Patriarchy and Toxic  Masculinity

Patriarchy and Toxic  Masculinity

Men are living through a turbulent, troubling period of time.  Their own masculinity has been called into question.  There are Fox News hosts who claim that the awakening elements of our culture are emasculating innocent men.  The truth is that men are struggling.

• Some have lost their careers, and could not recover from that loss.
• Some had no meaning in their lives, and could not recover from that.
• Some were addicted to drugs and/or alcohol, and could not recover from that.
• Some were sexually or physically abused in their youth, and could not recover from that.
• Some were addicted to the idea that their only function was to provide for their wives or family, and, having achieved success or failure, they could not recover from that.
• Some were traumatized war veterans who suffered immensely, and could not recover from that.
• Some were just waiting for a better day, and when it never appeared, they could not recover from that.
• Some were lonely and depressed, and they could not recover from that.
• Some had profound mental illness, and they could not recover from that.
• Some had a profound need to speak up around their own pain, and when they could not find a loving ear with the capacity to listen, they could not recover from that.

The effects of patriarchy and toxic masculinity, and their ugly spawn, toxic religion, toxic politics, and toxic capitalism, are the continued repression of human emotion, the feminine, and the sublime possibilities for existence. Over many centuries, men have built mutual oppression right into the very fabric of our cultural existence. Toxic masculinity values and principles underpin much of the Common Knowledge Game (CKG), which is the modern name for the phenomenon of socialized understanding of self and the other.  The following are guiding energies that tend to shape men’s thoughts and actions created through the CKG of understanding in today’s America.

1. Unconscious, harsh and inaccurate self and other judgement, with resultant poor self-esteem inculcated into boys from birth by our wayward fathers, religions, and cultures.
2. Remaining ignorant or fearful of our own feelings, including anger and grief, or expressing them unskillfully, We have been trained to ignore or to hide from our own feelings
3. Letting stress go on unabated in our lives, without challenging its points of origin
4. Loss of emotional and physical safety in home, school or work environments
5. Not communicating honestly with others, while carrying the painful feeling of not being heard or appreciated,
6. Eschewing deep and meaningful relationships with others,
7. Excessive competitiveness with others while engaging with greed, trying to “keep up with the Jones’ “,
8. Attempting to prove self-worth in environments where self, and others’, worth is disrespected, thus trying to fit in where we really don’t belong,
9. People pleasing, at the expense of our personal integrity and truth.
10. Not speaking up for ourselves or for others that are oppressed for fear of being marginalized,or further victimized
11. Over immersion in entertainment, binge watching of television, obsessive video game playing, and excess reliance upon Snapchat, Facebook, or other social media platforms for social awareness and connection
12. Excessive eating and/or eating excessive sugar, salt, or processed foods
13. Not exercising, not hiking in Nature and thus staying away from its healing balm
14. Excessive drinking of alcohol, use of recreational drugs to the point of habituation (including marijuana),
15. Smoking and chewing tobacco, all the while knowing that behavior is killing us
16. Using sex as a way to emotionally hide or escape, or to control or manipulate others, We are selfish with our sexuality.
17. Workaholic behavior, and forgetting how to laugh and play well with others. Because of our lack of prosperity, employers abuse our work ethic to encourage us to become workaholics, which ends up keeping us out of the connecting, healing currents of friendships and family relationships.

In our efforts to meet the needs for economic security, continue our family line, and meet our sexual needs, we often make sacrifices that diminish our health, our sense of well-being, our community connections, and our personal integrity.  And, as most wives know, men are usually quite unwilling to make any meaningful changes in their behavior, unless they are about to die.

TOXIC men’s attitudes are spawned through an unwillingness to embrace real change.  Spiritual freedom exists independently of guns, money, or religion,

The primary contributor to the continuing cultural disease and dysfunction is men’s unwillingness to make fundamental changes in attitudes and behavior. White male privilege, patriarchy, and toxic masculinity are three useful terms denoting the entrenched, institutionalized nature of our dysfunction, which is a major disease of the human spirit. This disease has its deadly flames fanned by our cultural denial of a deadly truth, which is the foundation for the conspiracy of silence. Our unskilled male behavior collectively remains a national disgrace, as we continue to dishonor each other, our animal brothers and sisters, the environment, and our planet Earth.

Men who are not happy with themselves directly influence others to be unhappy, too.

Men are still predominantly in control and create most of our cultural narratives, while steering the conversation away from the truth that MEN’S ATTITUDES ARE A PRIMARY CAUSE of cultural dysfunction. Our ideas for addressing the problems of gun violence, addiction, greed, racism, and sexism tend to avoid obvious, rational solutions, because we don’t want to face ourselves, and we feel inept at collaborating with others with healing intentions. And, failure to face ourselves while remaining in healthy communication with others will lead to the same self-destructive end that eventually happens to all humans and their attempts at maintaining civilization.

A prime example is the NRA and the corrupted politicians who do not act to reduce the proliferation of automatic weapons. These allied forces are sponsors of national terrorism. Just how many automatic weapons does it take to make America’s gun owners feel safe? It is just that many weapons that it takes to make America unhealthy, insane, fearful, and outside of the picture of potential national healing. Gun violence directly stems from a national mental illness, and guns are never the proper medication to alleviate the symptoms. One automatic weapon is too many, and 300,000,000 is never enough, so goes the divided, self-destructive collective mind of America.

There Is Something Fundamental Here

I had an amazing, cathartic experience around the origins of my own toxic masculinity. The following story recounts an experience that I had in 2017. If it weren’t for the incredible spiritual strength, and wisdom, of my life partner, Sharon White, I would not have been able to have, what some people call, the following life-changing insight into myself.

It was on a Thursday morning in February, and I was preparing to go to the Pilates class that Sharon and I attended each Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at our athletic club. Typically, I wanted to get there a little early, so that we could warm up on an exercise bicycle, with a little aerobic activity that I still enjoyed participating in, since I no longer ran, having retired late last year after a lifetime of enjoyment, and pain.

It was 9:15, and I was fully prepared to leave, while Sharon remained on the telephone, talking with a friend. As it turned 9:19, I spoke to her, in my most innocent of voice,

“Can we go now?”

Sharon had a series of responses that I won’t repeat here, but three things that she said coincided with me entering into an altered state of consciousness.  I felt the presence of something so basic, so fundamental, so raw, so real, so hurt, that I raged for a couple of minutes, declaring several times:

“There is something fundamental here!”

The trapped energy of a lifetime was released. I became aware of a pain so deep, and so all-encompassing, resulting in an anger from a source that I had never touched before, at least as a verbally conscious human being.

Sharon and I went our separate ways for a few hours, while we both tried to understand what had just transpired. Leading up to this experience, I had been intensely exploring the entirety of my life experience, having written 70 pages about my early childhood, maturation process, addictive and self-destructive cycles, and glimpses into higher possibilities for living. Without me realizing it, all of the personal story writing had placed me into the psychic world of all of my past pain and suffering.

After a meditation, I had a realization. My wounded essence had actually cried out, and I actually listened to it, without my ego repressing it as it had for 61 years. And I also saw, for the first time, the wounding process that I shared with my father. I felt an incredible compassion, love, and acceptance for my father, who had also suffered immensely under the spiritually destructive parenting of his own diseased parents.  I also understood the foundation behind my father’s, and my own, need to overachieve just to feel like we had any value.

I finally had experienced the most basic nameless suffering of an ignored child, or baby, and I have now given it verbal description:

MY VOICE IS WORTHLESS, I HAVE NO VALUE. I MUST BE ALONE IN THIS WORLD.

Sharon paid the price for a couple of hours, while I listened to and experienced the wounded baby within me.

I had an insight that still informs me daily.

I saw how we, as humans, keep layering ourselves and our ideas upon what somebody else is saying, rather than meeting the being where they are, and responding according to the dictates of our heart center, which in most people, ESPECIALLY MEN, has been scabbed over by our own early spiritual wounding. Men typically inflict their own wounding on everybody else, in subtle, or not so subtle ways. Usually, this manifests as over-competitive behavior,  and in dominating or intimidating others. Collaboration and cooperation become nasty words for all such practitioners. Philosophies of the scarcity of love,  oppression, and of the monetization of reality, arise out of this wounding.

All oppressed groups remain victimized and marginalized, and are only stick figures in the oppressors dreams of those seeking world domination.

When our personalities have been formed by the integration of our perceptions into an unconscious, unnamed, unrecognized dark energy, we create self-defeating tricksters within our minds, which become our internal advisors for life. We end up creating an energy exchange dynamic where we project our dysfunction onto others, and make them wrong for it, not recognizing that we were the source of our misplaced judgement. I have acknowledged their very presence within my own mind, and that their continued distorting presence can determine how I view reality. The spiritual thorn in my side will forever be that my voice will not be heard before I die, which is the adult version of my infantile suffering and separation from love.

When I am not fully conscious, the unfocused, chaotic energy within my mind makes me a poor listener. If I can quiet my mind long enough to listen with my heart to what is being said, I can respond accordingly with the intelligence of my heart. As a race and a culture, we tend to be too eager to respond with ego programmed responses, which, typically, are based on early trauma and other wounding and our failure to fully heal from it,  incomplete perceptions or someone else’s ‘knowledge’, so being mindful is a huge help.

In our attempt to be heard, we instead try to program people, unconsciously, to behave and react more in accordance with our expectations. When they don’t (they rarely do, unless they are our impressionable young children), we are very disappointed, and feel rejected, and, in the absolute, we feel betrayed by the sum total of exchanges between the parties. It is deadly to attempt to control the other’s experience through linking our own unhealed energy with their own, yet that characterizes much of our perceptual universe.

I do not want a life that has been lived in vain. I also see a world where the majority of us still suffer from the same, basic issues that I have tried to describe here. Even among some people closest to me, denial reigns supreme, and I have only a small measure of hope that the personal truth that I am trying to convey here will actually be heard, and applied by others that I care about, which now includes the entirety of our planet Earth.

“There is something fundamental here.”

As a baby, my parents placed a blanket around my baby body, and deposited me in a car in their garage so that my father could get at least 5 hours of sleep a night. My father was “chasing the American Dream”, and worked two jobs at the time.  My father was a minion of the Capitalist philosophy, while practicing his unique version of toxic masculinity and patriarchy,

I don’t need to remind any of my loved ones of the profoundly damaging effects of denying love and interactive time to a developing human being. What I might need to remind myself at times is that others, no matter what their age, or how much that I think that I know them, continue to be developing human beings, and they deserve my undivided attention, while they attempt to reveal who they are in this moment.

If I do not want to grow anymore, I will stop listening to what others are really trying to say. If i don’t want to be of service to my fellow-man/woman, I can just stop listening to what they are trying to express, and just layer my own ignorance and judgement, over somebody else, and not let them reveal to me who they Really Are in this special moment.

Another clue about our own, or the others’ listening intention, is when we try to share a profound life event, and then are immediately “run over” by another with more knowledge on the subject. Sometimes we, or the other, either have “too much book knowledge”, we have the “certificate”, we already have read about it on the internet, we have memorized something from a class that we already took, or we have a friend who has already “been there, done that!”  What about that “friend” or “family member” who checks their phone, and Googles information, perhaps to confirm their own biases or (mis)understandings, instead of accepting the validity of the energy that we are attempting to share in this new, unique moment?

Our President, and many of our politicians, are masters at this. Please don’t inflict this same treatment on the ones you love. It is like putting a blanket around our heart and soul, and putting us into the car, so that those with a dehumanizing or monetizing philosophy can continue to oppress others, while keeping themselves spiritually asleep.

Whether any of us can accept it, or even want to try to believe that it is possible, there is a unique truth, which some call divine inspiration, which reveals Itself moment to moment. In my ignorance, disguised as “knowledge”, I throw a ‘blanket” around IT, and throw IT in a car, so that I can continue to sleep.

We all have a secret that needs to be told

We all have secrets from others that need to be told to us.

We all need to be more willing to listen for the deeper meanings of each other.

There is something fundamental here.

I choose Compassion today, with its loving, listening ear..

We are all developing human beings, no matter what our age. And, we are all God’s children, and God speaks through us, whether we can hear the “truth”, or not. Sometimes the “truth” is so difficult to hear, that we shut down emotionally, and we either ignore what is said, or substitute our own story for what the “other” is trying to communicate.

Please, listen to your self. Please, listen to the other.

Far too many men engage in our cultural conspiracy of silence daily, which is a most deadly component of the CKG.  These include the following admonitions:

• don’t talk
• don’t tell
• don’t touch
• don’t feel
• don’t engage
• don’t listen
• don’t change
• don’t heal

Caricature of men working things out between themselves. The conspiracy of silence is inculcated into many males, and females, too.

The abhorrent behavior of Donald Trump, the poster boy and face for toxic male stupidity and darkness, as well as his supporting cast of damaged characters, has become the de-facto leader of the energy of toxic masculinity.. If we as a culture, and me as an individual, don’t speak out, and affirm to ourselves, and to others, what the truth really is to us, then eventually the hypnosis and propaganda of others may become our own collective reality, and continue to overtly influence our personal integrity, community relationships and overall spirituality.

The historical legacy of the American white man’s ignorance and evil, and his support network of unconscious, disempowered, fearful and/or cowardly family and community members, continues even up till today.  Subservient women, often times religiously inculcated to be that way, continue to follow their husband’s lead, and as a group remain one of the leading populations of unconscious support for continued unhealthy male dominance. There always comes the day when the family of the woman under the husband’s domination needed for her to speak up the most, and the whole family is further damaged because of her own silence and continued powerlessness.

Women remain the number one oppressed group of humanity, though the blacks/African Americans, native American Indians, and other racial and ethnic groups have not escaped the grasp of white male privilege, masquerading as American Christianity inspired capitalism and politics.

Here are some principles of toxic masculinity that I found live in our collective consciousness, and which also lived in unconscious domains of my own mind and heart. I have exaggerated them, and linked them with common monetary, sexual, and personal power dynamics. And yes, these principles, or variations of these themes, are part of the Common Knowledge Game (CKG) fundamentals for erroneous understanding of self and other. If they appear to mimic some of the values and principle’s underlying Donald Trump’s abhorrent behavior, then you are already paying close attention to our collective consciousness, and its dangerous and sometimes catastrophic influence on the affairs of humanity throughout our history.

1. I am the center of the Universe. The rest of humanity is here either for my pleasure, for my profit, or for my disdain. I may attend a church occasionally, so that I can create the impression that I worship a higher power than myself. But, I already know that there is no higher power but me. HUMILITY IS NOT AN OPTION FOR ME, and is only for the poor and weak among us.
2. Truly loving another human being is a sign of weakness, and thus I must continue to suppress all such impulses so that I can achieve my selfish goals. I will carry on a campaign of hatred, judgement, and condemnation of all people unlike myself, all the while claiming to represent their interests at the highest level of my being (with subtlety, if one is of the passive/aggressive nature) . The ignorant people populating my world will hopefully associate my hateful behavior with their understanding of what love is, thus damaging the hearts and souls of all who may fear, respect, and/or follow me. My schizophrenia will be confusing to others, but may still be normalized, as others that I have influenced model and support my behavior.::
3. People, and Mother Nature itself, are most valuable if they can be monetized. If I can’t make money from my relationship with people or our natural surroundings, then I don’t necessarily need them. They will have to prove that they belong in my life in some other selfish, self-serving ways. I choose to neglect the long term effects of my short sighted thinking, because now is the only moment to profit from others, and from the Earth.
4. Never admit that I am wrong. Always blame somebody else for my problems. The admission of guilt is a sign of weakness, and only for those who do not have sufficient monetary and legal power. I don’t need your forgiveness for my mistakes, because, as far as you should be concerned, I do not ever make mistakes.
5. I have a right to choose how much drugs and alcohol that I consume.  I do not need feedback from others telling me that I am abusing my medicine and/or alcohol.  I have earned the right to drink as much as I feel like, because I have so much stress in my life, and  I make so many sacrifices that I deserve an extra break and release through excessive alcohol and;/or drug consumption.  I do not have a problem, and if you think that I have a problem with my chemicals, then it is your misunderstanding, and not my own.
6. Never spend any time in self-reflection or meditation. Developing insight is difficult and time-consuming, and I have more important things to do  I am already perfect, I always have been perfect, and everybody else needs to change to accommodate my needs. If I am not “perfect” today, I always have someone, or something, else to blame.
7. I have a right to use my strong emotions to intimidate and threaten anybody that I need to in order to get my way.  My anger is a weapon, to be wielded whenever necessary, and its expression is my first selection from my arsenal of control tools in manipulating and controlling my world.
8. If I can’t get my way with another human being, then I will cajole or bully them into submission, or attack their name and character, and/or impugn their dignity, until they either submit, or are discredited by my allies.
9. Everybody unlike me  should be distrusted. Relationships built through mutual trust and collaboration can be threatening to my short-term goals, and should not be cultivated, as only alliances of hate and distrust are capable of bringing me to my goals.
10. The women in our lives are more suited to be our personal possessions than self-sufficient, independent people, and are not to be treated as equals, and are better suited for exploitation for family support, sexual purposes and/or economic gain.
11. If I can’t get my way through truth-telling, then the telling of lies becomes my most potent weapon. If I am caught in a lie, then it is only your misunderstanding of my point, and not what I said, that is wrong. If I tell the same lie often enough, then people will start to accept the lie as the truth.
12. If there is no conflict currently in progress, then I must start creating the conditions for the next one, and socially position myself so that I can maximize emotional profits and visibility for myself.
13. I never will obtain enough money, power, sex, or attention to keep me happy. I must continue to pursue these needs to extremes in order to keep me from becoming depressed and losing my sense of personal value in this world. If I achieve my goals, and I am still unhappy, I must set new goals to attempt to fill that big hole in my heart and soul.
14. The powers of my penis reigns supreme. When it is erect, it always points me in the right direction, regardless of the people who may be hurt by my wayward sexual desires. My self-esteem is dependent on how many women that I can convince to make love to me, and nobody is immune from my advances. One is too many, and a thousand is not enough, when it comes to sexual conquests.
15. I am the king of my home. I have created my kingdom to serve my selfish needs. If my rules are not honored, and my intentions for the family do not hold up, and family members start to stray, I will coerce, cajole, or threaten all wayward members with violence, if necessary. The family must stay together under my control, no matter what the cost to others might be.
16. Perfectionism and full control of others should not be mutually exclusive propositions. I will judge, criticize, and condemn others, and myself, as needed, to bring all of my world into alignment with how I think that it should be. I will compare and contrast my wealth and success with others to establish the best baseline for my expectations and behavior. My wife and my children are first and foremost my possessions. I will direct and control as necessary, and nobody else has any right to criticize my choices in how I provide and care for them.  My whole sense of self-esteem is derived by how deeply they honor and obey me, without argument or back talk. I do not want or need alternate points of view, as my view is the only view that is relevant.
17. If those closest to me engage in betrayal, and destroy my sacred relationship with my family, I must avenge myself, and destroy all who have threatened my life and values. My wife is my property, and my property alone.  If she should ever have an affair with another man, I reserve the right to punish her and my family, up to, and including, murdering them. If I must die in the process, it is a good death for me.
18. Self sabotage is my unconscious need, as I fail to achieve my goals.  It is my right to destroy my creations even as I destroy myself, so murder-suicide is an acceptable option in the extreme, when my needs have been dishonored, and I feel that I have no more options to achieve my goals, and improve my life situation.
19. I have been a failure since I never measured up to my father’s, my church’s, or my society’s standards. I will continue to self-sabotage my success at ever bend in life’s road, and I will see life as a self-fulfilling prophesy of incompleteness and loss. I will not even question that my life has other possibilities for it, and I will resign myself to my depressing fate.
20. I reserve the right to murder anybody, when it suits my needs to protect myself. I will justify my possession and use of firearms through quoting the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution, as well as pointing to the fear and threats in our world, and our country as my own justification for stockpiling weapons. I will not listen to reason, as my mind is made up, and you can have my weapons after “prying them from my cold, dead hands” (thanks NRA, and the late mega-asshole Charlton Heston).

This list is the abbreviated list, as aspects of our collective selfishness covers the entire range of human darkness.  Men burdened by toxicity tend towards sexism, racism, isolation, poor judgement against all others unlike themselves, and low self-esteem, while men moving towards spiritual healing tend to unite with others in peace and mutual acceptance, and a willingness to share an improving sense of their self with the world.

 While living a toxic male life, I created some of my own writings on “pain”, which originated while I was hidden in the  Care Unit for Alcoholic Rehabilitation, in 1984.  These poems are from the hand, and heart, of a toxic man who was in the initial stages of awakening. The following are two different iterations for Pain that I penned in 1984

PAIN

Though the dark cloud looms on the horizon, it is also hidden within myself.

It appears to hover in the distance, just beyond my reach, and it patiently waits my most vulnerable moment.

I then feel the initial mist from its clouds, suspecting that I am its intentional target.

A piercing wind picks up, hugging me with its frozen arms, and I vainly look for protection

As the torrential downpour begins, I feel my tenuous sense of peace and safety eroding beneath my feet.

As it strips back, layer, upon layer, upon layer, upon layer, of my consciousness, exposing a bedrock bereft of sanity.

Exposing long forgotten mental relics, threatening old, unhealed memories, and dangerous old habits,

Stinging, piercing, hurting me at my core, obscuring visions of glorious, yet impossibly distant futures,

Washing away all tenuously held possessions of sanity, and hope.

Uprooting the feeble foundation of a life desperately, but futilely, attempting to, yet again, reconstruct itself,

Carrying a powerless, helpless, desperate soul back into toxic chemical valleys, amid a dark, swirling depression,

Ravaging, drowning, then decaying.

Part II

Yes, growing without roots, with a will that won’t bend,

Weathering life’s storms, which never seem to end.

No longer waiting for the sun that was once promised to arise,

How could truth’s light possibly shine in dimmed eyes?

Having reached with futility for all the high goals of life,

With no spiritual growth, while consumed by inner strife.

Devoid of healing affection, and a stranger to real love,

Unrealistic hope was what my failed dreams were all made of.

Despair meets each day, summer has now changed into fall,

Looking at life, I am totally disgusted by it all.

Dying of loneliness, and holding life by only a thread,

With me rotting inside, hopefully, I soon will be dead.

Pain,

Why?

There is no mystery to me as to why some people choose suicide, continued ignorance, or continued addictions over becoming more consciously aware, and fully embracing recovery from cultural and individual ignorance. In 1986, my choice was for continued addictions and, ultimately, suicide, until I awoke to the potential for healing in my life in 1987. The potential for recovery is only that, a potential, unless one develops a conscious intention to break free from the tight grip of grief, loss, and heartbreak. Pain, and suffering, without any hope for healing, brings anger, despair, depression, loneliness, and suicidal ideation.

As the wise ones advise:  To change my world, I first change myself. There is terrorist, a Nazi, that lives deep down within all of us.  Once we have addressed our darkness, and healed it through bringing our light to it (insight), it loses its power to unconsciously control us.  Then, when we go out into the world to subdue the evil that sometimes erupts in dank, dark places, we can fight the actual enemies, and not waste energy fighting projections of our unhealed self.The fundamental oppressive force in the human universe is not our wayward political or social agendas, it is the human mind itself.

Be careful in there!

Punch A Nazi Sign at June 2018 Portland, Oregon Rally for Immigrants and their families

‘Being male is a matter of birth. Being a man is a matter of age. But being a gentleman is a matter of choice

—–Vin Diesel

The following information, though not quite up to date, carries some painful truths about toxic masculinity, entrenched power, the #metoo movement, and gun violence.

Nov 4, 2017 – The rate of gun deaths in the United States rose in 2016 to about 12 per 100,000 people, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report released on Friday. That was up from a rate of about 11 for every 100,000 people in 2015, and it reflected the second consecutive year that the mortality rate increased. The age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2015 (16.3 per 100,000) was more than 2.5 times the rate in 1999 (6.1).

Sexual violence is a problem that is deeply rooted in our culture. Presently, the CDC does not have any statistics about sexual abuse against women in general, but i have read that one in four women have experienced sexual abuse at the hands of the diseased American male. The following statistics should be of interest (from RAINN):

• 17,700,000—The estimated number of women who have been the victims of rape since 1998.
• 99—The percentage of perpetrators of sexual violence that will walk free.
• 13—The percentage of female rape survivors who will attempt suicide.
• 64—-The percentage of trans people who will experience sexual assault in their lifetimes.
• 127,000,000,000—-The total amount of money rape costs victims every year in the U.S., excluding child sexual abuse.
• 16-19—-The age range that women are four times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. Female college students ages 18-24 are three times more likely than women in the general population to experience sexual violence.
• 1 in 6—-The fraction of American women who have survived an attempted or completed rape in their lifetimes.
• 1.8—-The amount of times trans people of color are more likely to experience sexual violence than the general population.
• 3—-The percentage of men who will be raped in their lifetime.
• 90—-The percentage of adult rape victims that are female.
• 321,500—-The average number of victims of rape and sexual assault per year in the U.S.
• 80,600—-The estimated number of inmates who experience sexual violence in prison or jail every year.
• 60—-The percentage of instances of sexual violence experienced by inmates that are perpetrated by jail or prison staff.
• 2—–The number of times a person with a disability is more likely to be a victim of sexual assault or rape than a person without a disability.

A rational human being would posit that ALL VIOLENCE is unacceptable, and that the American culture needs to treat ALL conditions seriously and equally. Why are we so self-destructive and irrational as a culture that we allow gun violence, sexual violence, and drug additive violence to continue against our fellow citizens? You already know the answer, and it continues to propagate in the genitals, and the damaged minds, of far too many men in power.

THE FOOLS

You know who we are, there is no need for our names

We may be outwardly different, but inside we are the same

We vacation on ego trips, and with the world play strange mind games

While striving for material success, and its dubious fame

We remain graceless souls trying to blend into life’s masses

Some affirming our uniqueness, though we remain stuck in the same class

With  our delusions of grandeur, while appearing just like an ass

And steering clear of self-awareness, Oh our transparency of glass!

At times spewing words of wisdom, but with only another dogs’ bark

Seeking to make a good life, but on life’s script still leaving just a dirty mark

Believing we may have seen light, but, if so, why is our life always so dark?

Needing more purifying inner flames, while snuffing every divine spark

Though we think that we have blossomed, we do not possess Love’s flower,

We hope for a life carried by the river of sweetness, while we still wade through the sour

Never realizing that, over life, we hold very little power

We can only avoid the reality of our lives, while living in our ivory tower

We tend to bring up life’s rear, though we think that we should be first

And from life we want all of the best, somebody else deserves the worst!

We think that our life should be more blessed, why on earth do we feel cursed?

Our lives just become overblown bubbles, just waiting to be burst!

This is a pretty clear message, for those who have “ears to hear”.

There is an inmost center in us all, where truth abides in fullness;….and, to know, rather consists in opening out a way where the imprisoned splendor may escape, then in effecting entry for a light supposed to be without.”

—–Robert Browning

How did I attempt to bring healing to my broken interior?  I first acknowledged that, of myself and my old ways, I was heading nowhere, and that I was doomed to repeat the same potentially fatal mistakes over and over again   I did not have any childhood training in, nor did I spontaneously develop capacities for insight, positive change and growth.  I first needed to develop the emotional and spiritual fortitude to look at the entirety of my life, and then incorporate the experience for my greater good, which also impacts the whole of life in a more positive manner.  By developing the power of insight, I brought a new level of healing and awareness into this new, present moment of experience.  Some call this process “mindfulness:, though I just call it ‘taking personal inventory’, and improving my “conscious contact with my higher power” as I learned through practicing the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I have come to believe that there is a “power greater than myself” that lives within my internal reach that restores me to sanity, no matter how often I might fall. My willingness to change IS my greatest asset, and opens the door to the highest power.  Part of maintaining sanity is to allow for a continuous evolution of understanding and experience of what “God” or “Higher Power” is, apart from religious dogma, ignorance, politics, and superstition. We don’t need to believe in any concept of God at all, but we do need to access our willingness to change, for that openness will point to our own unique higher powered life experience.

There was no minister, church, support group, therapist, Care Unit counselor, Indian guru, psychiatrist, mother, father,  sister, wife, friend, daughter, son, pet dog, or Jesus Christ figure that could dig into my unique version of the human soul, and remove the thorns/swords that had been thrust into my side since my birth.  My internal wounding and the resultant unsustainable suffering became the impetus to begin my inward journey, to face the absolute darkest areas of life itself, and then mine the treasure from my unique relationship with the dark force or shadow.  To not face myself would mean to continue living the second-hand/passed down story of dysfunction that I inherited from our culture and from my ancestors, from which we cannot ever completely heal, without first becoming aware of our internalized, unconscious subservience to those controlling agendas.

Since I have been in recovery, I have been involved in the exploration of some of the more fundamental aspects of my consciousness, and, thus, of all human consciousness.  Virtually all of the interesting characters in history have struggled with, and have overcome, at least to some degree, a dark internal force, and it is their journey that becomes the stuff of great stories and legends.   I am trying to give a context to this distress that I share with the rest of humanity.  For, the one is the many, and the many are the one.  The author and scholar Joseph Campbell refers to the “Hero’s Journey” that we all must take to find our true self.

I have been quite resistant to many aspects of life, and to change itself, an extreme resistance that may have begun in my mothers’ womb, or, maybe, it extends all the way back to the beginning of human consciousness, but, the start date is unimportant.  What is important is the intention to bring healing to a darkened situation.

It is extremely difficult in finding a way to reach an individual, or a society, that has unconsciously made a decision to slowly and painfully commit suicide through toxicity and addictive cycles, while all remain in rigorous denial of that fact. Each toxic human being, be they an unconscious power hungry man or woman, alcoholic, drug addict, or mentally ill person must find their own unique “bottom”, where the pain of the disease causes a change, or turning point, in their lives. Insanity, loss of job, loss of family, admission to a mental health or addiction recovery facility, jail, DUI, threat of death, or near death experiences, and deaths of close friends or family members also suffering have been known to bring the desire for healing to many of us. A confrontation from those we may have harmed can have rather dramatic effects on our desire to change, as well. It took all of the negative life cycle outcomes to convince me to change behavior. Living in hell for an extended period of time brought me to death’s doorstep, yet I did survive, and the process helped me to seek for a deeper light.

American society has created the perfect conditions for our population to practice insanity, mutual control dramas, and addictive behaviors, but it remains up to us as individuals to create our own conditions for recovery.  Self-awareness, personal inventory, making amends to all that we have harmed, working a strong spiritual program, mindfulness, meditation, eating healthier and exercising wisely, and hanging around like-minded people took me to the outskirts of my own “promised land”.  Life isn’t always pretty, but I remain personally responsible for my attitudes and behaviors, and I retain freedom of choice in most of my affairs. But, many have lost all such freedom of choice.   I have much compassion for those who still struggle with mental illness and alcoholism/drug addiction.

It is this very matrix of misunderstanding that we all must eventually embrace within ourselves, see it for what it really is, and isn’t, and then move through the illusions of self to the very foundation of our timeless soul, where peace and healing eternally resides.

Statements of personal well-being, such as those listed below, were anything but “facts of life” for most men.

• I am worthy,
• I am safe,
• I am whole,
• I am loving and lovable,
• I have something worthwhile to say

What do we really want and need, as human beings, and what might we need, that we have yet to be able to express clearly to others?  I have listed a few possibilities below, please add your own to the list.

• To be able to express our thoughts and feelings authentically, without bringing unnecessary harm to ourselves or to others
• To belong, to feel safe while belonging, including the desire to help and protect others while helping oneself,
• To speak up, and feel like we really were heard, and not have our spirit layered over with errors in reasoning and judgement from others.
• To be able to listen to another at the deepest level possible, and be present in the spirit of understanding, cooperation, and collaboration.
• To feel whole, and to be able to recognize that wholeness, not only within ourselves, but within all others, even those living in alternative realities.
• To love all others, as well as to be accepted, and loved, by others, with as few conditions attached as possible.
• To evolve, for if we do not, we become subject to the forces of friction and chaos inherent within a closed mind, and system, resulting in higher physical and mental disease and dysfunction.