The cradle of wisdom

In my previous blog I talked about wisdom, and in retrospect I realize that I mostly talked about the positive, or "good", side of wisdom and I'd like to touch on the more negative and unseen ways you can display wisdom. This probably won't be a long blog, since it's meant to just add finishing touches to an already discussed subject.

The idea that wise men do wise things, and that it means letting others benefit from what you've learnt, is definitely one side to it. But we don't usually talk about a "wise thief" or a "wise bank robber" and so on. In truth, wisdom can show itself in everything, and it is something that sets you apart from the rest.

A simple example of this is a wise burglar who makes a lot of preparations before choosing a home to break into, and uses a lot of clever tricks to make sure he knows that the inhabits are not home. He would make sure to bring the right tools for the job, and have a back up plan in case something goes wrong. A thief who doesn't run a high risk of getting caught or making a mistake.

Wisdom can therefore show in regards to how well you use information and self control in any situation. It isn't limited to "good" people.

I think one of the reasons why wisdom is typically thought of as a trait in good people is because of the self reflection it requires. Logically, it would make sense for a wise person to realise that their lifestyle is wrong, if it is one of crime, and thus try to change for the better. But that doesn't account for people who enjoy their criminal activities, and it certainly doesn't account for the people who are forced to do crime.

At the end of the day, the wise thief escapes capture and lives to steal another day. Wisdom is a difficult subject to discuss, because it isn't necessarily just about helping other people, but also about how best to harm them. I suppose it's how you use the knowledge that defines what kind of person you are.

Let's think up another example. Imagine a monarch who is called a wise ruler. You should expect this person to be able to pass proper judgement, make sure that his kingdom prospers and, maybe, expands. In war, a wise ruler would know how best to defeat his enemy, and make sure that his losses are minimal. As such, it can be wisdom to know how to make your people prosper while making your enemies wither. And thus we see it can be used to help or harm.

No matter what, wisdom is a subject that is very hard to narrow down to a single thing, and it's more or less applicable to a lot of things.

I've been meaning to talk about wisdom for quite some time. I always had difficulty with it, since I've been called both wise and stupid, so I thought I'd give it a go at trying to figure out exactly what people mean when they call someone "wise" and what it entails.

From the get-go wisdom seems incredibly hard to define, mostly because it's a subjective opinion whether someone is or isn't wise. Being called wise could also be said by those with less intellect about those with higher intellect, but that's pure speculation. What I really want to try and pinpoint is how wisdom can be identified, or how it reveals itself in a person. That's why my approach will be to try and look at it from different angles and see if we can adequately apply a "wise" tag to something. Feel free to add your own in the comments if you feel I've missed something, or if there are other situations in which a person could be considered wise.

The first way I know you can be wise, is by simply having experience. If you know what's going to happen, then you have the wisdom given to you by foresight, as you can predict what will happen again. An example of this would be a village elder who tells the others when to plant and when to harvest their crops. He would know the best times, because he has seen it happen before. He will also be able to advice on weather, and what to do with too much rainfall or a drought. In this capacity, the wisdom is "hard earned" if he didn't have anyone to teach him. If he was alone it could have been a "bitter" experience, since he may or may not have made a mistake and had to learn from it. He could've planted at the wrong time, and thus had no crop to harvest. But he could've also been passed on the knowledge by a previous elder, and seen it happen just as he was told, in which case what he had learned was reinforced by his experience. Therefore having foresight is extremely applicable to everything, because if you can guess what will happen in the future based on what you know, you can be relied upon for advice and, indeed, wisdom. This type of wisdom, of knowing what's going to happen in the future, is very practical if nothing else.

The next way that springs to mind is the wisdom gained by tempering your emotions. Controlling anger, limiting envy and jealously and responding to a threat in a calm and collected manner has often been seen as wisdom. By giving in to your emotions, you run the risk of overreacting or instigating hostility with someone else. Practicing self control isn't easy and takes a lifetime to master, but those who have learned to stay calm in a storm are the ones who are most reliable and likely to lead us safely through the turbulent waters into a safe habour. In order to control yourself in this way, you would have to have done quite a bit of self reflection, because in order to control anything, least of all yourself, you have to see it for what it really is, and that means seeing all the flaws in your own person. You would have to put yourself in situations or expose yourself to things you know full well you are not good at, and you would have to act against your "nature" and control your reaction, be it fear, anger, jealously etc. This type of wisdom by tempering your emotions has both practical and "spiritual" qualities. Practical because you would make a great diplomat when facing other people, and spiritual because you'd be more at peace with yourself when you've made yourself both your own marble and sculptor.

In the same line as "control", you have the wisdom to say the right things. Have you ever had a conversation where you thought up the perfect reply later taking a shower? Thinking back on it, you run through the conversation in your head and say to yourself "How I wish I had said that"? Of course you have, everyone has, and the wisdom to say the right thing at the right moment may seem like a simple thing to do, but it's very difficult in nature. I think it combines well with the previous kind of wisdom, to control your own emotions, because when you're calm it's much easier to perceive what people are after and be able to see through their intentions. I suppose this would be called rhetoric, and it was something that was practiced a lot in ancient Greece. After all, if you had the right ideas, but were a poor speaker, the audience would go for the person with the wrong ideas but excellent ability as a speaker. Besides engaging in discussions and seeing them sort of like fist fights but with words, I also believe that the right word at the right time can move hearts. Being able to say the right words of encouragement at the exact moment that it's needed is wise indeed. In this, you can change a person for the better or give them the motivation and strength they needed to push through and carry on. As such, the wisdom to know just the right thing to say is a powerful tool to stir hearts and reveal lies. I'm sure the practical applications of this are obvious, as for the spiritual, I believe you would first have to have experience or self reflection enough to encourage and debate well. So I think it's a good tool to make use of your spiritual knowledge, and not necessarily the main way to gain it, though you will obviously earn experience with humans if you debate or try to encourage them.

The last thing I can think of for now is the wisdom to act the right way. It's very similar to how you can say the right things, but here "act" is more a question of what you do. Picture a man helping the weak in voluntary work. He's doing his best and giving his strength to those less fortunate, and I think everyone would look upon such behaviour and think it is good. Helping others when they struggle, giving when you have excess and leading by example are all excellent ways of how to show wisdom by acting the right way. We remember these types of people fondly. Take Mother Teresa, for example, a paragon of charity who helped, and still helps through memory, people from all over the world. Such people are people we look up to and aspire to be. These are the people we think of when we say "If only the world had more of you, it would be a better place". Acting in the right way can come easily to some people, but if you are not by nature such a person, you will have to practice. No better way than doing something like "one good deed a day" to get into a rhythm, and some people who start doing this keeps doing more of it. But it goes without saying that acting the right way takes a lot of time and effort, selfless effort that doesn't necessarily give you any rewards, so for the greedy mind it can lack merit and seem stupid. I think this type of wisdom is the easiest to understand, because it is easily recognizable when a person does good things as it really stands out. The practicality of this is trying to make the world a better place, and I think spiritually you would find a lot of peace within yourself as well knowing you've made a difference for someone else. You do not need to save the whole world, but if you save one person, you will have saved the world for them.

Now that I've talked a bit about different types of wisdom, how to recognize them and why I consider them wise, I would also like to talk a bit about how to acquire them. While I touched upon it a little bit in each example of wisdom I gave, I feel the best way to start with any type of wisdom, is to be reflective and look at yourself and the world around you. If you are observant, and willing to accept that you are faulty, flawed and imperfect, you can begin trying to better yourself. And if you look at the world around you and see that it is faulty, flawed and imperfect, you can begin trying to make it a better place. It sounds easy, of course, but it's tremendously hard work, and I don't expect anyone to do it easily except for those who are blessed with talent and good nature. As such, wisdom can be a very personal journey as well as a very social activity, since I've touched on how you can affect your environment and society in every type of wisdom. This surely means that if you're observant, you can learn just as much from others as you may learn from getting to know yourself better. A lot of people have been in the place you've been before, and just like with any learning, you can "skip" experience and learn directly from the source, which would be a person who has already gone through it in this case. Such is our education built upon the pillars of those who came before us. If you refuse to walk in the foot steps of others, you can almost certainly be prepared to face bitter experiences, where your failures becomes your teachers. This is, in my opinion, both foolish and truly enlightening, as it can give you a profound understanding of yourself and what it means to be wise, while at the same time you have to toss yourself headlong into situations where you will fail, and might hurt yourself.

In conclusion, it seems to me that wisdom is a quality of using knowledge to yours, and others, advantage. It means to take control of a situation in a calm and collected manner, and make sure a situation doesn't get out of hand. It means to see through the lies and deceit of others, cut straight to the truth and duel eloquently and elegantly with words, while also being able to lift people up with encouragement. And finally it means to act in a beneficial way for not just yourself, but for your community and those around you, and make the world a better place with your actions.

To end my blog, I'd like to quote Confucius on how to acquire wisdom: “By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”

Thank you for reading, and for your patience, and I'll see you in my next blog entry. And in previous fashion, I'll share a little bit more about myself. I've never fallen in love, which in turn makes it hard for me to see how people can be so fond of each other, and I struggle with the concept.

This is a little titbit that I thought of while I was doing nothing.

I was sitting and contemplating the differences between order and control, and I thought I'd give it a proper blog and write down my thoughts about it. First of all, order is a type of control, and control is a type of order. You cannot have one without the other, so at the fundamental level they are very much alike. I will therefore look at each one and try to analyze it as we go.

To have order, you need a set of rules. This doesn't mean that order is neat, it can also be one giant chaotic mess. But the reason why order is there is because everything or everybody are following certain rules. Think of the natural laws and how everything reacts with each other in a certain way. If there were no rules determining what something does in a particular situation, we would not be able to build anything lasting on it's foundations.

Besides having rules, they must also follow a specific kind of logic. If the rules are random you will be left with chaos. As long as the rules are clearly defined and follow a specific logical pattern, you can have order. To demonstrate this, let's take a society, and let's call it society A. Society A has all the normal rules we would expect of a society. They have laws that says not to murder, steal, assault etc. But society A doesn't have any laws that forbid the consumption of meat. Now let's take a look at society B. Society B has the same laws as society A, except that society B forbids the consumption of meat. Therefore society B is based on fruits and vegetables. These two societies can exist perfectly fine apart, but if you took a citizen of society A and switched him with a citizen of society B, you would have a sort of chaos. You have now introduced a foreign entity that doesn't follow the rules and logic of the two societies.

In this case the order must be enforced. If the person who enjoyed meat tried to get some, it would be illegal and he had to be punished. If the person who couldn't eat meat tried some, he would have broken an internal order, and would perhaps feel guilty. In the first example the person who enjoys meat is not at conflict with himself, but the society is at conflict with him. He upsets the order, and thus he has to be punished to uphold the rules and logic. In the second example the person is perfectly fine to eat whatever he wants, but having lived in a society that forbids meat all his life, he would probably find it a guilty pleasure. This person would face a dilemma within himself, and while the order of the society is not disturbed, his own inner order is. Something has to give. Either A/B stays true to his, or his society's, beliefs or he breaks the rules and tries meat.

In either case order has been broken. Therefore it is a good time to talk about chaos. Chaos is the opposite of order, which means that chaos works by having no rules and no logic. It doesn't necessarily mean that chaos doesn't follow logic or rules, just that it is random. In the case of the citizens, they both follow seemingly random logic, compared to the logic of the society they were put in, and has a different set of logic as well, which would also be seen as random. If we took the citizens to the next level, and thought up a society C that has the same rules as society A, but all of it's citizens have different rules and logics within themselves, we would also see chaos on a mass scale. In this case, order is maintained by the society's rules, but each citizen is secretly operating based on their own. Such a society is more or less what we live in, and that's how we have crime.

Another interesting aspect of chaos is that, if a system of order is particularly large enough, even if all the elements follow a pattern that pattern can change based on chance. Take crystal structures, for instance. They will fit into formation and follow a pattern, but the results can be chaotic. You can manipulate the patterns, of course, like with a snow flake for instance. But the ways you can combine the patterns seems almost endless.

Now let's take a look at control. What does it mean to be in control? To take charge of a situation and direct it's flow? I like to think of control as being able to change something at any time. To explain it better, I will use the domino effect. If you can stop the falling of the dominos, you are in control. If you somehow built a very large domino structure, and you are no longer capable of stopping it, you are not in control. Based on this definition a person in control of a situation can change, stop or start whatever the person wants at any given time. Looking at it from a human perspective, you can also be in control if the other person lets you be in control. You could technically argue that the person being controlled could stop, start or change the situation at will, and therefore be the one who really is in control, and you'd be right. But most often than not, there are circumstances to this that means the person does what they are told because of something else controlling them. It could also be that something compels them to do as they are told, and as such simple act as a piece of the puzzle. Thus we could form a "chain of control" which extends pretty far with each person being controlled by something else, but being in control of something. This might be better for a different discussion, as I just want to look at what control means for order.

If we use the example of the two societies again, then society B exercises it's control over the meat loving citizen when he tries to get meat. They are able to put him in a prison, effectively taking away his freedom and thereby controlling where he is and what he is doing. However control is not what we call inanimate chemistry or laws of physics. In order to control, there must be a will. And to break order, there must be a will. That is why we cannot say that "something has asserted control" unless it is a thinking being. Because order is just obediently followed without any encouragement needed in chemistry or physics.

Now we can begin to see a certain pattern. In thinking beings, order is maintained with control. Control in this case means to discourage or encourage behaviour that fits with the order. Order is therefore a term that has a very passive meaning to it. Order is just there, being followed or not, while control has a very active meaning. Control is what a thinking being use to force another thinking being to follow the order, or what a thinking being forces objects to follow. In a way a building would be order formed through control of the humans who built it. Once it is built, it requires maintenance, yes, but that is because the atoms are following the same logic and rules as they did when they were put together in a certain way.

So to compare order and control more directly, control is probably the more easy to explain. It is easy to control someone or something to do as you want to, if you have the power to do so. But order is what happens without control. If the person or object you want to control still follow your order, then you will have achieved a passive order where they follow your rules and logic. If the person or object you want to control do not follow your order when you are no longer in control, then your order was imposed on them and they do not truly follow it.

As kinksters it is obvious that control can be sexy. And to lose control can be intoxicating. But usually a person do not want to be under control all of the time, or have lost control all of the time. Therefore if a person can regain control, or otherwise can regain a different order than the one you imposed, then once your control is lost they will naturally bounce back to their preferred order. Control is therefore fleeting, and must be maintained, while order is more of a baseline that a person can fall back to. If you desire something more long term, then you will have to change the order so that even when control is lost, the order remains the same.

I thank you all for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the thoughts. Also my favourite colour is red.

Today I would like to talk about traits. More specifically I would like to talk about how a lot of people seem to mix them up with each other, and how people link certain traits together.

Let's start with the basics. If we were to define a "trait", we would get something like: "a distinguishing quality or characteristic." Therefore a trait is something like being kind, being patience or enjoy a certain kind of music. It wouldn't be too far off to say that a personality consists of a whole bunch of traits that all act upon our decision making. This nature of a trait also means you can have conflicting traits, or rather, traits we perceive as conflicting.

Take for instance a person who we perceive as "strong", without going into more details with what "strong" means. If we also were to describe such a person as "dominant", they would go well together hand in hand, because people associate being dominant with being strong. But what happens when someone we perceive as "weak" also has a trait we see as "dominant"? Likewise, what happens when someone we perceive as "strong" has a "submissive" trait?

The best situation I can think of was a couple where the woman was submissive and the man dominant. They volunteered to share their experiences as a couple, and they therefore disclosed this information to their nearest friends, especially the woman's friends. The friends, who were not submissive at all did not understand why the woman did what she did. They described her as "independent and strong". In their minds, being submissive went against those two other traits, and as such it was an illogical decision for the woman to chose to be submissive.

But that's where they were wrong. Being submissive isn't exactly something you chose. The reason why so many of us are on this site, is because we were born with it, and we couldn't find common ground with a normal vanilla partner. In society, you are either being manipulated or abused if you willingly chose to submit, despite being strong and independent. The same goes for the dominant. If he is perceived to be dependent and weak, people are just not able to see him as a dominant, even though he can easily have all three traits all at once.

This is where the misunderstanding occurs. Traits are not something that follows abc logic. One doesn't necessarily mean that another similar trait follows. It's all a jumbled up mess, and sometimes it even seems random. And maybe that's the truth of it. It's random, and that's how every single person on this world can be seen as "unique", kind of like a fingerprint. But the human mind loves logic and putting things together in boxes. That's why society has that view on the couple, and that's why the friends can't accept that their strong, independent friend is a submissive.

In truth, I would suggest that certain traits we have drive us to be a certain way. Just like how emotions guide us onto a certain path, having a preference, meaning a trait, will eventually lead you to want to explore in that direction. By this I mean that, if you are dominant, no matter what else you are, you will naturally enjoy and seek out situations where you can let out your dominant side. It will feel good in a way that is hard to understand for a person that doesn't have that particular trait. You've probably seen people do something where you thought: "that is so boring." And to you it might very well be. If that person were to try and describe the joy and pleasure they get from doing it, it would be hard for you to follow unless you also had some trait that compelled you to do something you really enjoyed.

Experiences like that tend to be the best way to describe traits and why you wish to follow them. That's probably also the reason why society has this contorted view of what is right or wrong, because when something isn't "right", you typically discard it or throw it away without trying to understand it. The only people who could understand a person who thoroughly enjoys doing something, is a person who also thoroughly enjoys doing something else or maybe even the same. That is why it is so freeing to get together in a place like this, where we can all share together in our common traits.

But back to what this means for a submissive and a dominant. Since I feel I've talked more about the submissive, I want to start with the dominant. Imagine again a dominant who is perceived as weak. This person could very well be the most experienced and skilled dom in existence, but because of being perceived as weak, you may not want him as a dom. I obviously cannot speak for the submissive community, but I think most subs would definitely prefer to have a "strong" dom compared to a weak dom. But what if this dom could bring out the absolute best in you? What if this dom, despite being perceived as weak, could make you the best person you could ever be? The struggle for such dominants, who are not allowed to show weakness, is that they are not necessarily the big strong or confident type. They are human like the rest of us, and they have doubts like the rest of us. A dom is not a super human, nor does he need to be. And sometimes the "weak" doms are the ones who actually understand weakness the best. They understand why things are hard and why things go wrong. They understand how to be optimistic, because they go through everyday trying to stay afloat. Such a dom might have a fundamental understanding of how to help improve a person, that they would make an excellent dominant.

Compare that to a submissive, and with society's view that subs are "weak", what if we look at a "strong" sub? I don't know if I only speak for myself, but for me, a "strong" sub is preferable, and I'll try to explain why. If you were to pick a servant, someone to obey you, the best choice would be the most capable and skilled servant there is, correct? If you had a sub that could do every single order perfectly and carry themselves in a way that would make you proud, they would be an ideal sub. But if you think of a "strong" sub, you will probably also go: "Why would a sub like that listen/serve you, if you are weaker?" This is again associating different traits with each other. Just because a person seem to appear to be a certain way, they may secretly crave something else entirely. How many stories haven't there been about dominant and confident bosses who secretly want to be submissive? How many stories of the timid, frail and shy character, that turns out to be a dominant monster?

As such, I want to finish off my blog post by repeating the main points of my rantings. Traits, such as "strong", "weak", "dominant" and "submissive" don't necessarily follow a logical pattern. It is a random assortment you get, and it's important not to "judge a book by it's cover." You need to try and experience how other people feel instead of dismissing them, as dismissal will lead to an ignorant world. Therefore, try your best to learn about the whole person before deciding what kind of person they are, and who knows, you might find something you really like.

As always, this is just a theory, and I hope it sparked some thoughts for discussion. Have a nice day!

It has been quite some time since my last blog entry. A few personal, and not so personal, things happened that took my attention. That, and sometimes it's far more rewarding to have a dialogue instead of a monologue. In any case I find myself back here again, to read and watch a few blogs and people.

Some time ago, I talked about strength. And I had the theory that men use the word "strong" for a man who is physically and/or mentally strong, while women usually use the word strong for someone who is mentally strong. I quickly found that I was only half right. As with most psychology, you always have a pretty big margin of error, and while the women who responded tended to value strong mental traits, and the men who responded seemed to value strong physical and mental traits equally high, there were obviously some who didn't follow along those lines. This was probably my own fault, because I had ventured into a very subjective territory, but I still appreciated the responses that I got.

One of the reasons why my theory couldn't hold water was because we didn't have the same definition of physical and mental strength to begin with. Let me explain. If you think of strength, and you take the absolute bottom and say "Well the weakest person in the world wouldn't physically be able to lift anything", while the strongest person would be "able to lift anything", then you have a pretty good idea of the difference in strength. I fully understand that "being able to lift anything" borders on godhood, but it's a good place to visualize strength as two extremes. It's relatively easy to define physical strength like that, but once you begin to use that definition for strength on mental strength, things start to go wrong. For example, what is mental strength? The ability to think fast, or be able to hold several ideas at once in your head? Is it having a good memory, or is it about how flexible your mind is? It's very difficult to think of a classic "strong" mental trait, because it simple doesn't make sense to compare it to a physical trait. People might say someone who is able to take a lot of mental abuse might be strong, but that would more fittingly be attributed to toughness instead of pure strength. So, the reason why my theory was not correct, is because I took two concepts that were incomparable to each other and tried to find something in common.

Secondly, and probably the most obvious, is that men and women are different. If I had thought about it, I would've realized that I "stated the obvious". I could've just as well say that girls tend to play with dolls and boys with swords. It is a generalization, and there will always be those who don't fit into it. Thus I stated something that is public knowledge, and therefore not very meaningful.

In hindsight, I could've probably just asked what people think mental strength is. As we saw, it was easy to define two absolutes on physical strength, but a lot more difficult to attribute strength to a mental trait. Maybe the word "strong" is an umbrella for several terms. Toughness, resilience, perseverance etc. I would probably have gotten quite a few different ideas of what mental strength is, but even if I got some great suggestions, I probably wouldn't be able to use it for anything other than conclude that the word "mentally strong" is very subjective.

Perhaps if we think a little bit more abstract, we might be able to derive some sort of conclusion. Let's just assume that there is good and evil. And let's use the 7 deadly sins as inspiration for a "mentally strong" person. If we consider the sins to be signs of a mentally "weak" person, and in this case that would be moral weakness, we can try to establish a mentally strong person (with this definition of course).

Let's start with pride. A prideful person would believe himself better than everyone else. He would stubbornly refuse to associate with, and maybe not even acknowledge, others. He would believe himself to be the pinnacle of humanity, the very definition of perfection, and step on all others. He would refuse to believe that anyone else knew more than him, or could teach him anything at all. In contrast, a person with his pride under control would know that he isn't much different from everyone around him. He would be humble, and acknowledge his fellows. He would believe himself to be one of many, instead of being unique. He would be open to learning, and would know that others have plenty to teach him.

For a glutton, he would eat until he burst. He would never say no to stuffing himself full, and he would seek to do so at all times. By indulging himself constantly, he would always crave more and more. In contrary, the man who would only eat what he needs to, who would demonstrate restraint when faced with temptation, he would be free of a ruinous hunger. There would be little waste for such a man, and he wouldn't take away food from others who might've needed it more than he does.

For greed, the man who could never amass enough wealth, and hoards it without every sharing it, would again be weak to temptation. His greed would rule his life, and he would, like gluttony, take away more than he needs. A man of the opposite disposition would not cling onto his wealth, and would understand that there is a time to save and a time to spend. By doing so, he would share his wealth instead of holding onto it too tightly. He can therefore resist temptation better than the man who give in to his greed.

A sloth would laze about and not do much of anything. He would prioritize sleeping, avoid all work and be unwilling to put in any effort. By doing this, he can't reach his full potential, and will waste away his days without achieving much. For the opposite man, he would resist the temptation to spend all his time doing nothing. He would do so in moderation, but also be willing to work and put in effort when it is needed.

For a wrathful man, he would take out his anger on anyone and everyone. All would be equally deserving of his wrath, no matter how little they may deserved it. He would not be able to control his anger, and he would let it consume him. A man with his anger under control would only get angry when it was justified and reasonable. He would never take his anger out on anyone who did not deserve it, and he would not cause unjust harm to anyone.

As for envy, he would only look to his neighbor and dream of what they possess. He would always strive to not only have more, but have what he can't have. It wouldn't matter if he needed it or not, if he doesn't have it he wants it. A man who has no envy would look to his own and see how much he already has. He would find joy being able to appreciate the little things in his life, and he would congratulate his neighbor for having more, rather than wanting it for himself.

Finally a lustful person (the irony of writing this on TheCage is not lost on me) would drown himself in it. He would do nothing but seek to satisfy his carnal urges, day in and day out. For him, the world would revolve around getting his next fix, and he could not be trusted to stay faithful, should he ever be in a committed relationship. On the other hand, a person who has no lust would not seek it out more than necessary. He would resist temptation, and stay faithful, rejecting to lose himself in the pleasure and thereby keep a more level head.

The conclusion to the comparison between the two people with the 7 deadly sins is that mental strength seems to focus on being able to resist temptation, and knowing how to balance desire with what is reasonable. Someone who isn't full of himself, while also living an active and healthy life, where you don't deprive yourself of anything, but also never overindulge. This is obviously just one take on mental strength, but I found it to be very interesting, especially how mental strength in this case seems to rely on getting along well with others, not taking too much from them and staying true to them.

Anyway, true or not, what really matters is the thought process itself. I had fun, and I hope you had too.

I expressed a few of my frustrated thoughts in my previous blog, and while I think they're completely valid, I still feel a bit embarrassed about them. I decided to go and do the opposite in this blog, to even it out a bit. With that said, I hope you'll forgive me for my outburst and here's something pleasant for you to enjoy as my apology.

Whenever I see a couple on here who is in perfect sync with each other, I can't help but feel envious and jealous. But it's the good kind, the kind where you wish you were in their position. I always seem to quietly cheer them on in my head, and hope for the best in their daily lives. It must be such an amazing feeling to have found a person who, not only is attractive personality wise, but also matches your sexuality. I've met a lot of people who felt unfulfilled because they never did match completely.

Which is why I think it's amazing that everyone here, even though there is a bit of a mainstream going on, has an opportunity to display and explain their various sexualities and fetishes. Feeling accepted, especially in a society where these sorts of perversions aren't appreciated more often, is something I believe most human beings are looking for. We ARE pack animals after all, and there are few pleasures as gratifying as feeling you belong somewhere.

On that note, it's also amazing to see how many experienced, and inexperienced, people are willing to help each other in the forums! You get the perspective of someone who has been through a lot, and also the fresh, new view of someone just starting. To me, it helps immensely to create a nuanced spectrum of our various doms and subs.

I suppose this atmosphere springs from the fact that everyone is exposing themselves here. It's stressful, embarrassing and sometimes scary to express exactly what you like and what you want, especially if people are unwilling to understand. But I hope that everyone of you know that while you are putting yourself in a vulnerable position, dom and sub alike, you are doing it with so many others who are also just slowly, gradually and carefully sticking their necks out to find happiness.

And how amazing is it to find everything from the most hardcore sadist and masochist to the most softcore of the bunch. There's a little something for everyone here, and if you look closely, I'm completely sure you'll eventually find the one you can truly feel comfortable sharing your sexuality with.

Well that's just a little something I felt like I wanted to write/say. The old "carrot and stick" approach, so I hope you enjoyed the carrot after my previous stick.

Also I really enjoy strawberry ice cream as well.

Something that I see quite often on this site is people overly relying on poster quotes. While a good quote isn't a bad thing, I can't really stand the "live, laugh and love" mentality of them. Especially when they're just plain wrong.

One of the things I see most often are things such as "you need to earn my submission" or "a good dom brings out the best in you" etc. And while I agree with those notions, I find it absolutely appalling to consider them to be the "one road" to whatever excellence they seem to ship.

What I mean by that, is that dominance isn't just defined by your definition of good or bad. A dom is a dom regardless of what you might think of him, if he illustrates dominant traits. For example, a dom does absolutely not need to "bring out the best in you" to be a good dom. He can just as well tear you down and break you. And you absolutely have situations where respect or "earned" submission means squat, where a dom takes hold of you whether you like it or not. Those things happen, and it's not some pretty little thing that you can twist around in your hand and look at whenever you seem to be feeling down.

I completely detest whenever someone makes something I stand for be portrayed in such a black or white image. Some of the best moments of my domineering has been when I have literally acted like a spoiled child, mentally just playing around with a sub and treating them as a toy. It is kind of like when you see kids catch a bug and then tearing off it's wings and watch it struggle in vain. They will giggle or snicker at this poor creatures worthless struggle to get away, even though they are fully aware that they've taken the one thing that allowed it to do so.

What does your frail "good or bad" imagery have to say to such a scene? Have you considered the fact, that a lot of doms are sadists who want nothing more than to see you in pain for their own childish amusement? "It'll be fun to watch you struggle", "I just wanted to see you in pain", "I want to break you" and so on. Don't tell me you've never heard or seen these things before.

Just because you're into the "caretaker" type of dom doesn't mean you suddenly get a monopoly on what is good taste. I certainly don't go portraying my ideal type of sub as the ideal type of sub for everyone, and I certainly don't pretend that I know everything there is to know about being submissive. There's a reason why I'm a dominant. I've experienced dominant traits and I found that it's a part of me. The only way you'll be able to get to know the other side well, is if you sit down and find someone to talk to about it. And even then, that's just one person's perspective.

This is a bit of an angry way to say something like "fuck your opinion and get a broader perspective" or "fuck your stupid quote pictures".

Also my favourite ice cream is chocolate flavoured.

One of the things I find most frustrating about today's society, is that we don't place enough emphasis on how important it is to be taught how to think.

Yes, students are taught to be independent thinkers, at least in my country they are, but that's not really what I mean by being taught how to think, though that certainly is a good thing. What I mean is, that if you take the Greek society from when Socrates was around, you'd notice how a lot of youths were given educations in how to logically and critically think. Philosophers were the ones who got paid by wealthy citizens to teach their children how to think like them.

In our modern society, that sort of teaching has been replaced by the sciences or other such teachings. They are, of course, incredibly good to be taught, but we don't really get taught on the proper ways to think anymore unless we actively seek it out. I think part of that has to do with the misconception that we all know how to think already, and different ways of thinking is just personality or opinions.

I have to say that this way of thinking is, ironically, very wrong. True, we all know how to think, just as we all know how to walk. But if you ask someone who walks a few km every day, or a person who only casually walks, about walking you'd get very different answers. Experience is definitely a good teacher, and sometimes the only way to get experience is to try out something. But if that was the case, then our educational system would be struggling to teach students everything that is required for places like university. No, we can't teach everyone experience, so we try our best to relay whatever the experienced have experienced to younger students, and hope that they will accept it, take it further and thus have new experiences of their own from which they can write a book and teach the younger generation.

But how do you then put this kind of system into practice with something as flimsy as philosophy? With the hard sciences, we know for a fact that things will happen in a certain way, and there aren't really much room to have a different opinion about it. For example, we can all universally agree, that if you drop an object, while on earth, it will fall towards the center of earth. If someone says it'll stay floating, we can easily dismiss this idea by simply showing him/her that he/she is wrong. Simple and easy.

But for philosophy, we don't have much to prove that one way of thinking is correct. That's also why, whenever we have systems created by man, such as politics, we never have one, true and best system. There are several, and they constantly change reflecting on the personal opinions of the people in charge and whatever the population believes in. Incredibly annoying if you want to figure out some sort of all encompassing truth.

So, since we can't really use philosophy in this way, what we really do need to teach people is not what to think, but how to think. There are superior ways to think, and we aren't really given much direction or ways to practice this in our school system at the moment. Again, I only really know my own, but I suspect that this also applies to many other countries. To make an example of what should be taught and what could be taught, I would like to reference logical, and biased fallacies. They are a set of flaws in an argument, that makes for a poor way to argue. The more a person misuses these "rules", the better he is at hiding, manipulating and otherwise obscuring the truth. You will find that a politicians rhetoric will make use of logical fallacies to undermine his opponents arguments.

If a person were to be taught how to argue, how to establish a proper discussion, I think we would all be able to live in a better world. Too many times have I seen people on here, and indeed everywhere else, fall into the pit traps that are fallacies. They have inadvertently undermined their own arguments in such a crucial way, that others do not even have to refuse whatever point they were trying to make. It simply crumbles on it's own. And this, for a lack of a better word, sucks balls.

The way the philosophers of old taught the youths who were placed in their charge, were how to reach logical conclusions based on simple logical thinking. They were taught how to properly respond in a conversation, and they were able to more easily see through poor reasoning or lapses in logic. I have been with several people who, for some reason, seem to equate education with better thinking. Thinking can definitely be trained by experience if you use it more regularly, and the sciences are a great source of critical thinking.

But the biggest problem is that thinking can be warped, flawed and wrong if we don't hold it in a firm leash. You are constantly affected by your surroundings, your social circle, your own emotional state and everything in between. Unless you train your thinking, you could easily become the sort of person who, in spite of years and years of education, become an irrational and out-of-touch person to be with.

If you are reading this, then ask yourself what logical fallacies are and which you remember, or if you don't know them at all. Make sure that you do your best never to become the type of person who wins an argument based on flawed reasoning. And most importantly, make sure you never become a person so ingrained in their own thinking, that you never change your viewpoint when a superior stance is presented to you.

So, just to conclude what I've said, I believe that training and teaching how to think is an essential skill in life. I believe that our current system focuses too much on accumulating knowledge, and too little on how to refine our minds. There are way too many people who live, and die, without really understanding how absolutely incapable they have been because they never learned how to think.

Today, I'd like to talk a bit about my personality contra my sexuality.

This is my personal experiences, so it's needless to say that it's nothing but my own thoughts and musings on the matter.

I firmly believe that the two are not the same. That might be a "d'uh" moment for some, but for me it was quite a big revelation. I've always had quite a strong libido, and have been a "horny" little brat since my childhood. When I was younger and tried to explore things sexually, I had a mother who would stop me, or not explain it to me properly. She made me feel like there was something wrong with me, for expressing sexual desire and wanting to watch porn. I had quite a struggle trying to turn that image of myself around as I got older. I realised that it was perfectly normal to have desires, and especially to have desires different from others.

As I explored deeper and deeper, I found things that I didn't know that I liked. People have always said that somehow porn can "corrupt" a persons mind, but it felt more like discovering those parts of myself that I didn't even know that I had. Meaning the potential was always there, I just need a trigger to wake the desire in me. It was exciting, but also worrying, because the more I looked, the more I found out that my sexuality and personality aren't compatible.

Personality wise, I'd say I'm pretty mild. I don't hold great expectations towards people, but I'm always happy when those expectations are exceeded. I want to help rather than destroy, and I believe in mistakes as an important part of learning. Basically what I'm trying to say is, that I enjoy building someone up, rather than break them down.

My sexuality is almost entirely different. I enjoy breaking people down, both mentally and physically. I enjoy making them second guess, doubt and feel insecure about themselves. Humiliation and degrading are a big part of what turns me on. Then comes the pain. I quite enjoy making something feel pain or discomfort. It's almost like more is better, but it's not always practically viable. There's a fine line between going too far, and just enough. Not really sadistic, but interesting nonetheless, is that I also really enjoy the thought of "constricting" people. I've had an experience where I got turned on from pinning down a fellow male classmate in a friendly brawl. Aside from that, I enjoy obedience. The process of turning someone into a useful tool, through training and conditioning is riveting to me. On a side note, that is probably what I enjoy the most about the whole "BDSM" area. People ARE objects, and you can treat them as such without anyone going "That's man/woman hating!".

In any case, they are polar opposites. Now that I have more control over which part of me is which, I've tried to find something that I enjoy both personality- and sexuality wise. I don't speak for every man, but it's quite hard NOT to be horny. I've met a lot of women who say they are "not in the mood" or "haven't been in the mood for some time", but for me, at least, my sexuality is a constant presence. It spurs me on, gives me thoughts that I wouldn't normally have and tries to influence the way I am thinking. I am sure that other men, at the very least, have felt this before, for example regretting going home with a girl the day after, or doing something stupid because they were horny.

The way I've been able to live with both, so far, has been hard. They're not exactly in harmony. I kind of have to "switch" between them, and I've often found that something I did when I let my sexuality take over, made me feel guilty and regretful when I was back in my personality. Likewise, NOT letting my sexuality have free reins sometimes will leave me feeling unsatisfied and, again, regret that I didn't do "more".

Maybe it's just been my luck, but I haven't actually met a girl who I could ever be both with. Either it was my personality or my sexuality who was more in control. Definitely something I hope to change in the future.

In any case, I've noticed that, since our mind isn't really our own, and we are constantly afflicted with thoughts and nudges from our reptile brain, that when I have an orgasm, I have a brief moment when I "almost" lose all sexual desire. In those moments it all seems pointless, stupid and, sometimes, gross. That's when I have felt most "in tune" with my personality. I've often wondered, in those moments, whether there was an effective way to "cut off" this source of sexual desire. Although I've also tried being on medication which led to a loss of libido, and I remember that I was very scared that it would be gone forever. I think what my point is, is that it's really hard to live with both, but despite how much I hate having to cater to both of them, I don't really want to lose either one.

I also want to stress that it's not so black and white that it's always one or the other. It's usually just a mix of thoughts influenced by the situation. For example, I am sure you don't act afraid all the time, but when you ARE afraid you will act a certain way. Or when you are stressed you might feel worse, because of the situation you find yourself in. It all very much depends on the context.

So that's a bit about my constant struggle between serving the needs of my personality and sexuality. I have yet to find an equilibrium.

Hello!

I have spent a bit of time (over two months) doing as little as I possibly could (because that's how I relax)!

Besides that, I've struggled trying to come up with something to write about for when I got back. I haven't been able to really find anything that is substantial or meaningful by nature, so I decided to ask some people for advice, and here I am. It's funny how time flies when you decide to take a break. How everything just seems to slowly disintegrate into one big puddle of undetermined substances. Kind of like how I always got gray when I wanted to mix all of the colours into one during my childhood. I think what I'm trying to say is, that once you try to do everything all at once, you lose motivation and put certain projects on the back burner for a while, intentionally or inadvertently.

In any case, it's nice to finally be writing something again. Anything really, as I've not been in the mood for a long time. Although I've tried doing nothing, I've also had to move, pick up new subjects to study and get comfortable with the fact that I am now 30 years old. Probably an insignificant milestone when you put it into perspective, but compared to all the people I am currently associating with, 30 is quite old. I'd like to look back one day and think about how silly I was for thinking this thought.

I have some ideas on what to talk about, but nothing that I really know for sure I'll actually write. Maybe I'll just dedicate the next few blogs to myself. After all, isn't that what most bloggers do in any case?

Anyways, I really hope people have been doing alright and I'll be glad to "lurk" around the forums again.

Cheers!