Review: "The Will To Change" by Bell Hooks

I recently finished this book and although it wasn't exactly what I expected, I did enjoy the book nonetheless.  The book focuses on "love" and the ability for men to show emotion, express feelings and basically be in touch with their feminine masculinity.  It covers how rare this is in today's society.  The book was written in 2004 and is still accurate for today's times.  It talks a lot about feminism and how the movement back in the 60's / 70's got a bad rap from the women that used it as a "man hater" type of position.  In actuality the book says in it's opening, "Every female wants to be loved by a male. Every woman wants to love and be loved by the males in her life. Whether gay or straight, bisexual or celibate, she wants to feel the love of father, grandfather, unlce, brother or male friend. If she is heterosexual she wants the love of a male partner."

The book goes into great detail telling why the majority of males lack the ability to love in the way that their women would like them to love.  It describes the Male Patriarchy (and uses the word Patriarchy way too much in my humble opinion) as the main reason for the way things are today, the reason why boys are told at a young age not to cry or show emotion, and how this culture brings up children with the idea that the male of the species is in someway superior to the female.

I'll share with you a few quotes from pages I made note to return to after reading the book, these will sum up the highlights of what I learned or insights I enjoyed from this book.

"In an anti patriarchal culture males do not have to prove their value and worth. They know from birth that simply being gives them value, the right to be cherished and loved."

"Many anti patriarchal parents find that the alternative masculinities they support for their boy children are shattered not by grown-ups but by sexist male peers."

"Much of the anger boys express is itself a response to the demand that they now show any other emotions. Anger feels better than numbness because it often leads to more instrumental action."

From "The Heart of the Soul" by Gary Zukav and Linda Francis - "Anger prevents love and isolates the one who is angry. It is an attempt, often successful, to push away what is most longed for - companionship and understanding. It is a denial of the humanness of others, as well as a denial of your own humanness. Anger is the agony of believing that you are not capable of being understood and that you are not worth of being understood. It is a wall that separates you from others as effectively as if it were concrete, thick, and very high. There is no way through it, under it, or over it."

"Usually this moment comes in adolescence, when many caring and affectionate mothers stop giving their sons emotional nurturance for fear that it will emasculate them. Unable to cope with the loss of emotional connection, boys internalize the pain and mask it with indifference or rage. Usually adult males who are unable to make emotional connections with the women they choose to be intimate with are frozen in time, unable to allow themselves to love for fear that the loved one will abandon them."

"Most folks believe we are hard-wired biologically to long for sex but they do not believe that we are hard-wired to long for love. Almost everyone believes that we can have sex without love; most folks do not believe that a couple can have love in a relationship if there is no sex."

In reference to the movie "American Beauty" - "They echo the patriarchal message that if a man stops work, he loses his reason for living."

From "Love and Survival" by Dean Ornish - "I am learning that the key to our survival is love. When we love someone and feel loved by them, somehow along the way our suffering subsides, our deepest wounds begin healing, our hearts start to feel safe enough to be vulnerable and to open a little wider. We begin experiencing our own emotions and the feelings of those around us."

Old standards of male sex role versus new masculinity discussed and organized in good fashion on this site that I was able to locate with the help of the Goog.

"To heal, men must learn to feel again. They must learn to break the silence, to speak the pain. Often men, to speak the pain, first turn to the women in their lives and are refused a hearing. In many ways women have bought into the patriarchal masculine mystique. Asked to witness a male expressing feelings, to listen to those feelings and respond, they may simply turn away."

"Integrity is needed for healthy self-esteem. Most males have low self-esteem because they are constantly lying and dissimulating (taking on false appearances) in order to perform the male sexist role."

"The love women are looking for in a relationship with men is one based on mutuality in partnership. Mutuality is different from equality."

Overall a good read and it lead me to some other works by Nathaniel Brandon and Terrance Real, among others listed above...

I'm Thankful

Another Thanksgiving has come to an end and I'd like to take the time to post a quick note about some of the things that have me counting my blessings this year.

I'm thankful that I have a Mom that is my biggest fan, best friend and is there when I need advice or just a shoulder to cry on... we've been through a lot and she's my rock.

I'm thankful that decisions I've made have given me a challenging career which I enjoy very much, about 85% of the time.

I'm thankful that although I turned 37 years old this year, I am still a kid at heart, with an imagination that stirs my soul to create and express myself in any way possible.

While I'm on the subject of age, I'm thankful that I've made it through the year and I'm still working towards making sure I make it through next year.

I'm thankful to have a roof over my head and although I've struggled quite a bit this year, that things have worked out for the most part.

I'm thankful to have friends that are patient enough to show me that they care about me, listen to my rants, be there when I need them, and know how to give me space when that is what I need. I'm thankful to have made some great new friends this year and although I don't get to see a lot of my friends, I hope they know how much they mean to me.

I'm thankful to have a large extended family that supports me in my journey and I know I could turn to if I needed it. No matter where life takes me, we're blood and if you ever need me, just call.  If I don't answer, leave a message...  :)

I'm thankful that I have angels watching over me daily, guiding me in my decisions and guarding me from harm. I miss you all dearly, but I can still feel you, so I know you're with me.

I'm blessed beyond words, for the short list above and many, many other things that I have trouble expressing, today I'm reminded and reflect and give thanks.

Genetics, Attraction and Natural Selection

For those following my reading list lately you'll know that I've been on a genetics kick lately.  I've also been enjoying what I'll refer to as "The Study of Why" lately. The original questions started for me last year and each topic that I've learned more about has usually peaked my interest in another area, which leads to more reading and more questions.  I'll start by saying I should have called this post "random things I've been thinking about lately", but that did not have the same ring to it.

Last year I started investigating a few of the pickup artist titles like David DeAngelo who says that "Attraction Is Not A Choice" and that there are certain things men and women are hard-wired to react to, and if you learn these things you can tip the scales in your favor.  He's not the only one that says this, in fact most of the male focused dating books, guides, websites etc, out there say something very similar.  I will give David D some props though, because his course material really focuses on bringing all of the areas that he's studied to put backing behind his words, and he mentions them in his courses. One of his selling points is that he's done the hard work for you and read a bunch of books so that you now won't need to take the time needed to read them. Therefore you can take what he's saying for the truth, or better yet, investigate further and draw your own conclusions based on what you find. Being a curious cat... I chose the latter.

It was David D that mentioned Matt Ridley's "The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature" which turned out to be a great book!  I'm so happy that I took the time to read this book because it led me to want to learn more about genetics and led me to Bruce Lipton's "The Biology of Belief". More about this great book in a bit but first let me dart off in another direction for just a second.  It's just a quick rant, stay with me...

As I was surfing yesterday I seen an ad claiming something similar to David D's "Attraction Is Not A Choice" statement and I had to do a bit more digging to find out if they backed up their "training" with as much research as David D seems to do.  Long story short, no they didn't.

This really frustrated me because I know that there are a lot of people buying these e-books and DVD's hoping that they'll learn the "secret" to attract a woman or get a date and they're just being served up information that they could have found elsewhere if they looked and without the need to pay for it.  This, of course, had me questioning "Well, what's the big deal?  This is what everyone does to make a buck, this is what the whole commercial industry / capitalism is based on - convincing people that you have what they need and for a small price you'll give it to them."

I guess there is nothing *wrong* with this, I just think it's important to note that for any program out there in the self-help category it's very unlikely that the concepts you're paying for are new ideas.  If you take the time and do the research you'll be able to find all the same information and perhaps even more thorough information on the topic. Start at your local library...  :)

Ok - back to the program and point of this blog post.  Based on the reading I've been doing on the first topic in the post subject, Genetics, I'm finding that - yes, we are passed on traits at conception from our parents, but these traits are just that - portions of our parents genetic make up, fused together to create our own unique genetic footprint.  Genes can't think for themselves, they can't make you do things, and environmental influences like things you learn and choices you make will have a far greater impact on your physical appearance.

Sure, we may end up with "our daddy's chin" or "our mommy's eyes", but just because your father is thin, doesn't mean that you will be thin.  I don't believe that we get only the best genes from our parents, although it is fact that we get an equal part from each parent, and they got an equal part from each ot their parents. And with scientific advances through the years we can tap into our DNA to find out / prove our genealogical lines.

This leads me to believe that our genetic make up may play a role in a small portion of our physical appearance, but I don't think it will be tied at all to what we find attractive.  I'm still researching information to prove / disprove this statement.

If our genes don't hold the key to why we find some people attractive and others less attractive, what does?  Are the extrenal environmental influences the things that give us the understanding of physical beauty?  Is it those Victoria Secret and Calvin Klein ads that are influencing our determination of beauty?  Perhaps it's all the commercials that tell us that we're not perfect and need to work on ourselves to be better?  All of those external resources adjust our own body image, the picture we have in our own mind of ourselves and what we like and dislike about ourselves. If the key for understanding beauty lies in the mind, it's a learned concept, this means that it can be modified / adjusted, which makes sense.

The analysis of beauty is not something new, there are many others that have looked deeper.  Although there are some new ways that science looks at it based on what has been referred to by society as beautiful, such as facial analysis like this one.  I scored a 5.75 out of 10.  I'm looking for a good source to start researching overall beauty analysis more for myself, so if you know of any - please leave a comment and let me know.

"The Red Queen" was a great source for telling more about what men look for and what women look for in a potential mate and contrasted the human species rituals against other animals.  It really is an interesting read and I do understand there is more to attraction than just physical beauty.  Most of the pick up artist material focuses on the other things that women find attractive such as wealth, status, personality and protective qualities.

Now I find myself wondering about Natural Selection and how natural it really is...?

Natural Selection basically says that only the best genes will survive and procreate and that will evolve our species in a good way.  I don't know about this - I have to believe that there are plenty of great people out there with fantastic genes that don't procreate.  It has me wondering if procreation is the only thing that passes along your influence on this world or is it any type of creation? Beethoven didn't leave a parental legacy, although he was not the only son in his family, does this really mean that he was a victim of natural selection? Are those the type of genes that we want to weed out? I can't believe that - and that is the reason I need to learn more about natural selection.  Again - if you have any good sources, let me know. The movie "Idiocracy" has a funny look at natural selection gone bad. 

I am also researching and understanding the power of belief and how truly believing something can make it a reality, even in situations when science says that it shouldn't be real.  In "Biology of Belief" various situations are offered up as proof of this... from a simple concept to understand like firewalking, where people walk across a bed of lit coals, some of them getting burned and some not.  Those that believed that they would be ok and not be burned, come through unscathed, even though science says that this should not be possible.  Another more complex example might be found in the use of sugar pills to treat a variety of illnesses which worked just as the regular medicine did when the patient was lead to believe that they were ingesting the medicine needed and that it would work.  A third more powerful example may be the scenario where three patients who believe that they need knee surgery, have a procedure done, but one of them is just opened up and no actual corrective surgery action were performed.  All three patients recovered in similar manners.  The one that had no real surgical work done walked with a cane before the surgery and went back to performing normal life activities including physical activities they enjoyed before the injury.  Can the mind and ones beliefs be this powerful?  Yes - I'm believing they can. In fact, many, many books I've read this year include the concept that truly believing something is the first step to achieving it.  The trick is that you can't fool your subconscious... so we may need to start there if we want to truly believe. I'm completely fascinated by this area of science and as of late (2000 and later) there have been some great advancements to prove theories and I will be digging deeper into this in the future.

Let me try to tie what I've rambled about above together in some way.  At this point, I believe that genes may control some aspect of our physical appearance, but I'm not clear on how much versus how much is controlled by external sources as we live our life.  Physical appearance is one of many things that may attract someone to someone else, but what is beautiful and how much do social pressures play into our decisions on who we end up as a potential mate?  Lastly, if there are good genes out there from good people that don't pass them along, is that truly due to natural selection?  Is natural selection truly based on the best/strongest survive or do the folks that survive evolve not only through genetics but through what has been left behind by all of humanity?

I know, I know ... I'm a wild man...but lately, these are the things that have been on my mind.  I'd love to hear your thoughts.  Leave a comment, recommend a book or video... or just tell me to "simma down na!"

Lost In The Books... But Really Feeling Enlightened

I have been reading a lot lately!  No really... I read when I first wake up in the morning, read while eating my lunch at work and read when I get home from work, right up until I go to sleep at night.  What has been keeping my attention you ask?

The first of the books is "The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature" by Matt Ridley.  This book was suggested by a friend and he had said that it would "blow my mind" and it basically has...  it's quite an interesting read and really sets out to answer the question "Why Sex?". Why is that the method that we use and why do we partake in this as a pastime more than mainly to procreate?  It's a really interesting book and it pulls from a ton of different research done by various scientists across all species in an effort to understand more about why we do what we do...
 

In the first part of the book he talks about genes and that the primary goal of the two sexes are to exploit each other to procreate.  He calls out studies that show that it's about gene survival and passing on to future generations.  He notes that sex is just our way of gene blending.  Each of our cells is made up of 150,000 genes (pairs of 75,000) spelled out on 23 ribbons of chromosomes.  At the point of conception, a man can choose to take all 75,000 from our mother or 75,000 from our father to pass along, but usually it's a mixture of the two and each sperm will contain that 75,000 genes to be passed along. The woman's egg will also contain 75,000 genes made up from what her parents passed on to her.  The two will come together to make a full 150,000 (pairs of 75,000).  Meaning that we have an equal amount of our parents genes and their parents genes that have been passed along to us.  There are many other things that will happen along the way, but it goes far too deep into what I want to get into here.  The interesting point to me was genetic make up of our cells, and how this may affect the characteristics that evolve through us as we grow. 

Enter the next book, "The Biology of Belief" where Bruce Lipton puts out the idea that cells and outer influences on them, including our positive or negative feelings can change the way they evolve and well... you've got yourself a couple of very interesting reads and a bunch of questions to research deeper to understand more about the inner workings of the human body, mind and spirit!

So these books and several others have been keeping my attention and have left me scratching my head a bit as well.  Both give some interesting insight on "love" that I'll have to follow up on, research and post my thoughts on as a follow up post to my "Is Love Real?" post.

I've been wishing that I had more time to post about some of the creative aspects of what's been going on in my life, but for now reading is taking up the majority of my time outside of work.  I'm ok with this though, as I feel like I've been learning so much about how people "work".  It's been great!

I've also picked up a couple books suggested by our CEO as good reads and I'm making my way through "The World Is Flat", but I must admit, reading this 3 years after it was written / updated is kind of like trying to teach someone how to draw after they graduated with their Masters in Art.   :)

On with the learning... bring on the books!

Leveraging Your Dreams For Creative Inspiration

This year I've read a couple books that talk about dreams and the unconscious mind.  The first I read was "The Undiscovered Self" by Carl Jung.  In the book it mentions that Jung was a follower, believer of Sigmund Freud's studies around the unconscious and that early on they were friends.  Apparently Sigmund didn't take too kindly to those to studied his work closely and then started to have their own opinions that may vary or move in a different direction than his original ideas.  Jung and Freud parted ways around 1912. The Jung book peaked an interest in me to find out more about Freud and his ideas.  What I found was a man that wasn't afraid to dive inwards and analyze himself to the fullest extent possible so that human kind might understand and benefit from the information shared. I'm finding that much of the information that he shared has either been built upon and understood more fully or cast as having flaws and pushed aside.

One of the areas that I found very interesting is that Freud would analyze his own dreams.

From Wikipedia: "Freud called dreams the "royal road to the unconscious". This meant that dreams illustrate the "logic" of the unconscious mind. Freud developed his first topology of the psyche in The Interpretation of Dreams (1899) in which he proposed that the unconscious exists and described a method for gaining access to it. The preconscious was described as a layer between conscious and unconscious thought; its contents could be accessed with a little effort."

I've been using a method to capture my dream content over the past several months.  If I have a vivid dream and I awake, I instantly reach for the computer / my handheld phone and type as much about the dream and the surrounding as I possibly can remember.  The more detail the better as when I read it the next time, I'll be able to get myself back to that dream and the memories in it, while I'm in my conscious state.  I can replay the dream and either analyze it, or just use the content for inspirational purposes.

One dream that I had back in April is the inspiration for a new fiction novel I am writing called "Hurt".

I've also written several songs with lyrics based on the content of my captured dreams.

In years past, I would have a dream, awake and then fall right back to sleep and when I tried to remember the content in the morning it was near impossible.  I've had much better results with the method I am now using and I am finding much more inspiration from the content than I ever thought that I would.

If you want to give this a try, put a pad of paper and a pencil or pen by your bed this evening.  When you awake through the night, jot down ideas that are in your head.  Just let your mind go free, don't censor the ideas, just write... most times I have trouble keeping up with my thoughts and getting all of them down on paper, but do the best you can... and then fall back asleep not even thinking about what you wrote.  The next morning, read over what you wrote, but don't judge or look for deeper meaning, there is plenty of time for that later.

I try to come back to my night writings three to seven days after and look at them in a more critical and constructive way.  What was going on at the time of the dream?  Was I under stress?  Was I in a positive or negative mood?  This is usually the time I'll look for a story in the night writings and I'll look for how to use my conscious imagination to fill in the blanks and come up with something to create or put into action.

I've learned much more about myself since I've been capturing these dreams.  Maybe you'll learn something about yourself that you didn't know.

Until next time, sweet dreams.  :)

Mid Year Check In - 2010 - Part Two

Hello again, Hello!

In the first part of this post I spoke of my photography goals for the year.  Now it's time to take on the larger life goals that I set for myself on February 1st and see how I've done.

1. No more fast food.  Since January first I have not had any fast food.  To tell you the truth, I don't really miss it. Well I have had some fast food since February, but I can honestly say that I can count the times on one hand.  I'm still going very strong on this one and I think it's helped greatly with my weight loss that I've seen through the year.
2. Workout every weekday before work.  In January I managed to do this and work up from a thirty minute workout each weekday to my current workout which is one hour.  Although I haven't lost any weight, I'm ok with it, as the goal that I made was to get up and workout every weekday morning in January and I did it!  This will continue into February. Although this did continue through February, in March some things happened that really de-railed this goal.  I have since adjusted my thinking and my overall weight loss goals to be more in-line with a life change instead of working out everyday and burning myself out.  I am still working out regularly, so I think I'm doing just fine on this goal and I'm on track to lose 75 lbs by the end of the year.
3. Dive back into the technical side of things on the web world and re-learn Flash and Flex.  I've done a great deal and even completed my first freelance job in January.  I'm back folks. I was back - and now I have some ideas, but I haven't executed them.  Fail.
4. Post a blog entry per day every day of 2010.  If you've been following, then you know I've managed to do this through January as well! This is another fail, but I feel that I've been doing a much better job and I think the real goal of this should be to keep posting as it will help me improve my writing skills and since I enjoy it, there is no reason to stop, right?
5. Begin immersing myself into technology and business by reading more and listening to podcasts instead of music on the way to work.  Done. And Done - I still do this and have found that this has been a great source of ideas and inspiration both physical and mental.
6. Start to take my photography hobby a bit more seriously and learn more about the art and what makes a good picture.  I'm well on my way for this one, I do have lots to learn though, but I think it will be great.  If you've seen my Photography Goals for 2010 then you know just how much work I have ahead of me. I'm working on this one and the goals I've set forth for myself.
7. Cut down on going to the bar.  I've cut this back quite a bit and what I've found is that I like being at my house and feeling productive.  Go figure. I quit drinking for good as of March 16th.  I've learned from experience and from reading that this type of habit will lead to nothing good, in fact it actually helped put me in some situations that I would have not rather experienced.
8. Re-learn French.  I'm proud to say that with the help of Rosetta Stone, January has seen me make it through the first Unit of French.  There are four units per level and I plan to make it through a unit per month.  There are five levels total. As of March I stopped taking the French course, I will promise myself to begin this again before the end of August and complete the first level before the end of the year.
9. Take a moment or two to do a mental health check on myself.  Work on building self-esteem and self-confidence.  Courses like "The Psychology Of Achievement" and a couple from David DeAngelo have been helping out on that front.  I'll look to continue with these classes in February. This is an area that I've really dove into head first.  (no pun intended) and I've started studying the mind and why people do the things they do, what motivates us and how to be more socially confident. 
10. Launch a local user group.  I have been given the ok from Adobe to try to launch the Chelsea Adobe User Group. I look forward to this challenge and I'll that I'll learn by doing it. Still on the list, and I'm working on it.

 So out of the ten goals - I'm doing six well.  I think that's pretty good.  I'll keep working on the others and set some new goals to shoot for before the end of the year.  These will focus around my career and relationships.

Let the fun begin and Happy Birthday to me!

The Next Level - Personal Transformation Program

I'm at the beginning of a transformation, both mental and physical.

This has been a natural evolution for me in dealing with and understanding some things that have happened over the past couple years.

It's been a good experience so far and I'm working on documenting my milestones and what I'm learning as I reach each goal. I want to track my experiences and develop a program so that others may use the same methods to reach their goals. The reason I'm doing this is that I think that others may be able to benefit from what I'm now learning and wish that I had learned many years ago.

I'm using levels to track my progress and looking back on what I've learned from the previous level as I move to the next level.  I'll also plan out my own goals in each new level and review at the end to make sure that I've grown in some way. My motivation for using levels is because it is something I can easily relate to as a former video game addict. Goals are also easier to obtain when all requirements to move to the next level have been laid out in front of someone.  This is a similar method to earning belts in martial arts, except there won't be an exam at the end of each level.  Or maybe there should be?  :)

The program is still in development as I move through the levels myself, but here are some details that I've come up with so far.

There are four areas of focus in each level. As you progress through the levels you have lessons and things to put into practice in the four areas before you can move on to the next level. There is also a weight goal for each level.

The four areas are;

1. Diet and Eating Well
2. Mental and Emotional Growth
3. Physical Attraction and Outer Appearance
4. Activity and Exercise

There are ten levels total in the program.  The weight goal is based upon your personal long term goal.

This is not a program that will take months to complete, it's a life altering, pattern changing, growth program to help a person feel more overall satisfaction with life.

I believe that this program will work best for someone that is similar to me. Someone who has a lot of weight to lose, perhaps has a negative self concept, low confidence, is shy and hasn't mastered social interactions.

I'm pretty excited about this and will post more as I start to develop the program.  If you're wondering what level I'm currently on - I'm on Level 2 and I fully expect to be on Level 3 by the end of August.

If you have questions or feedback, feel free to email me or leave a comment.