Love of Camping

 I used to love camping more than anything. My love of being in beautiful places has always been expressed in where I chose to live. Do you lead a lifestyle that expresses itself in where you live?

Dawn

Currently, I'm living in a beautiful place in Hawaii near a stream, under a roof in a "coffee shack." It's been around two years that I've been carrying my drinking and cooking water from a purified source and using ice in coolers for refrigeration. I have a two burner propane stove top that needs to be lit. My water for washing drips off the roof (fortunately, it's not hot water as it is in some places in Hawaii where the plumbing travels over lava rocks and heats up.) On the Big Island, you can pick your temperature by choosing where you live in altitude, and I'm 1450 ft. up from sea level. This means it never gets too cold and rarely gets too hot. Although I don't have hot water at home, I have been able to get regular hot showers at the huge local public pool, which isn't far away. My place is so remote, I don't even have an address. My friend quips it's "third world middle class" because movies and Internet are possible with the generator running. I probably have the lowest carbon footprint of anyone you know personally.

Spiderweb on the front lanai

Previous to this lifestyle, I lived in an RV while it was parked in a beautiful spot, but without movies and only library Internet. So this particular lifestyle has been a slight improvement. But it's been more expensive, mostly because I'm a half hour drive from a food store. I need a car because it's too far for me to walk straight uphill that is a few miles from where the bus stop is located. But I do enjoy the quarter mile "hike" to my shack from where I park my car by the road. The road to is too rough for anything but a four wheel drive vehicle. Keeping the grass short that protects the road from turning to mud is hot work.

Accepting this lifestyle hasn't been so foreign or unacceptable to me, given my previous love of camping. If I add the time up I've been doing some form of "camping," it appears that I've been living in an extended camping situation for over a decade.

Perhaps because of my current situation, it probably shouldn't be surprising that I don't go camping when I go away on vacation anymore...which is what I used to do every time I traveled anywhere. I think that I'm finally getting tired of camping. So now when I go away, I stay with friends in their houses for a little bit of "civilization" for a vacation from camping. When I come home, again I'm happy to be there, away from the B-flat hum of electricity - for awhile longer. Who would not want to come home to something like this?

Evening Rainbow

 

For Your Own Good

As a lifestyle choice, I find the strategy of slowing down to be a productive strategy. I've gotten so much benefit from taking a bit more time to do whatever I'm about to do that I fully endorse going slower. Mainly allows me to consider the way I'm about to do it.

Except at my current pace, it seems that I'm slowed to the point of irritating productive, functional people. I've been accused of being passive-aggressively slow, which is not what I intend. A former friend of mine declared I've slowed to the point of becoming a "Walking Stop Sign."

I do feel a bit self-righteous when I'm driving exactly six miles over the speed limit and in Hawaii I will still hold up a line of cars behind me who want to go fifteen miles over the speed limit. I can feel the anger of those who are tail-gating me. Then we pass a cop car and they all fall back, obviously thankful that me driving slower just prevented them from getting a ticket for wanting to speed fifteen miles over the speed limit as they usually would be doing.

I used to feel self-righteous about changing the level that my culture doesn't want to touch each other too - almost to the point of "forcing" or "training" people to allow me to touch them and to invite being touched.

There were many other actions I did that violated people's cultural expectations about autonomy, independence, personal space and respect that I inadvertently challenge by my very nature of not being affected as others are by social constraints.  I've had to learn so much about body language to be able to deal with feeling rejected, isolated and misunderstood. For instance, being near-sighted and not comfortable with glasses or contacts, I tended to stand too close to people when talking, encouraging them to back away from me or flee during a conversation.

When I finally gave in and accepted that it was OK that people in my culture did not want to be touched, I think others lost out on the value I could offer them about the importance of being touched.

Most people didn't seem to want what I had to offer them in that manner anyway. It was only in the expression of friendships that people would tell me later that they had misunderstood my overtures of wanting to be their friend; once they understood being affectionate was how I treated my friends they were happy to count themselves a member of my club.

But I had to be almost manipulative in a teacherly sort of way to "train" people to allow me to touch them. At first I'd touch people only when leaving them - on the upper arm. I'd do it when we were parting to communicate that their touching me back was completely voluntary and not required. It seemed to help if people with whom I'd like to invite closer to being friends with me would see how I treated my friends. I did this by touching those who were already my friends in their presence. Then they could say, "See, this is how she treats people she knows so I need to expect her to do that with me."

I got to experience being on the other end of how I irritated people by pushing their comfort zones recently. I have a friend who doesn't have much experience in social mores. As an unfortunate result, others do not want to be around her because she makes them feel uncomfortable with social blunders. But they can't quite put their finger on what she does that makes them want to exclude her if asked. One of the things she does is to stare at people. She does it because she likes them and is interested in what they're doing, but staring is also how she pays attention to what they're saying. Having her do that to you can really becomes irritating in a strange way. It begins to make you wonder if she's staring at you for her own agenda while she is making own judgments about your actions that she is sure to catchyou doing because she is watching so intently.

I make people uncomfortable because I'm so observant, even if I don't stare. Once people realize you have turned your attention to them, it's a bit unnerving to them how much you can successfully notice that they do not realize they are revealing to you.

There's a strange ripple effect in mentioning things that aren't often discussed too. In my past the mother of my stepson gave me this little talk about how the people closest to children are the ones who are most likely to be sexually molesting them. She got it from the news, so I could have merely cast the mention of the subject off as a media fad. But as time went by, I couldn't help but take what she had said personally. Her paranoia about what was not happening resulted in her six year old son no longer getting to enjoy being read to while sitting in my lap, or hanging out with the family and friends on the couch draped over each other in a puppy-pile. It was as if his mother was, in a roundabout way, trying to accuse me personally of molesting her son by cautioning him not to trust the grown-ups he knew about an issue which he had no clue what it meant at the time. Her actions really made me angry, because she cautioned her son in such a general way without giving him the real information about what was objectionable about it. But it also made me realize how an accusation like she made can so easily become the same as a foregone conclusion.

So I decided to let sleeping dogs lie and stop trying to get people to touch each other more often, along with not touching her son. It was a sad day to have to give up some of the true affectionate pleasures of taking care of her kid. It made me want to leave the situation and stop offering what I'd been doing for the family, but I imagined at the time that what she was saying was a reasonable request that had to be respected at some point anyway in her son's upbringing.

I think my decision at that time was a mistake, in retrospect. I should have negotiated that time in her son's life to do without parental affection to be when he was older, when he could have understood sexuality and how it could be twisted.

All these points seem related to me because how they are "for your own good."

At what point does an opinion or belief in a value (such as the value of being appropriately affectionate) become a coercion or a sales technique or proselytizing?

Aware Expectations

I was just a kid, excited about going on a trip. Because the logistics of going on a trip were beyond me and depended on many factors about which I knew nothing, the anticipated fun event didn't happen. Or course, I was crestfallen. 

Fortunately, I had very wise parents who took my childish disappointment very seriously. They apologized for giving me the idea that this exciting thing was going to happen. But they also made me realize that I had built up the expectation on my own, with very little encouragement from them. They hadn't committed the family was going to go on this trip, they had stated they were going to explore making a decision about it after they researched the details. The trip was going to happen eventually, but not when and how I had expected it.

They attributed me building up my expectations to how much I like to make up stories; making me see that I had created my own disappointment because I had a talent and a passion for storytelling. They helped me to realize that I couldn't blame them for being the cause of my distasteful disappointment. If fact, I came to understand that because I liked to make up stories and explanations for many things, that I couldn't blame anyone else for that talent in me. The nature of talent is that it is irresistible. Paradoxically enough - talent can be almost an obsessive curse.

But still, here I was, causing my own emotions, feeling bad and how was I going to deal with it? Surely this expectation that I'd built so carefully into a blissful state of excitement wasn't a negative thing?

Even if an adult promised me who had the ability to make these things happen, was it really in my best interests to expect it and possibly make myself feel bad if it didn't happen? I realized that, so many events and factors were out of my own knowledge and influence, things could go wrong for grownups too that were unexpected. It was possible for disappointment to happen to me at any time because of what I had packed with meaning by doing this expecting.

My family offered me a much more interesting question about expectations: How was I going to use my irresistible ability to tell stories to make me feel good instead of bad?

Wolf Teacher

I have known a couple of wolves,
and they were pretty socialized
animals, but they also did have
their own agenda, which might
or might not include you
as a human in their plans.
The most striking difference
between dogs and wolves was
the wolves’ lack of being
affected by what you
thought of them.

Dogs always care and want
to know you are pleased
with them – and adult wolves 

could pretty much care less 

what your needs were. It's 

part of why wolves have 

self-respect.
I have experienced exceptions 

to that lack of care. One of the
wolves I knew I accepted the 

responsibility to take care of as
a house sitter for six weeks 

while her people traveled. Of 

 course I had been friends 

with the wolf, having met her
previously. But I did not really 

appreciate how the wolf had
accepted me into the pack as 

a “family” member when I 

began to take care of her. 

Ten days into taking care of 

the wolf, I got some very bad 

news that a former boyfriend 

of mine had committed suicide. 

I was on the phone for days 

helping my ex’s relatives find 

places to stay when they 

arrived from out of state. Our

 ten year relationship had continued 

with his family, despite the two of 

us breaking up the five years
previous to his death. Of course, 

there were many cleanup details 

of sorting out the loose ends of an 

end of life scenario.
The strange thing was, with the 

wolf and I having spent only ten 

days together, for three days 

following the news, that wolf 

did not leave my side when I was 

with her. I was both touched and 

shocked to have become adopted 

as a pack member by her so 

absolutely as was evidenced by 

this wolf’s actions. The wolf was a 

source of solace by matching my 

state of mind and then transitioning 

me out of it better than any ever-enthusiastic
doe-eyed dog could have been. I’d 

never experienced anything like it 

then or since.
Strangely enough, this experience 

with the wolf made me understand
how many advantages there were to 

tempering my blinding enthusiasm
with a little friendly reserve. I began 

to show certain others with my actions 

their relative importance to me, and 

people responded.
People in my community took me 

so much more intentionally (even
when I wasn’t serious) as I made 

these changes in being aware of
how I affected them. It was quite 

a rite of passage for me.
But maybe there was perhaps 

another thing going on entirely...
Have you had experiences with 

a wolf?

Touchy

 I used to feel self-righteous about the level that my culture doesn't want to touch each other - almost to the point of "forcing" or "training" people to allow me to touch them and to invite being touched. I wrote a bit about that on my other more public blog. 

There were many other actions I did that violated people's cultural expectations about autonomy, independence, personal space and respect that I needed to become aware of and problem solve.  Lots of times, who I was trying to change showed me their sharp teeth and I had to learn not to take it personally. I've had to learn so much about body language to be able to deal with feeling rejected, isolated and misunderstood. For instance, being near-sighted and not comfortable with glasses or contacts, I tended to stand too close to people when talking, encouraging them to back away from me or flee during a conversation.

When I finally gave in and accepted that it was OK that people in my culture did not want to be touched, I think others lost out on the value I could offer them about the importance of being touched. But they didn't seem to want it.

It happened at the point where the mother of my stepson gave me this little talk about how the people closest to children are the ones who are most likely to be sexually molesting them. She got it from the news, so I could have merely cast it off as a fad. But I couldn't help but take what she had said personally. Because it resulted in her son no longer wanting to enjoy being read to while sitting in my lap, or hang out with the family and friends on the couch draped over each other. It was as if his mother was, in a roundabout way, trying to accuse me personally of molesting her six year old son by cautioning him not to trust people about an issue which he had no clue what it meant at the time. It really made me angry. But it also made me realize how an accusation like that is pretty much the same as a conviction. So I decided to let sleeping dogs lie and stop trying to get people to touch each other more often. I think my decision at that time was a mistake, in retrospect.

But I'm still on the fence whether it's a good thing to be "training" people to accept being touched - or to just accept them the way they are. In the last year, I have been adopted by a stray cat who doesn't like being picked up. But over time, he's learned to accept me doing that for him to hoist him up to where he gets fed, without scratching me. I reason that some day, I'm going to have to pick him up when he's upset and I don't want him to freak out and attack me. But it's really just that I like his fuzzy ass in my arms and I like enjoying his trust. It's a bit like that with my friends too.

Relationship Stages

An interesting view, that relationships have stages. Regarding the few intimate relationships I've had, would say the stages are:

• 1. Who is this person? What might we do together as a team?
• 2. Wow, this is wonderful. I'll do anything for her/him.
• 3. Wait a minute. Is what I'm doing to demonstrate love working how it's intended? Maybe this needs a bit of investigation and adjustment so the demonstrations I contribute to create love in the relationship goes where there are intended. In return, what I allow them to do for me also constructively floats my boat.
• 4. Trades, offerings and tacit agreements evolve and are enjoyed.
• 5. A way to update these agreements becomes necessary. Whether agreements are made tacitly, verbally, as trades or as "standing" agreements - is everyone on the same page about what the agreement is? Who does what for whom and who gets to wait for their desires/needs to be met, and how long do they wait? Does the "waitee" ever get what it is they want/need? Can agreements-customs be changed or updated as various member's needs change? For instance, if one of the members of the relationship gets injured and needs care to heal from the other(s), can the relationship be flexible enough to provide that care and later re-establish independence after healing without breaking apart?
• 6. Over time, everyone's challenges, shortcomings, strengths and/or style or preferences become familiar. Can each member accept the person's intent to do their best in bettering their character flaws, or accept these flaws? How to support and/or encourage improvement of personal character development and learning? How does each member "help" one another? Do the agreements that have evolved merely adjust and compensate for shortcomings? Or is there a recognition of a process that improvement is also evolving? Can personal change be accommodated? The answers to these questions makes or breaks the relationship.
• 7. If a "break" is happening, character flaws are assigned the role of punishment. It would be so nicer for ME if the person improved - they must not love me enough to improve themselves and make it easier on both of us. Mountain out of molehill sensitivity develops, noting the most minuscule expression of these character flaws in spite of ongoing improvement. The relationship must end; the pressure of having someone so invested in your shortcomings or successes is too pressurized.
• 7. a. From my own experience, the way out of this is to re-prioritize the constant recognition of the objectionable behavior(s.) Make a specific time to express objections all at once, (without defense is best) instead of constantly having uncontrolled emotional reactions come up all the time. Meanwhile, constructively rebuild the relationship based on enjoyable, bonded experiences so the enjoyment of being together is renewed.
• 7. b. Of course, if you work this out, you can start new projects together. If you don't navigate this stage very well, the two of you part ways, with various clean-up work ahead. Or you get so damaged that making further agreements are impaired,  but you keep going anyway.
  
• 8. I've heard after twenty years together, the partners change places in what their shortcomings have become. The shortcomings and complaints each used to have about the other swings in the opposite direction...sort of hilarious!
• 9. But by now, there's been some track record of getting past difficult times and hopefully, communication skills have increased well enough to continue indefinitely. Unless significant lifestyle changes intervene that make a liaison no longer practical or preferable for various reasons...

Always Loved

We are not the roles we assume. Roles are like jobs that can be replaced. People are not their roles of being a spouse, lover... Although the world assumes this is true and react accordingly.

Once I open myself to being intimate with someone else and grow to love them, from that point on it doesn't matter what they do next. I will always love them wherever they go. They must work hard to injure and destroy that love of mine - unintentional injury doesn't count.

If enough time has gone by, that can't be done completely - unless they intentionally and willfully work pointedly to do so. Even then, the time we spent when we were in harmony is always mine should I choose to keep it for myself. In time, I may find someone else to craft an alliance with that is more appropriate to needs, but that second person is not a "replacement" for the first. If we part, nobody can ever hold the same connection we shared because it was and is still unique. With each connection, (believing that great relationships are made and not found) I have been indissolubly changed by my experience of intimacy with them. In knowing them. It is as if I grow appendages that are uniquely shaped just for their connection of holding hands with me.

At least, that's my experience so far.

Animal Portraits!

Do you have a favorite kitty or canine? Send me a picture and I'll apply my artistry... It's not expensive - Only $100. per drawing, unframed. You'll have a lasting keepsake of your charming, loyal or playful animal companion.

Favorite Pet?

Do you have a favorite pet? 

Here's an example of a photo I was shown to be able to draw a likeness of this kitty named "Josie." You can see the drawing I made. What do you think?

Drawing Kitties

Black cats are often passed by in shelters in favor of other kitties who are more brightly colored ...because they're black, I guess. 

Besides being tricky to take a photo of a black cat, they're also tricky to make a drawing of too. 

The nicest kitty I know is black. Her name is Jasmine.  She's the second black cat I have met with that name. What makes Jasmine such a nice kitty is that she never gets mad at her person when she goes away. Instead, Jasmine gets mad at the person who "took" her person away for ten whole days. (The only person she ever bit!) 

This kitty has never scratched or bit anyone. I'd tell you her name, but I don't know how it's spelled. Minjka? I hear that this kitty I have drawn a picture of here is a one-person kitty. This person gets to have this kitty sleep on their bed and happily snuggle up to them and purr. But this kitty really doesn't want anyone to know she exists, because - well, you know how faithful a dog can be. This cat is faithful like a dog.

Wish I could purr. 

Give and Take Collection

    One of my ideas about blogging on so many subjects has been that themes would emerge by themselves. As I saw this happening, I reasoned that I could sift out the posts related to a certain theme and use them to start a targeted blog subject. A new subject seems to have emerged!
    Having written so extensively on this subject, I have decided that I should collect these posts into a separate blog that specializes in this subject alone. This post is a collection of the various posts on this subject, collected for your pleasure. 
     I've decided to collect these into the subject of a new blog - to be announced. I've been exploring this phenomena for some time now. I have previously written about the different aspects of the problem quite a bit, as you can see here.

    The subject of giving and taking is important. It's going to get to be a big factor as the baby boomers get to the point where they need to accept care gracefully during aging. For that reason alone, this issue could become a really important one to discuss.

Would you subscribe to a blog on just this subject as a way to allow yourself to free up the acts of gracefully accepting and learning about well-placed giving?

Here's where I ask questions about the different style of how gifts are offered, http://is.gd/5JfL6  asked around the gift-giving fervor of Christmas time.

Tacit Obligation http://is.gd/bMfhY
If someone has difficulty accepting, many times if you can vary the style of how the gift is offered, it will result in making it easier for them to accept. Making light of it's value is sometimes effective, because the best situation between giver and "givee" is when the thing is of great value to the givee and is easy for the giver to offer. But sometimes an action carries much more weight than anything they might say about it. Thus, accepting a gift incites obligation that may be only tacitly guessed. Why can't people accept a gift? A mystery part of a person is not sure what is the (sub)culturally tacit agreement about this gift; talking about it probably won't help.

Random Acts  http://is.gd/bMeST
Some people feel a need to remove themselves from the act, so that the receiver has no idea where the gift came from. It becomes impersonal. Thus we have all of the organizations that specialize in accepting tax charitable gifts and doing the messing actual giving to others.

Giving Back The proper way to "give back" is not always to do the exact same gesture, because needs are different. The mistake many people make in selecting what to give is they assume their value system of what is valuable is identical to the givee. This is not true. Being able to put oneself in the shoes of the givee is a thoughtful, compassionate act. So this is often a good reason to reject the offer of help - because what is being offered is misplaced and not of value from the point of view of the givee.

Gifts That Fit http://is.gd/bMeDi
In the small town of Bolinas, CA, we have a "freebox" where mainly articles of clothing are dropped off to be made available to anyone who wants them. The proper way to give back for the value of what you have gotten from it is to clean and organize the Freebox. Many people focus on the stuff itself; they mistake that the proper way to reciprocate is to bring more "stuff." Actually, having a place to bring your stuff to get rid of it is also a significant benefit. So the proper way to reciprocate is more like assuming the role temporarily of a "shop-keeper." A person who wanted to reciprocate would make the good stuff available to those who stop by looking to get something, (like pairing up shoes,) glean out the trash and every once in awhile, clear out the Freebox of all of it's donations so it's empty again to accept more stuff.

Allowing Benefits of Being The Giver  http://is.gd/bMeMk
 The Hawaiian spirit of Aloha is a wonderful template. It observes that you must allow someone to give, even if what is being offered is not of value to the givee. Being able to give is a human right, and by gracefully accepting, you are allowing this pleasure of giving to be exercised.

Consequences of Acceptance Generally with people who have trouble accepting being given to, it's important to ask what the accepting of gifts symbolizes. To some people, accepting what is offered is a "one-down" position in a competitive sense.  To others, they are fearful that accepting the gift will make them obligated to play the role eternally. They fear they're going to lose their independence as they learn to rely on the gift being provided routinely, and will act to prevent the source going away.

Independence Declarations Causing a Split I've also seen repeatedly a situation that seemed to be a direct result of mistaking the roles and pleasures giving and receiving. The situation was where a partner was forced to accept help because of a temporary injury. Evidently after recovery, the person who had been injured wanted to reject help from their partner to re-establish their independence and self-respect. ANY help was rejected entirely, so often and completely that even the "normal" pleasures of doing things for one's sweetie symbolized infantile dependence to the person who was in the process of recovering. If this was not purposefully addressed, it caused a breakup!

Respect http://is.gd/aTqdM 
Giving and receiving seems to be connected to how respect is shown. In our culture, you must choose between respect and having rapport. Here's a post where I explored it's application in how respect is signified in the context of speaking in a group interaction.  It's curious how listeners are valued socially, (which is a receptive role) when in the situation where the gift is tangible - suddenly the giver becomes the authority.

Suspicious of Greed It's also curious that when someone is in a situation of getting or having gotten a personal benefit, somehow what they offer or receive is suddenly suspect, because there's now a "invested interest." This is what happens when a person is really passionate about a belief in how something works for them and wants to communicate the benefit of their experience to others - everything they say about what they are passionate about is suddenly considered in that light or frame. They're proselytizers, rather than merely sharing their experience. I'm not sure why people believe that someone who is enthusiastic about something is self-involved or selfish. I would imagine the love of something would be an even higher recommendation of it!

Bonding http://is.gd/aTspT 
Some people take the giver/givee challenge to the point of refusing to establish the bond of a relationship entirely. I talk about that here: There are many rituals of establishing a bond as there are subcultures.

Entitlement http://is.gd/aTtf1
Here's another post where I talk about the anger that results when the givee decides they are "entitled" to what the givers are offering before they're getting it. This talks about greed.

Compliments http://is.gd/aTsR9 
Complimenting is also an interesting way of giving back that some people feel strange about accepting. Of course, it's a benefit to find out that what you do easily is notable for others - because it signifies what could be a valuable talent. Some people automatically reject them out of hand as an expression of the deadly sin of pride or ego. Some people regard compliments of the possession of an item as a way to ask for the thing to be offered by the person who has it. Here's a story about why I believe that complimenting is an important thing to do. In my culture, handing out a compliment implies the person was (like a puppy) explicitly seeking your approval, which may or not be true. Rejecting the gift implies that you would prefer to give yourself the approval. There are many other values signified by accepting a compliment that have people have reacted negatively to it.