Definition @ MindSay 
love
Here's my next question/issue: One of the previous respondees (anonymous) expressed a viewpoint that gives me enormous concern. She said she would rather be in a bad relationship, one she knew was unhealthy and/or temporary, than be alone. Is this a popular stance?
I saw this when I taught high school. I see it on TV ... We live in a society that pressures people to connect NOW. By that I mean, quickly. The "instant" society seems to expect relationships to be a commodity that can be established, spent or traded in an evening. Many of these are then, by simple definition, shallow and unsatisfying because there is no real foundation. When this transfers over to a relationship with sex (which in my opinion is still designed and intended for only the most intimate of relationships by commitment), it devalues both the relationship AND the sex making it less fulfilling and virtually meaningless ... but NOT without strings. Like it or not, there are ALWAYS strings. Some strings may be more manageable than others, but ... they're still strings. Ask our newly resigned Governor. So, we're settling for a less satisfying, less fulfilling relationship for the same "price" ... a bad value!
So ... WHY are we afraid to be alone? For the first year or two after my divorce, I was terrified that I would spend the rest of my life ... alone. As a result, I dated just about any THING! A free lunch or dinner is a free lunch or dinner, and I can talk to anyone that long. :) But after a year or so, the urgency began to wear off, and I began in earnest to seek a potential mate. Some of you may remember when I first appeared at mindsay as seeresvelvet. This was a man I "connected" with online ... in my desperation. The irony to my mind in this was that he may have "played me," but he also spent HOURS and HOURS and ... HOURS talking to me online and on the phone from Australia. But I learned a great deal from that escapade ... about myself and my desperation. It made me ill! I was afraid to be alone. WHY? Because to some extent, alone says "failure" ... "unattractive" ... "loser" ... etc.
At this point in my life, I'm not sure I would "hook up" with a guy if one was still available! lol I have grown over these past few years to really enjoy who I am (I have re-discovered the girl I was at 26.) and I enjoy my own company. I have friends to go shopping with or to a movie etc, and am only sorry it took me this long to get back here. I don't know WHY I got lost in my marriage, but I did. It became an unhealthy animal almost immediately and literally sucked the life out of me for nearly 20 years. So I'm here to say ... PLEASE ladies & gents, do not settle for a relationship that is not mutually loving, honest, respectful, faithful, FUN, challenging, motivating, inspirational, supportive, freeing, commited & satisfying. Less is NOT better than none! Alone is where we find our self, and only after we discover that can we really love another. After all, ya gotta have something to give, right?
Thank you to those of you who responded to my ... "Outrageous Question" the other day. I was looking for more reply, but at the same time ... I do realize it is a personal issue and perhaps some were/ are afraid of personal attack ... ? That's not my style.
I am a mother to 3 kids who are searching for their identities ... as we all do in early adulthood. They each have their own struggles as we all do, but I think what I was/ am hoping for is more input about when and how the decision is made to engage in sex with a partner.
Some of you may have seen the episode of "Law and Order" that involced a 14 yr old boy accused of raping 3 or 4 students between the ages of 9 - 11. He was an only child to a single dad, left alone more than perhaps he ought to have been, with access to the internet and TV porn. He formulated a notion that sex = power, and with no alternative viewpoint and no one to tell him otherwise, he set out to ... acquire power!
The episode also, in my understanding, put a great deal of the responsibility on the shoulders of the various media who make this stuff readily available. My kids were raised being taught that sex was something very special and ultimately intimate to be shared only with one person to whom you have committed your future life in marraige. From very early ages they were taught this, but still the bombardment of OTHER voices, OTHER moralities or lack thereof influence their lives more than I would like. (Yup, mom speaking here!)
So ... is sex a sport? Is there such a thing as "casual sex" with no strings? Is there still a double standard, i.e male conquests are HOT while females who sleep with many successive partners are sluts? When & how do you decide YES or NO? Do you have boundaries? If so, where do they come from?
(Please help out a mom, here ... )
~ B
The fully-functioning person as defined by Carl Rogers.
Rogers, like Maslow, is just as interested in describing the healthy person. His term is "fully-functioning," and involves the following qualities:
- Openness to experience. This is the opposite of defensiveness. It is the accurate perception of one's experiences in the world, including one's feelings. It also means being able to accept reality, again including one's feelings. Feelings are such an important part of openness because they convey organismic valuing. If you cannot be open to your feelings, you cannot be open to acualization. The hard part, of course, is distinguishing real feelings from the anxieties brought on by conditions of worth.
- Existential living. This is living in the here-and-now. Rogers, as a part of getting in touch with reality, insists that we not live in the past or the future -- the one is gone, and the other isn't anything at all, yet! The present is the only reality we have. Mind you, that doesn't mean we shouldn't remember and learn from our past. Neither does it mean we shouldn't plan or even day-dream about the future. Just recognize these things for what they are: memories and dreams, which we are experiencing here in the present.
- Organismic trusting. We should allow ourselves to be guided by the organismic valuing process. We should trust ourselves, do what feels right, what comes natural. This, as I'm sure you realize, has become a major sticking point in Rogers' theory. People say, sure, do what comes natural -- if you are a sadist, hurt people; if you are a masochist, hurt yourself; if the drugs or alcohol make you happy, go for it; if you are depressed, kill yourself.... This certainly doesn't sound like great advice. In fact, many of the excesses of the sixties and seventies were blamed on this attitude. But keep in mind that Rogers meant trust your real self, and you can only know what your real self has to say if you are open to experience and living existentially! In other words, organismic trusting assumes you are in contact with the acutalizing tendency.
- Experiential freedom. Rogers felt that it was irrelevant whether or not people really had free will. We feel very much as if we do. This is not to say, of course, that we are free to do anything at all: We are surrounded by a deterministic universe, so that, flap my arms as much as I like, I will not fly like Superman. It means that we feel free when choices are available to us. Rogers says that the fully-functioning person acknowledges that feeling of freedom, and takes responsibility for his choices.
- Creativity. If you feel free and responsible, you will act accordingly, and participate in the world. A fully-functioning person, in touch with acualization, will feel obliged by their nature to contribute to the actualization of others, even life itself. This can be through creativity in the arts or sciences, through social concern and parental love, or simply by doing one's best at one's job. Creativity as Rogers uses it is very close to Erikson's generativity.
For more information on Carl Rogers' theory, click HERE!
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
I find these concepts pretty interesting. The only one I have issues with is #3. While I believe humans contain the potential for good and evil, I think we are more prone to evil i.e selfish and self-serving behavior unless powerfully motivated to "rise above" those base tendencies.
What rings true to you? What do you take issue with?
~ B
< DaimyoTHMannIII > orgulloso
< the0zee > ....lol
< the0zee > Humility?
< DaimyoTHMannIII > that's the antonym
< the0zee > gay
< the0zee > Narcissism? lol jk
< DaimyoTHMannIII > hubris
< DaimyoTHMannIII > but that's more of a negative sentiment
< the0zee > I thought so
< DaimyoTHMannIII > are you looking for self esteem or arrogance
< the0zee > I am looking for like self-acploshiment
< the0zee > that is totally spelled wrong lol
< the0zee > but that word will work nvm lol
< DaimyoTHMannIII > but I read it correctly
< the0zee > amazingly enough
< the0zee > that was a pretty bad typo
< DaimyoTHMannIII > acploshiment is what happens in the climax of bukake
< the0zee > LMFAO
< the0zee > omfg
< the0zee > you have me dieing lol
< DaimyoTHMannIII > it's a good onomotopoea
< the0zee > yeah, telling me
DVD forum approves 51GB HD DVD
We haven't yet seen any official confirmation of the news, but it's been reported that the 51GB triple-layer single-sided HD DVD Toshiba first announced at CES has been approved by the DVD Forum. (The last we heard about this, the new format had been submitted for approval.) Of course, this might mean consumers will need new players to read 51GB HD DVDs, which could potentially damage the format more than help it; the last thing either HD DVD or Blu-ray need right now is to fork hardware compatibility with their own embattled formats, so we'll hope what we've heard about 2nd and 3rd gen HD DVD players being able to read 51GB discs via firmware upgrade is true. Also up to bat: the "twin" dual-layer DVD / HD DVD combo-disc was also approved, with one 5GB DVD layer and two 17GB HD DVD layers. We'll let you know when the DVD forum officially confirms (or denies) the news.
China announced high definition DVD standard
As if two different DVD standards weren't enough for the world, China has gone ahead and said "actually, it is, at least for the western portion of it." The Optical Memory National Engineering Research Center has announced CH-DVD, a high definition DVD standard based on the DVD Forum's HD DVD, but with additional Chinese-owned technology tacked on. This additional technology takes the form of advanced copy protection designed to prevent the spread of pirated content. A new foundation called the China High Definition DVD Industry Association will be promoting the format, with the aim of launching a hardware player in 2008, and getting content producers on board before that.
Via(www.engadget.com)
Showing 1 - 5. [ Next ]