February 19, 2003
A Simpler Way
Okay, I started reading A Simpler Way again. It's been five years since I last read it.
The first time I read it I was totally lacking the appropriate skills and perspective to read it. First of all, I didn't realize at the time that it was philosophy. I thought it seemed a little too bullshitty at the time, and I just read it to read it. Nothing more.
Now I read the beginning of it at Starbucks. It makes a lot more sense. (It's amazing how being five years older can change your perspective on things.) The biggest thing I got from the beginning of what I read is allow yourself to play and explore and find solutions that work although they don't have to be the best solution.
Also, one of the things I need to get rid of or at least temper is my Darwinian mindset, that I have to be the best, because only the best survive. This according to the author is false. I would tend to agree with this. If only the best could survive, people of lower economic classes and whatnot wouldn't survive, which doesn't happen.
Okay, I'm trying to relate this to dating and the Adventures in Queer Relationshipland workshop at the conference this weekend. (It was amazingly over attended.) Okay and I thought I had a way to relate them, but I don't. So there. Okay, well maybe I do, I think the thing in dating is to find what works for you. While it would be wonderful to find someone with every quality I'm looking for, I might find someone that's great for me that's not really who I'm searching for. I think the thing is I need to look at dating less seriously, and be more playful. (Play is one of the central concepts to the authors of A Simpler Way) I'm gonna fail, and I think I need to realize that failure isn't bad in and of itself.. Learn, go try again and see if another connection works.
Hmm... also I found it interesting that the authors assertion that we self organize. I wonder what would happen if I started working on my Gay mentors program idea on the web? Would people come and help me out, or should I be all corporate and bring the right people on board and make it much more complex than it needs to be at first? I'm gonna go with the start it approach and hope people follow...
Well... time to update some webpages.. So until then, I'm gonna be queer, and play a bit.
Some of the ironies on this particular archive page would be delicious, if they weren't so loathsome. Nick writes in this post: "I need to look at dating less seriously, and be more playful." Entirely credible and advisable. But just four days before, he was ruminating on the relatively well-known fact, that gay men are liable to be assaulted or murdered for showing an interest in the wrong person: not for groping them or making some crudely offensive remarks, just for showing a friendly interest. The only response thus far to that post, a couple months later, was from some anonymous illiterate lurker whose best advice and commiseration was saying: "Ok gay isn't excepted [sic], GET OVER IT! Write about something MORE IMPORTANT!"
People being assaulted and murdered isn't important? Well, not gay people, apparently.
One can only hope Nick's new playful attitude toward dating may lead to his only being shot at with ... water pistols. Filled with champagne. One can only hope.