a folded disposable kitchen-paper-towel, moistened with water. Typically, this is when guests arrive. I myself prefer to smoke a pipe, and I only do it when I am relaxing after dinner.
Formal ritual in presentation. During the family meal, presentation of the coffee and cigarettes is very formalized. Coffee is presented in cups with saucers and its own (tiny) spoon. (I wish that I could say that we make it fresh, but this is China, we often settle for instant. Shutter…) Sugar is brown cane sugar in individual packets, and we use individual packets of creamer. These reside inside a crystal glass bowl, and we simply move it to the table when the moment approaches.
Chinese guests. If we are eating Chinese food, and we have guests, we offer them white wine (Bai jiu). Not the cheap stuff, either. We don’t want to lose “face”.
Bread. If the meal is Western, it is served with bread. We buy a loaf or two of “French bread” from the local supermarket (D, RenRen Le, Carrefour, Taste or Park n’ Shop). There they make “real” crusty bread, not the super soft sweet bread that is so common in Chinese bakeries. Typically we purchase it before hand when it is made fresh and then we freeze it. We take it out and heat it up in the oven or microwave as necessary.
Salted Butter. We eat bread with REAL SALTED butter. This is one of the little pleasures that I missed over the years. In the rush to make everything “healthy” in the United States, everyone switched to unsalted butter and margarine. Bullshit. You lose the taste, and you still die early. It’s all nonsense. In my house, we cut the bread, heat it up in the oven, and place it in a bowl covered under a cloth. It is served with the formal family meal.
"I don't want to eat or drink anything with the words light, lite or fat-free on the package."
- Ted Nugent
The selection (and presentation) of butter is very important. The butter is in a large glass butter container (twice the size of the one we had as I grew up in the 1960’s) and is left out for a few hours to soften up. Butter is ALWAYS “salted” butter (which we buy on the internet), in a pinch we will use “lightly salted”. We absolutely never use “unsalted” butter.
We also never use margarine. I tell the reader this; try it. Get a loaf of French bread, cut it up, and heat it up. Then, butter it using real fully salted butter. Taste it. Go ahead, take a nice bite of that crunchy goodness. (Pat your lips with a tablecloth or napkin.) Then try a loaf of white sandwich bread with unsalted margarine. There is no comparison.
Now, the truth is that things have changed somewhat. My wife wants to control her salt intake. She read an article on the Internet that advises against too much salt. So she gets her own unsalted butter. The rest of us eat the real thing.
Time. The most important aspect of the dinner is TIME. People, please pay attention to what you are doing. If you want to have a special meal for the people that you love (your family), then give them the best and do not skimp on anything. The pennies you save is not worth it. Family meal dinners should be about the best you can do for your family. It’s also about the little things.
We always have dessert. Usually it is some chocolates, cake, ice cream, pie, or pastry. We NEVER use cheap chocolates. These are for young children. Instead, we provide expensive high quality chocolate in small amounts. It becomes a most special treat. Let the riff-raff eat the cheap stuff. When it is family meal time, my family gets the best we can afford. The rest of the world can go to hell. BTW, my children absolutely LOVE dinner time with the family. It is the time when they are a part; an equal part of the family, and they get the best and are treated special.
Leftovers are seldom used for dinner meals. They are reserved for lunches, and special breakfast concoctions. There are exceptions. For instance, a formal turkey dinner can be recycled into a “diner style meal”. A leftover chili dinner can be made into breakfast omelets, chilidogs, or chili-pockets.
Toothpicks. Everyone uses toothpicks at the end of the family meal, and uses a formal (polite) hand-over-mouth action to clean their teeth.
Alternatives. If we are too busy for a formal sit-down meal for dinner, we will go outside to a local “family” restaurant. In China, the “family restaurant” is a local family-owned restaurant that has really decent prices and great local prices. We never skimp on family meal time.
Meals like this take a minimum of one hour, with a two-hour meal being normal. Long meals with friends and family is (of course) much longer.
Themes for the Meals
I thought everyone who celebrated Christmas had a whole three-day celebration starting on December 23rd. You see, we have Ham Day (23rd), Turkey Day (24th), Christmas Breakfast (25th). We also get together New Year’s Day to eat pork chops and sauerkraut. That idea isn’t so weird, but the part that gets me some looks of disgust is when I mention how we pour maple syrup on the sauerkraut.
eclantantfille
The idea of having themes for a major family meal sounds very strange, but I believe it is a necessity. Food is a glorious and wondrous thing, and (at least in the United States) has evolved into a second-class status with the prevalence of fast-food restaurants. Indeed, during much of the latter half of the 1970’s, family meals were missing, and replaced with notes on the refrigerator. That DOES NOT happen in my household. Not if I can help it.
Formal meals always have a theme. Here are some of the themes that we have had in the past;
Thanksgiving meal (traditional turkey, dressing, and mashed potatoes). Try getting a turkey in China. It’s darn near impossible. We need to order ours online.
The first time my wife saw it, she darn near had a heart attack. She thought that we were tying to feed the entire block. “How in the heck are we supposed to eat that?” Then she went on to complain about the huge size of the wings, the impossibly huge size of the drumsticks, and what to do with the neck and gizzards. Ugh! When I explained to her that the entire drumstick would go to a person who liked that part of the bird (dark meat), she was incredulous. “Who in their right mind would eat such an enormous piece of meat?”
Birthday celebration. (A favorite food, followed by cake.)
Chinese New Year Eve dumpling feast. (Along with after dinner fireworks.) Most Chinese families make homemade dumplings. We don’t bother. Ours are frozen. However, in China the tradition is to make dumplings the “old fashioned way”, which is from scratch. That will happen, I am sure, when we are older. However, for now, we use frozen pre-made dumplings.
Beowulf (Dim the lights, candles, and eat with greasy fingers.) This can be anything from chicken to mutton or pork. No silverware. No chopsticks. (We play some Richie Blackmore medieval and Renaissance music in the background.)
Kids get super chilled Root beer or extra-strong Ginger beer. Ginger beer is the key. It originated in the 1800’s in England and, at that time, it actually did contain a small percentage of alcohol. Around 100 years later, the ginger ale we’ve come to know and love was developed and came to be known as Canada Dry. The difference? Ginger beer is actually brewed and fermented while ginger ale is essentially a carbonated beverage made from water and ginger.
Ginger beer often has much more of a “gingery” flavor and because it’s fermented, is less carbonated. When someone drinks it, the look on their face is precious! Listen to me; Kids LOVE the experience! (They actually announce that they are eating “Beowulf” at home, and then they show up with five or six friends! LOL!)
Hunan spicy Chinese. We typically eat out for this. We have numerous traditional restaurants where we go. We get our own room typically and have a feast. In China, most restaurants have private rooms to eat in. We pick or reserve one. Then we enjoy the experience. To repeat; when in a resturant, family meals are held in a private room with it’s own bathroom. The television is kept off, even when the waitress turns it on.
Halloween. The misses bought some white porcelain skull bowls one year. They look like a skull, and we ate spaghetti out of them. It looked like we were eating brains. (I don’t know where the bowls are today. I think we only used them once.) There’s also bloody fingers in a bun (hot dogs) that are a big hit with the kids.
Christmas Eve baked ham, fresh baked bread and snack food spread (cheese, cold cuts and vegetables) with homemade Egg Nog. (Impossible to find in China.) This is a carry-over from my mother. We would have cold cuts and fresh cut bead that we would snack on with fresh baked ham. I continue this history.
Other families might be different. I have Spanish friends that describe a different meal and religious routine that I would love to participate in. I have Mexican friends who describe a similar type meal that is outstanding and my Lithuanian friends describe some food traditions that make my mouth water. Ugh! Trust me, that there is nothing wrong with family meal rituals and traditions.
In Zambia they eat this amazing fish with a kind of rice / potato that they eat with their fingers. My God, it is excellent! It helps make the family stronger.
Wenzhou steamed shellfish and snails. All Wenzhou dishes provide us an opportunity to explain our Chinese history and the nature of Wenzhou business practices.
For our children to “make something with their lives” they must think as business people. They need to believe that is normal and achievable.
For us, all the kids must be able to say, in wenzhou hua (the local Wenzhou language), “I would like to collaborate with you in a business venture or two. Here is my business card”. And yes, they do have their very own business cards made up. They got to design them themselves.
Polish Open-Faced Sandwich (Zapiekanka). We even play some polka music, though I am not a big fan. All Polish dishes serve as an opportunity for me to explain our Polish-American heritage.
Hey, I am Polish-American. Though I don’t hide behind it and ask for handouts like my liberal and progressive friends. I do try to keep some of the heritage alive.
Polish open-faced sandwiches (also known as French-bread pizzas) are popular street food in the bigger cities of Poland, not to mention my old family stomping ground in Pittsburgh (Polish Hill). They’re known as zapiekanki (plural) or zapiekanka (zah-peeyeh-KAHN-kah), which is singular. Most zapiekanki sandwiches start with French bread, sautéed mushrooms, cheese, and ketchup, but there are Greek-style with olives and feta cheese, Italian style and many more.
What makes the open-faced sandwich authentic is a thick drizzle of Polish ketchup across the top, no matter what cuisine the zapiekanka is trying to emulate. That’s the secret.
Mexican theme with tacos, burritos, and quesadillas. We can get the real deal in Shekou (a Spanish expat region of Shenzhen), but the hassle to get there makes this a low priority theme.
"At least once a week, I'll put out all the parts of the dinner separately and have my husband and son make their own version of whatever it is we're having.
With taco night, for example, I'll put out corn tortillas, refried beans, Spanish rice, shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, cheese, salsa, meat, and cheese. My husband and son love it because they can make their own taco combos and I love it because I don't have to be the one to do all the work.
Build-a-dinner works great with pasta, burritos, pizza and even dessert with company such as a make-your-own sundae bar."
--Jill Houk, Chicago
1930’s style “diner meals”. (Hot Turkey Sandwich with homemade fries with gravy, etc.) We typically buy pre-made beef or pork gravy off the Internet. The misses has yet been able to master American style gravy. Her idea is to add soy sauce or vinegar to “make it taste better”. Ugh! (But she is still learning… Sigh.)
Fondue. Fondue is idea for a special family meal occasion. For those of you who don’t have a clue, Fondue is a Swiss condiment of melted cheese served in a communal pot. The pot is usually placed in the center of the table and heated with a burner or open flame. Usually, for cheese fondue, there is a mixture of melted cheese, wine and crème simmering away in the pot.
It is eaten by dipping bread into the cheese using long-stemmed forks. It was popularized in North America in the 1960s. It seemed like every family had one. However, it became disused during the 1970’s. When you dust one off and use it, it becomes a very special occasion.
Fresh baked bread, cheese and homemade soup (Typically, but not always, a heavy cream soup.) The wife goes along with this, but she’s afraid the children will get fat, but I insist. Typically, we use Campbell’s soup (of the crème kind) and add milk instead of water. We thicken it with cheese and crackers. Of course, I insist in “real” fresh bread and real salted butter.
Pork Chops (American style) with Country & Western Music playing and applesauce. Forget the political progressive narrative. This is a typical 1970’s meal. We duplicate it to a “T’. If you don’t like it you can go to hell.
Crock-pot sweet sausage and peppers, with real rolls. The crockpot will cook for two to five hours, and the result is amazing. If you don’t know how to make this amazing dish, don’t worry. You get peppers, sweet Italian sausage, onions, tomatoes, and spaghetti sauce. You add everything together in a crockpot and let it cook. It is that simple. Yum!
Hotdogs, fries, pork & beans with a baseball game playing in the background (via the Internet). Wine or VSOP is replaced with beer, super chilled and served in a cold glass. (The kids get a genuine glass bottle of Coke-cola super chilled (about 20 minutes in the freezer), and they drink from a straw.)
Sometimes it is the simple attention to details that make all the difference. Let your children have the frosty ice-cold coke in a glass bottle experience while smunching on a freshly cooked hotdog. Yum!
Homemade pot of chili. We eat it as a thick soup or with rice. In it we use Chinese spices, which has the exact flavor as the imported expensive American spices. Typically we eat it with saltines or cheddar cheese. It makes for a great semi-formal family meal.
Chili meals are always on the informal side. To make it more formal, we will provide homemade bread and soft salted butter. (I have heard of it being served with Doritos or Frito chips, but they are too expensive in China to use.) Next time we are in Louisiana we will get a bowl using Doritos and add some New Iberia hot sauce too. That’s um good, you betcha! yah.
Deli sandwich with kosher pickles (This also tends to be a little expensive.)
All in all, I have read and I do believe that parents who have a strong marriage, better relationships with their kids, and set more guidelines for them, were more likely to have family dinners. As a result, they are more likely to have well-adjusted children.
What you can do
All this being said, I look back in my life.
I well remember the 1970’s. That was a time of many changes. I wore bell bottoms, had my hair below my ears and bangs that fell over my eyes. My parents hated it, but I was very fashionable. Oh, baby!
Fresh milk was delivered to our porch daily. It sat inside a small galvanized metal box cooler specifically designed for that purpose. We didn’t lock our house doors. We left the car keys in the ignition. We would say “Hi” to our neighbors and play with their kids. We would make “forts” out of the cardboard boxes that home appliances were shipped in.
I carried a pocket knife with me, and used it to cut small branches and to chew on twigs from a birch tree (it tastes like root beer). I was very shy with girls, and not so great at sports. However, I was a fantastic swimmer, an average golfer, and an active tennis player. I was a member of the cub scouts, and rode a gold Schwinn “banana seat” bike with “high bars” and a “drag strip” (non-tread) rear tire.
We ate “soft serve” ice cream from the local Dairy Queen stand, or had banana malt milk shakes. The news that played on the radio concerned our exploration of space and the Vietnam War. We watched Mutual of Omaha’s “Wild Kingdom”, and “The FBI” (Starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr) after the Walt Disney hour on Sundays. If I wasn’t watching television, I was building plastic scale models, or experimenting on my Gilbert chemistry (and electrical) sets.
I wore a “mood ring” that I found in an old “mason jar” filled with old pennies, marbles, and campaign pins (I picked it up at a yard sale for twenty five cents.). I also wore a catholic ring of Saint Christopher that I picked up at a church sale on “Polish Hill” in Pittsburgh. I wore “Beatles style” hair with bangs that were always covering my forehead and falling in front of my eyes, and often would go into the local “woods” to dig for “old bottles” (in long disused trash dumps, often 100 years old) that I would then clean and collect.
Then, when I would arrive home, I would sit down and eat a family meal.
At that time, I really didn’t appreciate the importance of it. I did not understand the importance of a family meal. However, later… Yes, when both of my parents were working, I did miss the meals. I didn’t know it at the time, but I needed a formal sit-down family meal.
My life had changed, and it wasn’t for the better. Instead of eating with my mother and talking with my father. Instead, I sat alone in the TV room with a bowl of cheerios in my hand, heavily laden with sugar. I watched all kinds of television shows, but around dinner time, I watched The Flintstones. It was mindlessly entertaining for me.
Looking back, I truly see what a waste of time it was.
So, I ask the reader, does this sound like your family? Instead of sitting together during a family meal, is everyone off in their little worlds on the smartphone? Are they checking their likes on Facebook? Are they reading the news on Drudge or Zero Hedge? Are they looking at the goings on with the rich and famous on CNN and the Huffington Post? When you do go out to eat together, is there any discipline? Do you all sit down, look at each other and just talk?
Hey… Listen up! Family meal dinners is the time for everyone to talk, communicate and share with each other. What’s wrong with that? Most of the complaints that I get from people who are having marriage difficulties stem from either financial problems, or communication problems.
You are a family. Take the time to TALK. Take the time to look at each other face to face. Take the time to relax with your family. That is what a family meal is all about.
Indeed, I say this two times, one of the complaints that I hear from many young married millennials is that they don’t communicate enough. They don’t talk. When they do, it seems light, trivial and meaningless. The complaint is that people no longer seem connected. Why is this?
I am not a doctor, nor am I an expert on these matters.
However, I would suggest that some effort be taken to bring everyone closer together. This effort need not be the dining table. This need not be at a family meal. This can be something else. However, whatever it is, it must be free of distraction. No television, or media on. No cell phones. No crying babies that need your constant attention. You need to set aside time (on a regular basis, if possible) for close and real communication.
So, I have to ask? What do you do to maintain your family?
Dinner as “Quality Time”
I spend “quality time” at dinner. We maintain it with rituals and rules. The rules and rituals are for one purpose only; building our relationships through communication. I consider it important. I know that others don’t, but I do. We use the family meal as the vehicle for this.
Here are some ideas what you and your loved ones can do to build, sustain or create relationships together…
Involve food. Everyone loves to eat. I only met one person who did not. He was in a mental hospital in Boston, MA. (Stoughton, Massachusetts actually.) He was a truly miserable person. Who in their right mind doesn’t like food? Well, he was an example of one. That is perhaps why he is in a mental hospital. When in doubt, cook “breakfast food”. Everyone loves breakfast food. A family meal can most certainly be made out of breakfast food. Ever hear of pancakes, eggs, bacon, baked beans, toast? Make it special. Put out all kinds of things to put on the toast. Provide cut up tomatoes, peanut butter, chopped lettuce. Make it special. make it noteworthy. The family meal can be anything at all, just include food.
Talk without distraction. Do not permit things to interrupt your train of thought, or to drown out the words of people who are trying to talk with you. Music should be of low volume and not jarring. Music sets the pace of eating. Let it be relaxed, slow, casual and friendly.
Set up a routine. It cannot be done once or twice and then forgotten. Make it a regular event. If not daily, at least weekly.
Give it your best. This period of time during the family meal need not be long, but it MUST be the best time. Give your attention 100%. Do not skimp on anything. Make it special. It’s for you and the ones you love. You can always make more money, but you can never make more time.
Have fun. The family meal is the time when your children get to see you laugh. My memories of my mother always include the times when she was singing alone in the kitchen on Christmas day. This should be a special time. This is the time when everyone can feel free to talk without being told to “hush”, or “you can’t say that”.
"Come In. This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!"
-Commander John Grimes
I sincerely hope that people start to appreciate what they have, instead of looking outwards for more or better. The things that matter to us are right there. We just need to reach out and treasure them. I would urge everyone to start now, today and do it in small ways.
Some Paternal Notes
It wasn’t until I was much older that I fully began to appreciate the total value of a family dinner. Over time I saw examples of it being done right, and other examples that were not to my liking. I have witnessed families getting together at 7:00 am before school and work eating breakfast at McDonald’s together. The dad is there in a business suit, and the kids are there with their school bags and uniforms. It’s pretty cute.
There are some rules that apply to the parents, and especially to the “Man” of the house; the Father. I have followed these rules for the last five years or so, and they work for me. I suggest you, the reader, give them some consideration.
The father always smiles. I do. I fake it sometimes, but I always smile.
No yelling and no arguments. That is enforced. I simply say “we will take that off line after dinner. Then you can explain to me what is going on.”
No one can break off from dinner early. It is formal. They have to ask to be “excused”, and more often than not, the answer is “no”.
Nothing is placed on the table. Books, pens, games, electronic devices, a race car.
Dinner is a happy time with good, warm food, no worries, no problems, and no troubles.
I maintain these rules, even when there are indeed, some serious things to talk about.
Some Fun Links
Those that study this issue concluded that while family meal dinners alone won’t prevent your kids from turning into cigarette-smoking urban turbaned transgender youth, the ritual can serve as a valuable part of family and the bonds of a family. It is the set of habits, routines, and practices that can contribute to a well-rounded person. While I have always felt this way, others with better communication skills than myself have written articles on this subject in great length.
I would suggest that the reader read their articles and come to your own conclusions.
9 Scientifically Proven Reasons to Eat Dinner as a Family
There are other articles on the importance of a family dinner. There is nothing new about this, what is different here is the importance of a family meal to stabilize a cultural island within a wholly different cultural environment. Our children are American & Chinese. If we do not maintain the importance of their American heritage, they will lose it and become totally absorbed within the Chinese hive (To reference the Star Trek Borg Collective narrative.). Our family meals is our way and means for cultural stability.
We need to do this. Not every family does.
Do you, the reader, see the neighborhood children doing activities that you don’t want your children to get involved in? Are they doing things that you do not like? Are their habits, dress, actions, and behaviors disturbing to you? Well, communicate to them, get involved.
Don’t let the community dictate behavior. You do it.
Have family rituals. Do not expect the neighborhood community to raise your children better than you can. They can’t, no matter what the media tries to ram down our collective throats.
Hillary Clinton tells us (in her book “It takes a Village”) that parents are not really that important. It is the collective society that is important. I can see how well this has worked out in Baltimore, Detroit and similar enclaves such as Ferguson.
I choose a different route. I chose the radical direction; I chose the traditional method of raising children.
I note that while Hillary Clinton made some money on this ghost written tome, she did not follow the advice she so professes. Her child ate formal family meal dinners at home just like my children do. Do as she does, not as she professes.
“Kids are the same now as they were a hundred years ago – petulant, brave, arrogant, earnest, frightened, and cocksure. It’s the parents who have changed. It’s the parents who have put their own happiness above the best interests of their kids. It’s the parents who actually believe “the village” will raise their kids, when the village is profoundly incapable of doing anything of the sort.”
-Mike Rowe
Now for some VERY harsh words. If you, the reader wishes to raise your child progressively – go for it. I am not going to stop you. Your children will serve the food that my children will eat.
It is true, and you know it.
Read your history. Now, you might be offended by the truth, but you’ve got to face the facts. The leaders of today became that way through the teachings of their parents. So give your old man some credit, and take a special moment to thank your mother. You turned out alright, didn’t you? Maybe they did something right. Copy them.
Now it’s your turn.
Take Aways
A family meal is a very important part of a family.
Children who are raised with formal (family meal) dinner meals perform better than their classmates do.
Dinnertime should always be treated as a special event.
The best dinners always follow a set of fixed rules.
Rituals are important, and your children will remember the rituals more than the events.
The most important gift you can give your children is your time.
Everything here is my opinion.
Free Republic Posting
This article was posted on Free Republic for comments on 20JUL18. You can read the comments HERE.
RFH
How about a Request For Help? I tire of busybodies and statists who poke fun at the ideas and theories of others. They offer no constructive dialog. Rather they just make fun, ridicule, and then scurry under a rock.
I use this forum as a way to disseminate some of the things that I learned though my life.
I don’t suppose that others might agree with me. However, I am sure that there are people who have ideas, experiences, and thoughts to share. I, for one, am willing to listen to them. Please let this be an opportunity for you to contribute to the community dialog. Don’t be silent. If you have something to say, then please share it. Thank you.
FAQ
Q: What are the benefits of family meals together? A: Spending time together brings us closer. That is the most important part of a family meal. We are able to communicate and everyone knows how each other is doing, both the good and the bad. Additionally, it is a refuge of support and a feeling of belonging. One of the problems with today’s electronic society is that people have lost that feeling of membership. Instead, they post “likes” and snapshots of desserts instead of talking to people and bonding face to face.
Q: What is the importance of a family meal together? A: There are few things more important than a family. It is your support group, your strength, security and financial fallback plan when life becomes too difficult to endure. You children will learn that no matter how difficult the world is “outside”, home is a place of acceptance and a good hot meal.
Q: Meals are fine, but what is the importance of family DINNER together? A: The dinner is the most important meal for social and family interaction. Breakfast is a good way to start the day and wake up. Lunch is a time for the mid-day recharge, but dinner is a time for relaxation and social interaction. Dinner is the end of the day “rewind and relax”. A family meal can be held at any time of the day and with any kind of food.
Q: What is the overall importance of families eating together? A: People need to do things together, as it creates bonds. Everyone needs to eat. By combining food with togetherness, a family can build bonds and strengthen existing ones.
Q: Do other families in China eat meals together? A: Yes they do. The Chinese culture is very supportive of communal meals and spending time together. It is the most common way to bond with people. The second most common way is to share a cigarette. The third most common method is to share a drink (beer or something stronger).
Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
Articles & Links
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.