The Culture that has been here all the time

Hello Friends,

It has taken a while, but the fragments of my current life are beginning to form a picture. As my wife's cognitive impairment worsened, I became concerned because I never lived for very long without a woman companion, and we reached the 39th year this past January when she was impaired. She has no cognitive interest in continuing our decades-long sexual relationship or much of any relationship, and I attempted to solve that but could not because I am a stranger in this place and have no social life. It was a torment, and I made many mistakes and was the victim of deception at least 20 times via the internet. During this period, I met a woman (Mistress) online who convinced me to invest in a project that I still don't know what it is, and I never met her. All those mistakes and mysterious investments are in my past, and I no longer care about the loss. However, in a conversation, she told me I should not have a girlfriend.

I now understand that thought very well. Having my living wife with me makes having a relationship almost impossible, no matter what the relationship. Alzheimer's/Dementia/Aphasia demands my full attention in taking care of her. Next, I don't have enough room to have a girlfriend living here. The family uses the small bedroom, and when I can afford to have an aide, she can stay for a while in that spare room. Lastly, I have always suffered from depression and anxiety, and when I get worn down, I become edgy and quickly unpleasant.

The bottom line? For now and for the undetermined future, I shall endure, accept my fate, remain alone, and watch my favorite British Television programs just before I turn in each night.

It is acceptance of reality and adaptation to the same.

Hello Friends,

To function reasonably well, I must continually balance my temperamental artistic side with my logical scientific side in equilibrium. I rely on CBT:

"Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a treatment that aims to break down negative thought patterns and improve feelings by helping people deal with current problems. CBT theory suggests that thoughts, emotions, body sensations, and behavior are all connected, and that what people think and do affects how they feel. CBT can help people get to a point where they can achieve this on their own and tackle problems without the help of a therapist."  (from quick Google Search)
 

Just like a cardiologist prescribes medications and physical activity to improve a heart condition, CBT with activities and medications can be pretty successful. Like all things applying to humans, results can be a statistical percentage of 50% or 80% improvement. The underlying factor may easily quantified as the ability and amount of socialization involved for success.

A factor hard to gauge is just how positive a relationship is with a sexual partner. The style suits both lovers and the frequency and degree of the engagements: Make or break the ability to live in harmony and with so many things in life a balance between."Too Little or Too Much"

To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, you can help some people sometimes and help some people all the time, but you can not help all people all the time.

Hey My Good Friends,

What if I knocked on your door at five AM and wanted to visit with you? What would your reaction be?

Hello Friends,

When I awoke and sat at the edge of my bed, I realized immediately something was missing. I could not detect emotions within me.

I looked under the bed and in every upstairs room and closet. I went downstairs and looked in every room. I looked down in the basement. Nope, no emotions in the house. I went and looked inside my car. Nope, no emotions there either.

Fed the dogs and cat, and they seemed absent of their usual emotions, too. I took the dogs out for their morning walk.

The sky was emotionless, and the green grass and trees had no apparent feelings. It was then that I grew concerned about this.

I thought I must have died during the night and was unaware of it.

Of course, I had to ask for a great source of knowledge about this: Google.

People who have difficulty identifying or expressing emotions are known as alexithymics. The term comes from the Greek words a, meaning lack, lexis, meaning word, and thymos, meaning emotion. People with alexithymia may experience:

Difficulty with introspection
Confusion around bodily sensations connected to emotions
Difficulty communicating their emotions to others
Lack of the capacity to feel joy, sorrow, or love
Feeling detached from the emotions of others
A "conscious disconnect" that prevents emotions from breaking through into their mind ¹ 

 

 

 

1

Hello Friends,

Secrets do more harm than good.

"At first, a secret may feel like a form of protection, but ultimately the anxiety, fear, shame, regret and guilt take a toll on our body and mind. Secrets come in many forms such as trauma, unhealthy behavior or even negative beliefs about oneself.

Secrets Make You Sick - Caron Treatment Centers
Caron Treatment Centers
› Blog"

 

Screenplay plots capitalize on the complex issues between humans when secrets are discovered. For example, who the parent is, the actual circumstances of a breakup, lies, and misappropriations are found. Not truthful about education and jobs, too.*
 

*Recent example: George Santos

Revealing secrets can be a tricky business, too.

Hello Friends,

When I gaze into a mirror, I see a man living through one big mistake after another all his life. How did I make it this far? Some say someone was praying for me. Some say ignorant bliss. Some say blind luck.

No one says I knew what I was doing with this life of mine.

My academic success and my creative success are all accidental or an undeserved gift from the Universe. I claim nothing. And hell, I am not even nice to hang out with. Sure, I was a jolly alcoholic who could become menacing on a dime, but that mainly ended forty years ago and totally for about a decade now.

Most of my ideas about the future were nebulous, incomplete, and inconsistent. I could manage self-discipline, but it was a fragile truce with my demons.

Truth has it? I never really envision a future with any clarity: I stumble from the past through the present and wind up in an unplanned future.

I do interact with people and muster a smile and an odd sense of humor, but I feel most at home alone with my thoughts. My wife was my anchor, and I was her anchor. Now, we are both adrift, and her cognitive disorder ends my chance to have any happiness in the future (if I even get there).

Hello Friends,

I know I am living in a role like a play or movie. Each episode of my life has a new script, milieu, location, plot, and cast. I must learn the vocabulary of the lines, maybe an accent, and even adopt a persona. As the scenes roll past, characters interact, and settings change, I must do my best to keep the audience engaged and believe that the character I portray is a real person. In the final, just before Fine' I hear "exit stage right," and never am I sure I will reemerge on some stage left or in a new scene. Jim

Hello Friends,

I have been having numerous dreams at night lately. Some of them I remember all the details, while others are parts. A common thread has seemed to become evident in all or most of them:

In each, I am on a mission to rally people to combat some negative force represented by others in the opposing group(s): war, disaster, famine, or some situation where the odds for success are not good. I wake up with a sense of incompleteness and anxiety.

(I get on with my day, and my life moves along as usual with the primary concern of care for my wife). 

Hello Friends,

All the assumptions about who you should allow yourself to like will go "out the window" when suddenly you are face to face with someone who likes you and that you like. Relationships are not beauty contests, muscle contests, talent contests, or even compatibility contests. It is an incomplete science, and data can only scratch the surface. It is probably unexpected, like a bolt of lightning out of the blue. The feelings could creep in or flash "go" instantly. What have I learned from the kink community? The big one is one size of anything or one preference of anything that doesn't fit all.

Two partners make their own decisions and live the way they agree to live. There are no archetypes or stereotypes. Only people decide what is suitable for themselves and the rules they choose for themselves.

Yes, I am totally imperfect. I even tumbled in a wind storm at Tucumcari, N.M., like the weeds that dented my car hood there, and even caused friction like the sand that blasted my car finish when I was there. I often am solitary, even in a crowd. It is like I am sitting on top of Franklin Mountain overlooking the lights of El Paso on a cool night. Or at Twin Lights State Historic Site* in N. J. scanning the ocean horizon, Long Island Lights, or the Narrows bridge and the City beyond. There are so many people out there, but only one inside of me.

* There were very many days as a young man I went to think there, especially when I was swamped with blues and purples.

Some of you my friends most likely know this already:

"Cuckoos are brood parasites, which means that they do not actually raise their own eggs. Instead, they will sneak onto another bird's nest and lay an egg in that nest. Female cuckoos target the nests of specific bird species. In the UK, this is usually the reed warbler, the dunnock and the meadow pipit."

"Cuckold
Wikipedia
wiki › Cuckold
In biology, a cuckold is a male who unwittingly invests parental effort in juveniles who are not genetically his offspring. A husband who is aware of and ..."