Their Words, Not Mine

I am not a connoisseur of art. I would not know what good art is, even if it bit me in the ass.

However, there is an artist out there whose art I love. Her online name is loish and I found her art through DeviantArt. (Put away the dirty thoughts.) Her pictures make me jealous of her skills, but the way she uses color and the textures that she implements in her pictures is amazing to me. Her skill shows brilliantly in the grunge pieces she makes, especially "Entertainment System". I cannot help but stare at the piece. I've commented on the piece before but I will say it again: I neither hate nor love "Entertainment System", but it does enthrall me. I rarely see it and I have to admit it is not spectacular or mind blowing to most anyone. For me, personally, I must drink in the sight and look at every line, every color, and futilely dive into the "painting". Just thinking about the piece is making me relive the first unclarified emotions and sensations I had at first glance.

Now I'm tearing up. Artists seem to have that power.

--HardWearJunkie

Define Love Before Someone Gets Hurt

The most cited reason for divorce is that your spouse cheated on you. He (or She) went and dated/kissed/slept with a person other than yourself.

I can understand that these activities are normally reserved for the person one commits to when they say "I Do". Whenever those vows are said I don't hear "And to have sex with only this person."

Why do we "believe" that sex should only be done with one person? Why should the act of sex be exclusive between two people? The reasons for having sex is biological: either you're trying to have a baby or you're trying to relieve the urges of trying to have a baby. I can't say anything for the women but men have those urges, just in a different way (BONERS!).

But back to my point. Divorce on the grounds of extramarital relations does not hold water. This way of thinking assumes that a couple got married just for the sex. And I don't believe that is the reason to spend ten thousand dollars on a ceremony, reception, and a cake of the wrong flavor.

A good reason to get divorced is that there is no love in the relationship. They can care for one another but that connection between the two that happened at the ceremony is no longer there however much time has passed. This comes down to the True Love theory that everyone would like to believe in. We profess in Love. We argue for Love. We say that we want Love.

What we do not do is Love. We. Do. Not. Love.

Love is a choice. No one can coerce you to love another person. You can say you do, but until you choose to Love, there will be no Love from you. There is no such thing as Love at First Sight. There is the choice to Love. You must give it freely or you're just lying to everyone, including yourself.

There are two implications with this way of Love. (1)Love is your responsibility, thus you must take care with Love. (2) Love is not a stimulus.

With (1) everyone who says they are in Love are not taking the weight and gravity of giving of one's self to another. There are no easy ways to Love, there is only one way: to give of yourself to another. No amount of flowers or chocolate or gifts are going to get you Love. They may get you attention but they do not get you Love.

With (2) we now get into the main problem with society's view of Love. Sex is a stimulus. It is a biological tool of nature and we must recognize it as such. Love is a choice, a product of humankind's social consciousness. Sex and Love are not the same. The two cannot be equated.

Sex and Love are highly personal, BUT THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. People all over the world have Sex and not love the other person. A marriage full of Love can have little to no sex from month to month (or week to week, depending on stamina). So to cite infidelity for grounds of divorce should be the incorrect argument. A more accurate argument should be a failure in trust. It seems a typical "cheating" spouse will hide the affair from their wife/husband. The sexual act should not be alarming; what should be alarming is how long the offended spouse was made unaware. This is a better reason for divorce because the "cheating" spouse could not trust his/her partner to act rationally to the infidelity. Without trust there is no relationship and no longer a marriage.

However, the "victim" spouse can choose to stay with her/his partner IF both recognize that there is still Love in the relationship. They must work on their trust issues, figure out where the trouble spots are, and see if they still Love each other after all that has happened.

We are so used to using divorce as the escape clause in a relationship that we don't work to recognize just how much Love there is.

--HardWearJunkie

What We Deserve

For the most part each person wants more. More stuff. More options. More food. More money. More of MORE.

America has had this sense of more ever since the 1950's when our industrial companies were pushed into overdrive to create more stuff. Mostly from oil, but still more stuff. We explored into the (short) reaches of space. We built more buildings than we ever needed. We filled in a lot of the areas usually called wilderness. (Now we call them "urban sprawl".) We now produce more food than we can adequately eat, though many citizens are trying to disprove that.

And yet we seem to have lost a sense of self, that inner emotion that swells one's self with elation. Maybe somewhere in our thoughts we think, or know, that we are not what we want to be. To partly explain what I mean, lets take reality shows as an example. On one end we watch rich people party, do their make-up, argue passionately, argue angrily, and get into fights over the most little things. With consumerism there is a sense that having money is supposed to elevate you above the problems that plague you. Now we are shown that those problems will never leave you, that money will only change you into something worse.

Then the other end shows people without much money doing crazy stunts, pranks, and other activities some would call infantile. These reality shows are driving home the point that the lives of the underprivileged are too slow or not satisfying enough, that crazy stunts are the only solution to their lives.

Note this is what I'm getting from these shows. But here is what I want to ask from this activity: where is the good from being underprivileged or from being wealthy? I'm not sure I'm seeing the "poor" being portrayed well or accurately. And I'm sure there are wealthy people out there who are working hard and using their free time for more austere activities.

Where are our hopes and dreams in these shows? Where are those poor who think about getting themselves out of the poverty they are in? Where are the rich who think about the country's future and not just about their bottom line? Where are the shows that focus on these people who actually think about the future?

Where are they? These people might be drowned out by the media blitz that reality TV drowns out daily. There might actually be shows about how to change the future for everyone but I have yet to see a commercial for this type of show.

I want every American to feel that the future is going to be awesome, but we as a society have to stop looking at each other's faults and look to the good in every single person.

Having Something to Say

It has been months since I added an article to this site. I am sure no one follows this, but I accept that. What I should not accept is the non-commitment to the site. Although I have been active, I have not been faithful. For that I regret not keeping to this journal.

Thus I will commit one writing session a week to this journal. This is not to keep up appearances but to say that I am writing and that I have an obligation to something. For the next year I will post once a week at the least. And each post will go up the next morning at 6 AM.

There it is. And here I begin with this post.

--HardWearJunkie