Just sometime, it sucks

 

Is it a pal?

Is it a toy?

Is it a Hoover

to hug and play? 

The power of ecstasy

Survival is a genetically coded imperative that is reflected in every part of our complex biological design. It is something that is encoded in our primitive reflexes, built in to our psychological make-up and hard wired to neurological circuits. The only thing that matches it in scope is pleasure.

It makes sense I suppose, for what would be the point if we didn't enjoy the act of procreation? It is in the moment of orgasm that we find how perfect we have been designed to ensure the survival of our kind. On the one hand it is a physical experience that triggers all the right conditions to ensure fertilization. On the other it is without argue the most pleasure that anyone can ever hope to share, so much so that people get addicted to it!

Until recently, our knowledge about sex and sexuality was scant, and limited to understanding it as an esoteric subject, most notably as tantra in the tantric texts. You'd think that such a strong instinctive drive would be worthy of abundant scientific scrutiny, but then you'd underestimate the power of social taboo.

With the world slowly coming round to the notion that sex is not a shame, there has recently been abundance of discovery, and no sooner did science jump the hurdle of infamy, than we were stopped in our tracks by the discovery that the mind of women 'tilt' when they reach orgasm.

According to a recent article in Scientific American the female brain show a muted response in the part of the brain that govern self control over basic desires, with a corresponding release of tension and inhibition. The area responsible for moral reasoning and social judgment and the area of the brain responsible for "extinction fear" and the storage of memories associated with emotional events appear to switch off during orgasm.

Women lose their moral reason, judgment and emotional ability with orgasm, and strange as it may sound, it is common sense to think that such a powerful flood of shared emotion would sweep away all obstacles to ecstasy.

All of which remind us when it comes to matters of the mind, we are still in virgin territory.

Rewards, rewards, rewards

(Eulogy to a man I never new, but greatly admire)

I recently heard of a man that lamented the loss of his soul, not that he had you see, but then neither did he. He thought that life was void of reward, and as a result he was ever depressed and always grumpy and pessimistic. So pessimistic in fact, that he became known as the biggest pessimist the world had ever seen.

He died alone, not because he thought he lost his soul, but because he was such a foul mouth sourpuss. No woman who deemed herself respective, indeed no person who had any drop of self respect would ever want to be seen near the old geezer. Of course there was a couple of friends, but they where the lucky souls that knew of him, before they knew him. The rest of the people never got a chance before he ignored, insulted, harassed or pissed them off so badly that they were at pains to make sure that their paths never crossed. That is, if they didn’t go to the police and demand that charges be laid.

In fact, somebody did in his early years. a woman he had harassed went to the police and opened a criminal case of assault against him. Assault against her personage and dignity was the charge, and she won the case. The court awarded her damages that the acclaimed philosopher had to pay for the rest of his life.

He was a pessimist because he believed that humanity will never be satisfied, no matter what the reward. In his eyes you see, life was not worth the effort it took to be alive. In fact, he was often heard to comment that the he could never understand why he continued to live himself. It was secretly guessed that he only did so to piss off a few more people before he died.

Even in the halls of higher learning, where much may be tolerated and offered before the altar of thinking and learning and human advancement did he find himself an outcast. After completing his thesis, a brilliant piece of work about the corruption and power of man’s will, only 5 students enrolled in the course he offered at the University of Berlin. He promptly refused to continue the class and cancelled the course in his signature style, ending the matter with a lengthy and public and pompous discourse on the knowledge and wisdom that accused the whole of the student body, in fact, the whole of the faculty, and indeed the institute of higher learning itself of corruption and sloth. He then added that he had walked through these hallowed halls long enough to see the fester that rots in this institution!” He made ‘institution’ sound dirty when he said it.

His public protest did fire the belly of some very bright and young upstarts, and not by his want or his will, but by divine intervention he became 'friends’ with some very talented people.

People like the quiet and demure scientist that struggled to get a tenure in academia, and ended up working in a patent office as an assistant examiner. He was passed over for promotion because he had not fully mastered ‘machine technology’, but ten years after his diploma he had produced such a body of knowledge that he was appointed “Professor Extraordinaire” for his theory of relativity. A theory that reconciled the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field, and introduced us to the field of quantum physics. In doing so he unleashed our own curiosity on itself, allowing us to peek into the hart of the universe, and some to venture all the way to our very soul.

People like the flamboyant composer that changed the face of music forever by abandoning the ‘happy tune’ that was then in vogue and brought to our hearts and our ear a new sound. A harmony that is richer and deeper and fuller and bigger and overwhelmingly loader than anyone could ever imagine. A symphony that reaches deep within our soul, and drags it kicking and screaming from the misery and evil that it hides, and exults it to to glorious heights of divinity where it belongs.

People who, even today are still known and revered for their contributions to the worlds of art and science and humanity. People who challenged the status quo of our existence and permanently altered the course of history. People like Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Wagner, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Albert Einstein, and Sigmund Freud.

And so the man who is known as the greatest pessimist in the history of human thought, the man who searched for 72 years but could not find a single reason to live left behind a legacy that bared our collective soul to our very own eyes, and then showed it to us in all it’s glorious magnificence.

That man was Arthur Schopenhauer, a grumpy old geezer who spent his whole life searching for reward and who was answered through the life’s and the work of the people he tolerated in his life.

Wherever you are old man, I would like you to thank you and let you know that you did good. And I guess since you died you already know the reason for life, but just in case you’re still out there searching for reward, I’d like to invite you to take a look at the legacy you left through your word. And if you’re still wandering somewhere alone in the misery of your own existence, then may I suggest you try a little love? It is after all the quality most often attributed to spirit, the very last of mysteries still left to man and the heart and soul of the legacy you left to us.

Have you unleashed your sexual beast?

One of the things that most people seem to have a problem with these days is sex, even if it is just not getting enough of it. To complicate matters even further it is a subject that is shrouded in forbidden mystery and social taboo, not to mention religious dogma and shamed memory. Considering the odds against, it is a wonder that sex is still practiced at all! 

I think the answer to this curious state we're in can be found in the design of the human body where a few things immediately become clear:

• At the age of puberty our bodies undergo a total transformation that specifically prepare us to actively participate in the open sex market.
• The transformation that occurs at the time of puberty is not limited to physical changes, but includes a total rewiring of the brain, and activation of a new prime directive. A directive that is so overpowering that it has been known to drive some people mad.
• Besides probination, mutual sexual engagement is without argue one of the most enjoyable experiences anybody can ask for, almost as if our bodies have been uniquely designed for pleasure.
• While our environment serves up a pretty tasty array of appetizers, it is a poor excuse for the real main course… The butt naked, burning flesh mutual rapture to be had in shared orgasm.

If you combine these design specifications with an overpowering prime directive of survival you have, what some would quite rightly consider to be, a loaded weapon. Just point and shoot, or in the case of the human sexual beast, point and sniff…

Considering the facts I suppose that all the social and religious taboo that remain in society could serve some kind of purpose, but that still does not give us any reason for guilt or shame. Isn’t it about time that we start to enjoy one of the most complex and intricate design features we are capable of, the ability of pleasure.