The Culture that has been here all the time

Google AI Overview
Having multiple romantic or sexual partners simultaneously, often referred to as polyamory, is a practice where individuals engage in relationships with more than one person at a time, with the understanding and consent of all parties involved. It's a form of consensual non-monogamy, where the focus is on open communication, honesty, and equality within the relationships. 

I explored the idea of Polyamory and even had a Friend with Benefits for a short time. It wasn't bona fide, however, as my wife can neither participate, consent, nor object. We have been married for forty years and have been monogamous and sincere to each other. In my youth, I was promiscuous but tempered with periods of monogamy.

Now I don't know what I am or what I want. There are days in my old age when I desire sex, but I have a slim chance of finding a partner. I have tried, but I have come up empty, and nothing that has happened suggests that will change. We live in a typical family populated neighborhood, and if I had chosen to move into a community of active adults (fifty-five and up), I probably would have had lovers.

Do people in retirement homes have a lot of sex? 
 
"Google AI Overview
 
Yes, older adults in retirement homes do experience sexual activity and intimacy. While it's not always a public topic, studies show that a significant portion of seniors between 65 and 80 remain sexually active. This can manifest in various ways, including intimate relationships with partners, both within and outside the facility, and also includes personal sexual expression." 

So gone is the assumed idea that sex ends with a certain age (even if young people have trouble imagining it). I miss out because I am just a victim of my circumstances and my decisions.

What constitutes too much sex is as subjective as too much good weather.

Too much of anything is certainly a judgment made by each of us in our unique way, and it applies to everything from food to drink to relationships.

The first time (or the first several times) is a special condition that usually morphs into a routine. Routines can be okay, but they can diminish the excitement, joy, and specialness of the subject of the routine. Taking a break usually restores some of the pleasure lost to excessive repetition. WE all know "make up sex" is great, and having a favorite food we didn't have for a while renews the pleasures.

Can this phenomenon be modified? Maybe. Yet, how this is accomplished may have some risk, and it may not always work. In other words, the break may be the only real solution.

So, whether a course of abstenance is chosen or applied to us by serendipity, it still seems to function as described above. There are a number of ways to inject "the spice of life," and they all amount to variety as each of you may define it.

Pix a bay photo of serendipity:

Perfection is subjective. Therefore, it is fluid and can be amended and adjusted according to the results of events,  or a change in perspective.

The ideal is a standard envisioned and striven for but never achieved.

One of Zeno's Paradoxes:
Dichotomy Paradox:
To travel a distance, one must first travel half the distance, then half of the remaining distance, and so on, creating an infinite sequence of distances to cover. This suggests that any journey is impossible because it would take an infinite amount of time. 

If you define The Ideal of something and apply Zeno's Dichotomy Paradox to the thought experiment in achieving it, the logical outcome is that you could never achieve perfection as defined by that ideal.

AI Overview
In calculus, the phrase "closer but never there" refers to the concept of a limit, where a function can get arbitrarily close to a certain value as its input approaches a particular point, but the function might never actually reach that value. This idea is central to understanding continuous and discontinuous functions, and it's also relevant to understanding infinite series and the concept of infinity itself. 

That is the mathematical description of achieving an ideal.

Most of us realize that "The Journey and Quest for Perfection" is what counts because it works with our reality and provides some satisfaction.

The Instant

Consider this: Everything we see in life, or non-life, is made from the same stuff. Organized according to chemistry, nuclear, and particle physics. And, the forces we know about:

“The four fundamental forces of nature are gravitation, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force. These forces govern all interactions in the universe, from the behavior of subatomic particles to the movement of planets.“

My big question is: At what exact moment does the inorganic become organic, as life in particular, and when does a living thing become conscious?

When a sentient being becomes conscious, they become self-aware. When advanced intelligent life (as Homo Sapiens) becomes fully conscious and self aware it seems it is as if the whole cosmos is then self aware.

puxabay and Hubble Photo

Everything is Connected. You are free to believe otherwise, but that will not change the reality of this knowledge.

From science, especially physics, it is understood that everything we see is made of the same elementary subatomic particles. This is proven with math and elaborate scientific instruments. This blog post is interested in a specific set of atoms or chemicals.

Important to us, all life forms are made of the same stuff. Yes, all living things are made of the same stuff despite all the ways we differ in appearance, detail, and apparent function.

Organic Compounds are the detailed chemistry of life. There are estimated to be around 20 million different known organic compounds. This number is constantly growing as scientists discover new compounds. (One reason why medicine and healthcare are a challenge).

An organic compound is generally defined as a molecule that contains carbon atoms. While many organic compounds contain both carbon and hydrogen, it's not a requirement for all organic compounds. The presence of carbon is what distinguishes them from inorganic compounds. Yet all living cells are primarily composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur. 

From the smallest life form to the largest, for example, an amoeba is related to an elephant.

I do not know if we are connected on a spiritual level, but if we are all entangled in an invisible plane, it wouldn't surprise me.

Humans have been around a long time, and although survival may have dominated everyday life, there have been enough examples of ancient intellectual development and wisdom to give me cause to emphasize "There is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9, Holy Bible)

"The wisdom literature from Sumer and Babylonia is among the most ancient in the world, with the Sumerian documents dating back to the third millennium BC and the Babylonian dating to the second millennium BC. Many of the extant texts uncovered at Nippur are as ancient as the 18th century BC. Google AI"

I am a believer in a Liberal Arts education because it opens a person's mind to think, even think "outside the box."

 Heraclitus* famously stated, "There is nothing permanent except change."  *Heraclitus (/ˌhɛrəˈklaɪtəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἡράκλειτος Hērákleitos; fl. c. 500 BC) was an ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from the city of Ephesus, . . ."

If you want an efficient way to learn about ancient wisdom, I recommend: Bartlett's Familiar  Quotations  ISBN 0-316-08460-3, first edition was offered in 1882. I have the 17th edition, published in 2002.

Not a book to just read through, but great for scanning or using like a dictionary or encyclopedia.

A search of ancient books of wisdom will generate a list for you to consider.

As mentioned often, my wife was afflicted by early-onset Dementia in 2017, and her decline has been steady. My job as her only caregiver has been a great challenge, especially with her needing near-total care.

She can sort of eat food with help, and still can walk usually, but the single greatest difficulty is aphasia. Without normal conversation, I can never be certain she understands me. She will laugh at some of my off-beat humor at times and has moments where she will offer a kiss and a hug, and a garbled "I love you" - that is the extent of our intimacy.

I suppose I am too frail a human who craves more but I will not abandon her. I have learned to be a better caregiver and understand that a person affected by dementia, memory loss and aphasia can have short spans of lucidness, but there is no cure and no reversal of her condition.

I half jokingly say that cats, dogs, and humans can adapt to almost anything, and so it is with me. I have adapted.

There is only the slimmest chance for some semblance of a normal social life, as people do not know how to behave in my wife's presence, and I can not leave her alone.

In the 1960s, we hippies were naive, believing the world could be run by people with the spirit of love. WRONG!

Greed and Power Seeking is number one. Hate is number two. The positive driving forces of empathy and Love are way down on the list.

Despite being well-educated people and numerous religious people in the World? They fall short. I see religion as a significant factor in promoting hate and violence. Ironically, humanism fares far better but is despised by many religious sects.

If the 1960s experienced a wave of positives and improvements for humans, these days it seems to be the opposite. We seem to be within a storm created by greedy and hate-driven people.

I am a Misanthrope for valid reasons: It is Hard to love but easy to hate. 

Word for the day: HYPOCRITE - a person who claims to have moral standards or beliefs to which they do not personally conform; they pretend to be something they are not. Essentially, a hypocrite's words and actions contradict each other. 

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I am now in hopeless debt. I trusted women I shouldn't have and my credit score is 501. I am financially dead in the water.  I'll get by, but at 77, I certainly cannot say this is my Golden years. It is probably good that my wife can not understand the situation and doesn't miss anything that resembles normal life. Note the women who scammed me were not met on this site; it was through dating sites as I searched for a companion to help me care for my wife and reduce my stress.

I dream every night, and some are worth remembering. Last night was one that I consider very interesting.

Me and I think it was my wife were living in a small town where we could walk to the stores. We needed some things, so we went to town to shop, but we discovered only one store was left to buy things from. All the other stores were closed and empty, painted with yellow and brown on the trim.

We entered the only open store and I said to the owner, "It seems we have the nicest set of empty stores in the county."

He agreed.

I said to my wife, "This is bad, no one store can offer everything we need."

The store owner interuped with, "Yes. You are correct, no store can have everything a person needs."