Reap what we sow...

I have this colleague I work with...who is the strangest hypocrit I've ever met, among the teaching profession, at least...

He's a friend...so I say this as a friend who just doesn't have the freedom to have this conversation with him, personally, given the limitation of me wanting to not piss off this colleague and lose my job over something so stupid as why he has such bizarre attitudes towards sexuality:):):)...

He's someone that we're always running subtle interference for because he's always saying offensive sexual shit without really being very sensitive to the people around him or their reactions...

I love offensive shit, personally...generally when it is in jest...

But not only does this guy just not pay enough attention to whom he is offending...but the places where he does offend me, at least -- and I'm pretty hard to offend...though...I want people to feel free to speak freely around me, without regard to what I might get my panties in a twist in the moment about or not -- are generally out of moral self-righteousness that just doesn't square, at all, with his behavior otherwise...

He said, today, that part of the reason he quit the Orthodox seminary -- which is where he first studied -- was because he wasn't ready for ordination of women and homosexuals...

And this coming from a guy who makes sexual and often not very funny sexual humor all the time in a profession dominated by, luckily for him, some very easy-going women...

It's funny...because this guy is almost a case-study in sexual repression...

Meaning...that he often obsesses about sexuality in conversations where it doesn't seem like the most appropriate place or time to be having such lewd conversations...and then gets upset, simultaneously, about the very open sexual attitudes that allow someone like him to speak so freely about sex...

Strange, huh?...

I see this all the time...

People have strong sexual feelings and reactions to sexuality that they don't know what to do with...and that luckily they feel free, at least, to talk about them in a way that doesn't leave them and the guilt and shame they often feel about them all bottled up inside of them...

And they, simultaneously, fully embrace the very sexual mores that keep such obsessions, and the most unhealthy versions of them in the form of sex crimes and other sexual violence, in place...

Our freer and more open attitudes around sexuality are clearly more healthy than in periods of humanity when we've had less free and open attitudes...and less sexual repression, paradoxically, leads to healthier attitudes around sexuality...because their expression gives people better opportunities to make better choices around sexuality...

So why people with less healthy sexual attitudes would want to simultaneously impose their less healthy attitudes towards sex on everyone else AND take advantage of the freedom that, luckily for them and all of us, allow for healthier forms of sexual expressions and fewer forms of unhealthy, dangerous, and often violent forms of sexual expression, I will never know...

And it just reinforced for me...that when our mean, nasty, vindictive, repressive impulses reap what they sow...the meaner, nastier, more vindictive, and more repressive we are...the worse a world we create out of our ugliness...meaning more sexual violence and unhealthy sexual activity...

Individually...as much as for all of us...

And the more healthy and open our attitudes are...and more responsible freedom we exercise around sexuality and life, generally...

The better world we get...

The question, really, is which one of those impulses are we going to choose...

And in the meantime...

Why in the world does the larger world take more seriously the very kind of fucked up views of my colleague?...

And not take more seriously the more intelligent, decent, and healthy views of sexual therapists and other thinking people whose sexuality is not wrapped in the shame and guilt that is the legacy of our past failures to deal with sexuality more healthily and effectively?...

Because the truth is...that no matter how much people like my colleage might be defensive otherwise (and to his credit...he did say that he was not quite ready...not that he was staunchly opposed)...

The world has been a major fuckin' mess when it comes to sexuality for much of its history...and it's only been with the advent of modernity and more sexual freedom and openness that we've gotten healthier and more honest about the lies and terrible consequences of repression, generally, and more repressed sexual attitudes, specifically...

And make no mistake about it...men deciding if they are going to let women and homosexuals be ordained in the Church --has everything to do with sexuality...and its repression...and men who don't know how to handle all those bottled up sexual feelings they have...

It's a sad legacy, that's for sure...

But more sad is the shame and guilt and repression and denial and the unwillingness to face reality that both maintain it...and that is imposed on the rest of us, so the scared, small, and mean among us don't have to face the boogeymen in their closets, so to speak...

In the meantime...it makes me so sad to think about all the people who get hurt -- so many people -- and who live such unnecessarily unhappy and tragic lives...

All because we just can't see reality on this one, so lost are so many of us in our fears and cynicism about the very human nature that we're responsible for maintaining with that same cynicism and the repression that is the outgrowth of that cynicism...

The only way out is more freedom, more responsibility, more openness, more decency, more humanity, more compassion, and more forgiveness...

Which is the most serious and important way to mark humanity's progress and growth, anyway...

But the consequences of that kind of growth...would, above all, involve more people making better choices...fewer people hurt, around matters of sexuality and violence, more honesty and openness, less shame, and a more responsible and enjoyable sexuality for everyone...

I don't know...

It seems so strange and dysfunctional to me...that my colleague's attitudes are so prevalent...and that more healthy attitudes are treated as so alien by so many people in the world...

I don't know why we keep fucking this one, up...except that this kind of hypocrisy and repression and unhealthy thinking doesn't feel a responsibility to challenge itself until it is challenged...

And challenged it will be in a society that takes seriously the very kind of freedom and openness and decency that bring more light and less heat to such difficult issues...

Love,
Ben

Our insanity around children...

It's the end of the semester...and the insanity has set in, I think...

For the kids...and for the adults...

Here's how the insanity works...

Adults want the best for kids...they don't want them to make mistakes...and they don't want them to fail...

Both of which are necessary -- necessary...meaning not an option -- for learning...

Adults oscilate between two extremes, persistently...

On the one hand...holding them responsible for mistakes...and treating them -- and everyone, really -- harshly...

Which generally just gets peoples' hackles and defenses up and generally -- meaning as a rule rather than as an exception -- is counterproductive...

Or on the other hand...finding excuses for their behavior...to get them out of harsh consequences...

Rather than just letting kids deal with the natural consequences of their behavior...and treating them decently and real -- meaning, if you're angry, let them know that you're angry...and develop perspective about life and the things that make you and all of us angry, in the meantime -- and as kind as possible...

Adults constantly want to protect kids...and then to bring down the hammer harshly when they don't want to protect kids...

Rather than just chilling out, some...and learning to let kids deal with the natural consequences of their behavior -- like grades...as a reflection of what has been learned or not been learned -- rather than adult consequences, except to deal with immediate situations in a temporary way that can never replace the learning, no matter how much we might wish otherwise:):):)...

But instead...so many adults...teachers...parents...counselors...etc...

Want to protect children and young people from the natural consequences of behavior, on the one hand...

AND...want to impose unnecessarily harsh consequences, on the other hand, no matter how counterproductive they might be...

And I just feel constantly caught in between these various and often random and wildly oscilating moods of protecting kids and kicking the shit out of them...

And many times, I'm just like...

Can't we just think about this more...and develop better understandings of why we engage in this insanity...the range of our own moods...and just let kids deal with life and all of its more natural consequences without always trying to protect them or knock them down?...

Enabling isn't caused by being too nice...

Enabling caused by not deal constructively with problems...meaning not confronting problems in a way that will deal with them effectively...

And the most important problem that most adults who are responsible for young people need to have confronted is their tendency to try to control them and their choices, too much, in ways that just stunt their growth and maturity, rather than promoting it...

One of the best things my dad did for me as a kid was give me plenty of freedom...and to not always have my every move controlled by him...as a teenager I had far more freedom than most of my friends, largely because I had earned it, obviously...and many kids have not earned it...but we can presume trust until they violate it, and then give it back once it's been earned again...

But so much of the insanity of schools and child-rearing, generally, is both trusting kids, not at all...and then wanting them off the hook all the time because we didn't do the hard work...of teaching them...and modeling for them...how to be more trustworthy people...and how to deal with the natural consequences of being a less trustworthy person...

And much of this has to do with the fact that many people...and the people who demand the most, in particular...don't work nearly hard enough at being trustworthy models for our children, ourselves...and are not nearly trustworthy, ourselves, in our judgments about such matters...because the children who make the most excuses about their lives...generally come from families with adults who make the same excuses for themselves...

And in the big picture...

That means all of us...

Because we're all fucking it up...whether we want to face our failure around this one or not...

I had 2 spoiled brats, today, who goof off all the time when we work together...who do very little work, at all, on their own...and who are constantly complaining and demanding the energies of others...

Who really need to eat some low grades, right now, to get the message that they must earn their way through life...and that they can't and shouldn't be able to demand their way through a life that they work to little at earning their way through...

And who have parents...who simultaneously sit on top of their children, clearly counterproductively if you'd just look at the results of their efforts, in the maturity, or rather lack of it, in their children...

And..at the same time...demanding that teachers make all their failures as parents go away...

Without ever having to lift a finger...

To take responsibility...

For what shitty-ass parents they've been to their spoiled little brats...

I love these kids...I care about them...

And I care about them enough to be honest about what a total disservice this way of raising children is for them...what a disservice it is for the kids and their parents, much more than the teachers involved -- though we certainly have a powerful responsibility on our shoulders, as well -- not to have to face their failures...

Parents who kick the proverbial shit out of kids have consequences to face around that stupid, foolish way of raising children in the form of their kids' behavior, down the road...

And I have no interest in letting those kids' off the hook for their failure to take learning and earning their way through school and life seriously...

And I think perhaps the parents need a reality check, too, that fucking up with your kids for years and then expecting schools to make it all go away, overnight, is not only foolish and impossible...it's obnoxious...and it's that very attitude why those folks' children are such shitty students...and until that attitude is given up...they'll never succeed...no matter what we call the grade we give them...

I'm smarter and more responsible than most people my age or any age, really...because I had a dad who often succeeded despite himself, much of the time...to give me the freedom...to choose being smart and responsible...of my own accord...which is the only way that such qualities and any important qualities in life can be internalized for a lifetime...

Free will isn't just some luxury...or some fantastic notion...as a matter of practicality...it is the only way that people become better or worse kinds of people...

And if people think they can force kids to do what only free will and learning can do...

Then they will deal with the consequences of that foolish choice for as long as they maintain such foolishness:):):)...

I've got to get something to eat...I'm famished:):)...

Love,
Ben