What If I Just Want To Be Able To Feel My Life?

AI management systems, religion, government... all are systems designed for broad scale management... which, when inadequately monitored, cared for and empathetically guided... simply control and hurt people.

We are building systems with still limited neurological consciousness.

We’re feeding those systems with excess consumption and overproduction of babies. There’s an inescapable tipping point, somewhere.

We’re praising mechanical progress and punishing intellectual and creative curiosity and expression so much that only those who have strong, emotionally supportive bonds are able to brush off the violence and stress enough to be human.

Society seems to be training and encouraging narcissistic independence instead of nurturing healthy social bonds and intellectual and emotional security.

What’s the answer? I don’t know. What I do know is I’d like to be an example of successful emotional healing and creative expression before succumbing to grind mindset and burnout.

I’ve seen more people claiming to be “triggered” and correcting the type of gun, weapon or vehicle in an image or social post than any other vaguely communicated idea or concept.

It could be tied to the firmness of a hold that “rightness” or “wrongness” has on those sorts of people... they may be inextricably linked with a version of “reality” they’re rigidly unwilling to release from their certainty.

That could be a symptom of domination hierarchies conditioning their views with praise for their “rightness” and punishment for their “wrongness” which could further instill a sense of insecurity and subconscious fear of punishment for misunderstanding or being “wrong.”

That could be an effort to kindly “correct” to avoid the intrinsic fear that the other or the self might be harmed for being “wrong.”

In a family where one is punished or shamed for feeling sad, angry, speaking up or even showing expression of joy at “the wrong time,” a child shapes internalized toxic shame around the very experience of feeling... and that can be self-destructive in an overwhelmingly sad and frustratingly stressful world.

Add to this, a family that labels any level of disagreement as “anger” and the kid can become confused, frustrated and eventually emulate the very feeling those dominant family members claim.

Is this why I feel safer behind a camera? Is it why I prefer simply allowing life to be lived and to experience it with tangible evidence? I know I love witnessing people... I love being around those who are expressing their passions and dancing their hearts out in whatever ways that means to them.

I was never the mechanical person my father very clearly wanted so much he'd lie about my mechanical aptitudes.

When that came to light... he dismissed me even more.

Maybe I just want to be valued and find value.

Maybe I just want to be allowed to feel.

(no subject)

Patriarchal domination hierarchies, like the one in place in the United States, tend to convince us… especially men… to see ourselves as better than others and worse than some. We perceive abstract insecurity as weakness instead of places for soft attention and education.

We still press on to achieve “betterness” without fully attuning with the pain that led us to believe we needed improvement.

Even when our inner music is screaming so loud to be heard and understood, we smother it… silencing ourselves and fearing for our very lives around speaking up because we noticed something alive in us that could alienate us from our communities.

We then choose the path that seems to compromise. I’m no different. I choose to be a photographer because I feel so alienated by my institutional history. I have very little relatable experience and therefore, I choose to feel vicariously… until I can formulate my connection in recognizable ways.

I know very little about cars and boats or engines and I see most competition to be a brutal disconnection from our truest nature and a sort of contortion of our collaborative nature which pits us against them… othering the opposing teams and even instigating violence is some vehemently supportive fans.

I still see the magical things people can achieve. I see the technological marvels and spectacular feats of expressive movement and engineering creativity. I marvel at them… I love them because I love the people who are making it happen.

I think we’re a very interesting species that holds so many shadowy, dark spots in our consciousness. We cluster together, believing some people are less than us. Some know different things and lived different lives and therefore, they must be “bad.”

We see people who express themselves differently and do things differently so we aim to punish and ridicule them into submission to our ways of being.

We smother our loved ones and segregate them from beautiful experiences just because we disagree with what we interpret of others. ...even when the only way to be a whole, happy human is to truly surrender to the beautiful world around us.

We call it love to cut people off at the knees or lock them in a room. “This is no life for them!” exclaimed over our silent chains and locks.

We kill each other… and we excuse is as ‘necessity’ or ‘forgivable’ because someone above us said it was righteous, then we slip into our neat little boxes with our beers, bowls, joints and gin… or whatever consumer products we chemically alter ourselves with as we stare blankly at pixelated screens just to “let go” or “relax,” having our feelings of sadness, panic and excessive joy pumped directly into us like animals being fattened up for slaughter… but we love it. We honestly love those addictions so much we’ll fight for them.

This is so messed up… why are so many of us unwilling to live? Moreover, what brought us to believe it’s okay to prevent other people from living?

Our very nature is meant to allow us to live, fuck up, adapt and heal… if we’re allowed to honor the security of aligned community.

I’ve been super interested in the kink community on so many levels. It’s not about indulgence but understanding. ...it’s tangible and observable domination dynamics playing out in real time. There are layers beneath all of it that we all lived, learned and started to emulate… not just “human nature” but that’s a very commonly tossed around phrase to excuse just about anything we’re conditioned not to think about.

I think the world is a beautiful place. I also understand that what we ruminate on become so deeply rooted that it becomes inescapable… so we must surround ourselves with love, nurture and acceptance before letting the most primal urges become complex consciousness.

Especially for those of us who observe things beyond the individual. I see strings, frameworks, systems, punishments, walls and inescapable patterns for people stuck in capitalistic nightmares and beautiful humanity trying to blossom through it all.

So… what value do I have? I have a wealthy-ish family who’s capable of supportive effort yet, even they are afraid of losing what they physically possess. They’re afraid of losing their homes, their toys, their lake house, their boats, their images and reputations… meticulously shaped and formed through carefully shared or secured knowledge and limited accountability.

Some societies are built on secrets, propaganda, intentionally curated explanations and slightly edited versions of truth in order to maintain support and retain citizenry. This dynamic also happens in families.

When we feel threatened, we hide… and hiding can sometimes me silencing the people who are speaking about topics that directly affect us or involve us… and everyone has different views on what’s acceptable knowledge because some people have let go of the need for showing off. ...some of us have accepted our humanity and fallibility; choosing to honor the healing journey of accepting our failures and looking on the future with kinder eyes and an open heart.

I guess I want to be those eyes for some. I just can’t see myself being allowed to embrace anything more than a capitalist consumerism lens… cars, boats, beautiful bodies… exactly what Bowie was freaking out about in I’m Afraid of Americans.

Johnny wants a woman… Johnnie wants to suck on a coke. Johnny combs his hair… Johnny likes pussy and cars. These things really reflect the United States and our contortions of humanity. Yeah, the lyrics are almost certainly out of order. From the first moment I heard this song, I appreciated the message. I just felt ashamed of it because I was a Boy Scout with a celebrated mechanical engineer for a father… a man who lived and breathed exhaust fumes and injected fuel directly into his own veins.

He created… as in literally conceived and birthed one of the more iconic American sports cars… the Dodge Viper and cared for the entire project and all its iterations as long as most people care for their legit blood children.

Who was I to hold issue with all that?

Do I? Wasn’t it the community that gave him his feelings of belonging and financial security? Isn’t the racing community responsible for most of dad’s beautiful experiences of celebration and ceremonious appreciation? He built and raced two rally cars still functioning today… he owns a number of boats and volunteers those boats to a group called the Water Warriors/Wertz Warriors and he bought a couple of Sea Doo jet skis from a performance toy business owned by one of the Wertz Warriors supporters.

Dad has built something he perceives and valuable and comforting for him… some place to feel all his joys and meet his needs for challenge and community. Yeah, many of them drink like fish, smoke like chimneys and live for the very essence of competition right down to how they communicate with one another; teasing, joking, jesting, prodding everyone’s decisions and claiming superiority… perpetual hazing. They obsess over sports and that brings them joy. I can’t fathom it but that’s what fulfills them.

I do love witnessing races and rallies. I’m not a huge fan of being on the water in the ways they tend toward. I could imagine living on the ocean or a river… surfing, canoeing, kayaking, paddleboating… slow and emotionally attuned things or human challenges instead of utter sensory bombardment.

...although I do love the concept of a couple of PWC/jet skis able to be loaded for a trip with waterproof and shockproof storage and gear. That Boy Scout in me does love that adventure mentality.

I just can’t find peace in the ceremonious repetition… it seems… ridiculous, even if it can be beautiful.

I could see myself finding safety and certainty in my small SUV or hatchback with a trailer hitch. I could see myself prioritizing more varied social events… I’ve enjoyed kink community gatherings packed with half naked and fully naked strangers just as much as I’ve enjoyed conventions and festivals full of overdressed people and performers or cosplayers.

These things aren’t on the water… I guess. I don’t know why I feel so safe and secure in those spaces. Maybe it’s because they’re embodying my deepest thoughts and that allows me a sense of comfortable belonging.

I think life is art, music, expression and connection. I think collaboration matters and competition divides us on fundamental levels.

Yes, it’s my perspective but it’s such a deeply and foundationally believed perspective that… I suffer when I feel an urge to silence myself or smother its expression.

This is why photography allows me a mechanism of connection. It offers me connection, celebration, emulation and reverence for all, no matter their expressions of self.

Photography matters to me because my subjects… the world matters to me.

I wrote this about a year ago...

Rightness and wrongness are domination constructs. One must be below for another to be above. One’s power is stripped for another to be enforced. The ideas of rightness and wrongness are often instrumental in coercion… when we want to make a person do something without quite telling them we don’t care about their feelings on the matter because we thing we’re right about how they should live for the moment. This is usually a result of believing in something like a way of life, method of accomplishing goals, or even a religion.

Coercion can be so subtle many of us don't even recognize we're doing it. There's an intrinsic imperative within all of us, guiding us to meet our needs and when our needs extend into traditionality of family structures and "loyalty" or meeting our children's needs, we can lose sight of empathy, become less "self-full" and more selfish.

Being selfish isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's important to focus attention on our individual, collective needs and meeting them with balance and intention. From there, we can recognize the importance of our social and community needs and more personally, our intimacy and sexual needs.

We're all interdependent. None of us are solely independent... after all, we know all we know resulting from the education and conditioning we receive from others. Whether we like it or not, we depend on one another for emotional, social and physical needs.

A core aspect in fulfilling relationships of all kinds is meeting emotional and physical needs. Whether it’s friends laughing together, grieving together, dancing and singing together, shaking hands, high-fiving and handing out hugs, partners and deep friends holding one another, cuddling to watch a movie, finding protection and safety in touch and appreciation, partners and lovers meeting intimacy and sexual expression needs... our emotional and physical needs matter for true connection.

This is a frightening realization when considering drugs, alcohol, external satisfiers and peer pressure. Many of us are traditionally educated toward dominance, falsely believing in our own autonomic free will when the will of society is and will always be an explicitly powerful factor.

Gabor Maté frequently speaks on the psychology of addiction, and his book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts paints an elegantly concerned picture. Our addictions are all around us.

We accept self-harm and harming others in small ways... just because the collective deems that acceptable... or at least does nothing about it.

Food for thought on drugs. I can assure you, most people just straight up don't want them. They've become enraptured by the satisfaction of social, cultural and chemical indulgence masquerading as needs fulfillment with limited understanding of what that even means.

This is to say... you do you. Be yourselves and love yourselves however you see fit for yourselves. I accept you and appreciate your everything in all its spectacular beauty. I know we're all part of something greater and many of us can't see beyond our own noses in the matter.

I'll continue observing, learning, developing my understanding and nurturing the empathy for all I hope so diligently to embody.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
doesn’t make any sense.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.”

~Rumi

You see, to be fully aware of ourselves, our needs and our feelings isn’t good for a system built on convincing us that someone’s right so someone else must be wrong. To be in touch with compassionate empathy creates static consumer states... nobody’s fighting for more when everyone’s needs are satisfied. This is a common point in Marshall Rosenberg’s work.

We have a dualistic democracy which we can’t often see beyond... and that’s the point. When we have something or someone to oppose, we no longer seek answers and our hyperfocus keeps us rooted in roles. We prioritize being right over learning and understanding.

Interestingly, this conflict is not a natural desire. Survival is. Our survival counts on complex awareness, assessment, nervous system activation and action... that’s not inherently meant to just fixate on the hate... but that hate boils when all we do is fixate.

Our nerves and bodies remember even what we’ve long convinced ourselves we let go of.

So... beyond those valleys... those ideas that people would ever do things for hateful reasons if they weren’t conditioned toward those strategies for meeting life-affirming needs... I shall meet you in that beautiful field.

For it is where we are all welcome; to live, to love, to laugh and embrace one another joyously... reverently. We must do this by accepting their lives and their decisions as life-affirming for them and not intentionally malicious. No matter what we observe from them or hear of their observations. Many of us are taught to judge, rather than make observational inquiries. This can get pretty muddy.

An observational assessment is merely setting forth our personal perspective on what might be shared experience. We can then make an observational inquiry regarding the state of another person’s heart and mind… what’s alive in them once we’ve identified what’s alive in us. This is not wronging a person, telling them what they are or how they act. It is not paperwork or digging into history for relatable past behaviors. In many ways, bring up these things can feel like dismissal of the now and for many of us, the now matters a heckuva lot. What’s more is paperwork is usually written from an individual perspective, yet held in absolute regard to various systems implementing it. A signature does not dictate reality. It only offers singular insight for a majority system.

This method allows us to be deeply aware of ourselves in a moment and become empathically connected with others in the moment.

When we feel threatened by a person's observation of shared experience, there is something within us feeling judged, shamed, fearful or all of these things. We may feel ignore or dismissed… both are pseudo-feelings related to feeling judged… also a pseudofeeling. These can be a sign there is a need for reflection and love inside us. Most of these feelings of judgment and shame aren’t rooted in the now. They’re rooted in the distant past… where some people’s minds may meander while others are focused on the now or future.

We need to understand there’s another perspective here and know we are here within ourselves only. All conversation, especially around ourselves requires authenticity and present awareness.

Authenticity requires absolute accountability and recognition of self. We can observe a person's actions. We can never, no matter the pattern, consistency or inconsistency, accurately assess their motives, intentions or meaning. We can only seek to understand what we feel about them and why that is from within us.

As individuals, our only obligation is to reflect and understand ourselves through compassionate self-empathy and to share that consciousness with others in ways which meet their needs with ours at any presented moment.

Many of us shape expectations or develop a desired or expected narrative around the lives of others without even realizing it, then we get frustrated or irritated when they do things differently from what we expect or "want" from them... because we often plan our own lives around these expectations.

A healthy goal for ourselves would be to focus on healing the self, balancing our needs and becoming wholly self-connected and self-sufficient. This way, we allow ourselves to contribute to others from a fully mastered consciousness. We can then learn with them, grow with them and lift them up because we must feel secure in ourselves before feeling truly safe and protected in the presence of others.

We can't share vulnerability when we're scared to show ourselves.

Authenticity can be a challenging achievement... which is totally worth it. Keep in mind that authenticity requires mastering accountability without pause. This is one way we grow beyond conflict... to fearlessly release the conflict within ourselves.

It would seem, according to domination system logic, our current educational and hierarchical social structure (not just schools but media; TV, movies, advertisements, etc.) encourage people to explore more while our brains are still developing through the first 30 years of our lives (school, party, celebrate, drink/smoke/go wild) which is good. It's one way to find the important animalistic minds, the unique individuals to nurture and encourage toward life-changing and world-changing discovery and/or creation.

There's also a seemingly intentional shift for advertisement and encouragement once we hit our 30's (Settle down, crack a beer, have a bbq, renovate your home, go camping etc.) and this isn't just... or at all because our biology beckons us to be this way. Our biology wants whatever we're conditioned to feel satisfaction from... advertisements and media often tell us what gives us satisfaction.

In financial reasoning, this serves a legit function. College is important for developing minds. Education is important for the most excited, malleable minds and it's not feasible or reasonable for those who've reach a prime... a baby-maker's age.

Interestingly, college hazing and teasing serve an educational purpose. There’s a “safe” and certain level of anxiety and stress which excites our minds into learning, problem solving and finding solutions…

Domination education systems thrive on that sort of thing. Dom societies thrive on dualisms of all kinds. They can encourage technological development, innovation and even scientific advancement.

So there’s a functional dualism in the conflict fostered by our socioeconomic system which encourages gender binaries, political dualism, encouragement and shame, punishment and praise, etc.

We could be more nurturing and loving with fully developed empathy for self and others or we can keep mild stress exciting chaos in our minds we want to solve our way out of. Our current system sort of tries to guarantee both.

I’d imagine that’s a motivation for gender roles… men fight, build, develop and advance while women nurture, love, express emotional intelligence and socially prosper. For the two culturally approved genders (of which there are more… gender is not sex… sex is not gender) both are often encouraged toward one of two basic, frequently chronologically dictated lifestyles… fuck, party, fuck fuck, express yourself (good for mating) and chill, earn, propagate, nurture, repress yourself, provide for kids.

We don’t need conflict brains… a dominant educational system for an economic and/or military power does and the system’s not too keen on outliers and weirdos. It kinda does everything it can to silence, repress and withhold available resources from outliers unless they’re sexy enough to be made into objects of wild expression at which point they’re systemically encouraged to be unreasonably extra so their lifestyle is clearly marked as “special” or “impossible.”

Speaking from a binary system's male perspective, our 30's are encouraged to be a turning-point transitioning from "self-consciousness" to "offspring-consciousness" and while there are outliers who are always "other-conscious" and some who simply make a baby in their teens or early 20's, the domination hierarchy relies on people believing it's important to propagate and make more chaotic, creative, curious minds... not to really care about those minds. We're actually taught to pretty much be done with kids by 18 so the next developing decade to about 26 (end of average neurological development) can be handle by the cultural, educational and various institutional structures themselves.

Thing is... there's a lot of loss there. I've been part of a strictly funded educational/institutional system since about 7 years old and I've seen a buttload of pain, suffering, sadness, depression, suicidality, addiction and people just questioning themselves or wondering why they're "broken" when they're fucking not... they're not broken. That's the language of a system which wants to define your perfect version of "fixed" for you. Hope and heartache as a dualism get people killed. I’ve seen it. I’ve fucking felt it.

I refuse to slip into that baby-maker's bullshit. I've seen too many people hurting. I've met and spoken with too many people who were clear, clever, concise, level-headed and beautifully articulate yet labeled "broken" just because they thought a little differently or approached problems in "non-conducive ways." I don’t want to narrowmindedly “channel my inner empathy” toward a fucking obligation in some baby, teen or adult child as a dad or stepdad.

My goal is a deeply developed education on the neurodevelopment and psychology of human life and the reception of educational principals in behavioral psychology applied to matters of artistic expression, conversation and general communication.

This means I want to have practical experience with people while asking them about life and how they decided to do things the way they do. It also means I need to devote time and energy to legitimate education. I know this is something I can't really do alone... it's a challenge when surrounded by supportive people like friends and family. Heckin' hell... being on disability it'll require lots of giving attitudes for meeting subsistence needs just to afford stepping beyond that struggle.

So... I wonder... will it be possible or will I reach roadblocks of discouragement and stumpage? There's plenty of this world for us all to understand and I don't want to contribute exclusively to consumeristic gluttony like so many people I've observed and sometimes grieved.

Yeah, I'm fucking straightedge. What of it? I want to understand and empathize with why you're not. I want to learn. That's my deepest, most intrinsic desire.

OBSERVATION: I'd like to absorb the tangible world around me. I feel smothered by self-driven media consumption and I slip into a magnetically confining depression when playing video games alone.

FEELING & NEED: I feel more connected and alive when surrounded by life and people living it and I feel concerned and saddened by my fixed financial situation, anxious and fearful of the restrictions imposed by disability income. I need to skate public trails, join people in celebration of life and exchange hugs, smiles and laughter. I seek to meet a need for understanding and collaboration.

REQUEST: If you like me, I would like you to let me know when you want to hang out, watch a movie, binge a show, skate some trails, hike a bit, go to a local show or find an affordable (arbitrarily at this point) festival. I would like to bring my camera wherever I go to memorialize experiences, beautiful life-affirming interactions of people around me, accomplishments and emotions; not of some tiny nuclear family cluster, selfishly blockaded from the realities of our complexly beautiful world… but of the world itself and the cultures therein.

I want a college education and parallel human experiences… not for me… for my comprehension of this world and the pain it seems so addicted to.

Thoughts on my aversion to BDSM dom/sub dynamics

I think I understand why BDSM’s sub and dom play concern me so much. I understand the conditioning factors of dominant language and submissive language in punitive structures. I understand the idea of shaming and punitive redirection in human behavioral “education.”

I recognize parallels in how many of us are conditioned toward sexuality and pleasure in general. We tend to be conditioned toward very strict guidelines for “acceptable” behaviors.

I am also aware a person can become emotionally dysregulated and need to practice mindful exercises, potentially seek therapy and explore their trauma history, focus on emotional awareness and regulating behavior patterns. I see patterns between dominance and dysregulated anger or aggression with similarities between submission and depression or simply giving up hope.

Aggression acts out. Depression gives up. Dominance forces its will. Submission surrenders control. Whether it's "consented" or not, there's something irksome and concerning to this dynamic.

It pains me to see how often the effects of emotional dysregulation and unhealthy relationships can lead one to drug use, self-abuse and addiction. It’s also difficult not to see BDSM as a sort of “sexual dysregulation.” I also understand why people would cling to defensiveness and denial that it’s unhealthy. After all, that’s a common theme for drug addicts.

I’ve personally dealt with mind-numbing porn addiction and unhealthy amounts of gaming to get through involuntarily living in places I was afraid of for various reasons; whether due to the people living there, the type of system it was, who ran the place or the area/neighborhood we were in. I locked myself in a room or even a basement to keep to myself and not bother/be bothered by anyone.

So, naturally, it scares me when people choose dominance as a behavior or behavior pattern to embrace when dealing with other people and it concerns me to see people embracing submission, whether they give me their reasons for it or not...

I have a hard enough time avoiding violent pornography. It's everywhere. I'm just grateful Pornhub implemented a more robust blacklisting feature.

I would never judge a drug addict for their addiction so why would I judge a BDSM or kinky person for their pleasure strategies? This is a systemic issue, not something wrong with them. Doctor Gabor Maté emphasizes asking “why the addiction?” ask “what is the addiction providing for the person?” or “Why is this life-serving?”

Our behaviors are always life-serving. Nobody is “wrong” for any of them.