#365Gratitude Day 206: Sexual fantasies

I kind of live in a world deep inside my head.  It's populated with memories, daydreams, stories about fictional characters I've created, and stories about people I know.

Image courtesy of http://childoftheflower.deviantart.com/art/Sexual-Tension-308072205

It's a little like being a cook.  I've always got a little something going on the brain oven. 

Often, these fantasies are me reliving arousing experiences, or dj-style cutting and remixing the memories into things which have not and might not come to pass.  

Yet other times, those other memories are the source for new stories I am writing. I'll remember watching a particular friend get spanked, or maybe aggressively masturbated at a play party, and roll those feelings into a story about Christina, one of my favorite characters from Concerning Littleton.  

That's exactly what happened to me on the train this morning.  I started working on a story about how she met her husband Adam, and realized how much she likes to laugh with him, and tease him, and then, much like a few people I know, be called to task with a nice firm spanking on her bare bottom. 

I love when this sort of synthesis happens to me, inside me. It brings the vast imaginary landscape in my head closer to the real world.  I'm grateful I get to do that.  

Daily Think: minimizing suffering

A big thing for me is my fairly constant drive to do as little harm as I can to other people. 

I recognise that pain and joy are both transient, and constant. They're a part of being alive.  

At some point, I'm bound to make someone else angry, frustrated, frightened, disappointed, or some other negative feeling. That's just human. 

Heck, I'm bound to do all those things to MYSELF, sometimes.  

So, I'm mindful. I'm careful and focused. Sometimes.

Some of the ways I consciously, directly try to minimize suffering include: 

- being soft spoken, and not raising my voice.  

- trying to listen to what others are saying, fully listen, without preparing a response ahead of time, adversarially. (Hard!) 

- responding to others when they reach out to me in need for solace and comfort.  

Do you try to minimize suffering too? Please leave me a comment about it, I'm curious to hear some of the conscious ways you do that. 

#365Gratitude Day 205: Boona Calumny & Mental Springboards

Okay, so right about now you're thinking, "Boona what? What the heck is a Boona anyhow?"

Boona isn't a what. It's a who. He's a character in David Brin's novel The Practice Effect. ​

The book was published in 1984, when I was 13 years old.  I remember reading it and really loving it as a kid. ​

Its been about 30 years since I read it. Boona, as I recall, isn't even a major character. But he's got a funny, interesting name. ​

As it turns out, Calumny isn't made up​ at all. It's an archaic word from Middle English:

—noun, plural cal·um·nies.

1. a false and malicious statement designed to injure the reputation of someone or something: The speech was considered a calumny of the administration. 
2. the act of uttering calumnies; slander; defamation. 

Origin: 1400–50; late Middle English < Latin calumnia, equivalent to calumn-,perhaps originally a middle participle ofcalvī to deceive + -ia -y3)

​I stumbled across the word yesterday as I was listening to another blast-from-the-past, an audiobook version of Christopher Stasheff's The Warlock In Spite of Himself.  It's also a great book, and has a lot of Renaissance culture and antiquated language in it, including use of, you guessed it, the word Calumny. 

This morning on the train, I was thinking about the warlock book, just sort of turning it over in my brain.

Out of nowhere the phrase Boona Calumny just popped into my head​.

After I thought about it for a while, I realized it was the name of the character, but I couldn't recall from where​.

A quick search on Google later, and I had my answer, and was reunited with my old friend The Practice Effect. 

This whole experience boggles my mind. First, I'm amazed that a tiny piece of information from a book I read 30 years lingers in my brain just waiting for me to fish it out of my mental soup.​

Second I'm blown away by how technology enabled me to make this connection happen.  ​

In a very real way, what I just did is just like being a character in one of these novels.​

I enhanced my own mental abilities with a network of information that's available almost planetwide. ​

Which was only possible because the brain is so amazing to begin with. 

I just downloaded the audiobook version of The Practice Effect, and ​I'm going to enjoy experiencing it in this new way. 

I'm grateful for what the human brain is, and does.  We really are amazing creatures. ​

#365Gratitude Day 204: Pema Chödrön

Pema Chödrön is a Buddhist monk, author, and speaker.  She wrote this amazing book, When Things Fall Apart.  

The book is about the all too common mistakes we make in the west, dealing with pain and suffering.   She offers another way.

It's not a religious book, but a book about thinking.  It's about how we think, what we think, and how we can approach it differently.  

It's brilliant.  

I'll warn you that it can be a very upsetting book. When I first read it, I realized I had been needlessly torturing myself for about 20 years over some aspects of how I see myself, who I think I am.   

When I realized it, I locked myself in a bathroom and sobbed into my hands for about half an hour.  

Then I realized I was still torturing myself.  I laughed, washed my face, and felt much better.  

I won't tell you that since then I never torture myself. That would be nonsense.  Often are the times when I condemn myself for eating poorly, making bad choices, being lazy or selfish.  

Then I remember. I do as Pema teaches, turn into the pain, really look at it, and myself, with compassion and brutal, unflinching honesty. 

It's not easy. But it is worthwhile. Afterward, I feel like I've scrubbed myself raw, like I'm new, smooth, and unblemished.  

In those moments, I see the truth. Being alive is beautiful. 

I'm so grateful for Pema and what her book has taught me.  

#365Gratitude Day 203: Andrea

Andrea is one of my closest friends.  I've known her for a decade now.

Andrea and I have many things in common. We're both ageplayers, switches, educators, advocates, and thinky people. She's one of the kindest, most giving people I know. 

We also are almost spiritually, philosophically identical.  She's had an interest in eastern spiritualities and philosophies since I've known her. I'm not sure she'd call herself a Taoist, or maybe more of a Buddhist.  She's fascinated with Quan-yin, the bodhisattva of compassion. 

See how awesome she is? 

My friendship with Andrea is perennial and evergreen. Sometimes we go months without speaking, only to magically reconnect seemingly at random, and feel the same strong, connecting love & affection we always do. 

The funny, almost spooky thing that happens to us periodically is that we seem to call or reach out to one another in times of need or unhappiness to lovingly call one another on our mutual shit.  

We even have a term/phrase for this. "How's that working for you?"  Just today Andrea texted me and we got on the phone. I was describing to her my recent dissatisfaction with myself at my lack of meaningful progress on getting back in shape, and letting a side project of mine languish.  She pointed out to me, good-naturedly, how what I chalk up to "being rather hard on myself", I would consider abusive, if it came from someone else. 

Similarly, I pointed out to her that an expectation of mistreatment she had which hadn't come to pass was her mistreating herself.  

Kind of the same issue, right? Go ahead, say it with us,

"How's that working for you?"

We had a good laugh together about it. 

I'm so very grateful for Andrea. She makes my life better.