See the rest: Work-safe
Views of San Francisco, Part 2 of 2
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See the rest: Work-safe
Author Archives: tacit
Content-free post…
…because I actually have a great deal to say, but don’t have the energy to say it right now. If you’re looking for something meaningful, you might want to wait for the next post.
So here it is:
Yes, Virginia, there is a Great Cthulu…
http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/97/Jan/cthulhu.html
For those of you who had any doubt.
This would be a wonderful industry if it weren’t for the clients…
…and I don’t mean the software kind of clients, either.
So here I am in sunny San Francisco, typing this at MacWorld Expo thanks to a brand-new wireless networking card in my iBook.
I’ve had this iBook for rather a long time, but haven’t escaped the tyrrany of a wire connection until now. I spent a good part of yesterday roaming the hall floor looking for a vendor who would sell me an AirPort card, and finally got one to sell me the card out of one of their demo machines.
What prompted this sudden quantum leap in computing technology?
Glad you asked.
I have a client, see, and I’m working on a job for this client. The job was actually due three months ago, but the client hasn’t given me the files I need until now.
When I’m an inconvenient distance from home. And by “inconvienient distance,” I mean “as far as it is possible to be and still be on the same continent.”
The additional parts of the job are on my home computer. Which means I had to get access to it so that I can finish the job. Since MacWorld is sponsoring wireless hot spots, that means putting a wireless card in my Mac so I can connect to my computer at home.
Which is pretty damn slick, really.
Anyway, I’ve been working on this job, in between MacWorld, hanging out with altenra, going to Power Exchange, and meeting some of the figures who make up San Francisco’s BDSM scene. (We had dinner with Jay Wiseman last night; he’s very cool, very down-to-earth.) Nothing quite like an emergency deadline to make a cross-country trip more…err, interesting.
This wireless thing is pretty cool. Think I’ll have to get a wireless router when I get back home.
By the way, the iPod Mini is pretty damn slick, and gorgeous, but I’m still not going to buy one.
The universe gives you what you ask for.
It’s a simple, but profoundly powerful, idea. The universe gives you what you ask for–indeed, the universe bends over backward to give you what you ask for.
And it’s completely impartial and uncaring. if you ask for misery, you’ll get it; if you ask for happiness, you’ll get it. You may not get it in the form you expect, or at the time you expect, but the universe does have this knack for giving you what you ask for.
Problem is, most people don’t really seem to know what they’re asking for. Often, people can tell you what they want (or what they think they want), yet what they want isn’t what they ask for.
But I didn’t come here to talk about philosophy; I came here to talk about the New Year.
Lat new Year, i resolved to use my powers for evil. I think the universe heard me, and said “Ah, so he’s asking for an adversarial relationship witht he rest of the world, then? Right-O!”
This year, I think perhaps I should be a bit more cautious about my New Year’s resolution.
Some thoughts about polyamory
This post was inspired by something said in the mono_poly community, and it’s something I feel very passionately about.
Someone in mono_poly wrote about the idea that polyamory is a mechanism for a person’s partner to get those needs met which that person cannot directly meet himself.
This is one of the most enduring ideas about polyamory I have ever encountered.
In my experience, it is also one of the furthest from the truth.
You see this idea expressed by both polyamorous and monogamous people. The monogamous person looks at his polyamorous partner sand says “Why am I not enough?” The polyamorous person looks at his polyamorous partner and says “Ah, polyamory lets you have the things I can’t give you.” Implicit in the foundation of both statements is the idea that a person is polyamorous because of the qualities of his partner.
I believe this is utter bunk.
I am not polyamorous because of the qualities, deficiencies, or shortcomings of my partners. I am not polyamorous because my wife is “not enough,” and I am not polyamorous because I have a list of needs and I get those needs met from different people. My polyamory is not a consequence of the people around me at all. It would not matter who I was involved with; it would not make any difference if I were to find a partner who could meet 100% of my needs 100% of the time…I would still be polyamorous. Polyamory, for me, is a consequence of who I am, not a consequence of who my partners are, or how successful my partners are at meeting my needs.
The idea that polyamory is a way of getting one’s needs met from multiple sources also contains a deeper, more subtle flaw: It assumes that relationship needs are transitive. They are not.
I do not have a list of needs, and then seek partners who meet those needs until I have met all the needs on that list. The needs of a relationship are not attached to a person; they are atttached both to people and to relationships themselves.
In many ways, a relationship between two people can be thought of as an entity unto itself. A relationship has its own needs, and in some ways has its own agenda as well. It’s been my experience that relationships are most successful when the people involved pay attention to their needs, the needs of their partner, and the needs of the relationship.
When you look at relationships this way, it quickly becomes obvious that the rules of relationships do not follow the rules of mathematics. If I need A, B, C, D, and E from my romantic relationships, it does not necessarily follow that if I get A, B, and D from Suzie, and C, E, and F from Betty, I will be fine.
In reality, what is more likely to happen is that when I become involved with Suzie and Betty, I find that I need A, B, C, E, and F from Suzie, and I need B, C, D, and F from Betty. Getting F from Suzie does not mean I no longer need F from Betty–and in fact if I need F from Betty and can’t have it, my relationship with Betty may suffer as a result.
Romantic needs are not transitive; people are not interchangeable. If I am getting something from one partner, that does not mean my need for that thing is now discharged and I do not need it from another partner. Romantic relationships simply don’t work that way.
Bottom line: Polyamory is not about external factors; a person is not polyamorous because his partner is insufficient or because he needs things his partner can’t provide. A person is polyamorous because of internal factors, which cut right to the heart of the way that person thinks about relationships, and the blueprint of that person’s heart. Perhaps the polyamorous person is poly because the drive within him to seek out love and intimacy does not switch off when he has found a pertner; perhaps the polyamorous person is poly because of the way he thinks about family. Hell, perhaps the polyamorous person is poly because some subtle quirk of genetics or some environmental happenstance, or both, have conspired in such a way as to make his brain work differently than other people’s.
But it’s not about having more needs, or getting all your needs met, or about some inadequacy in his partners.
And that’s a feature, not a bug.
This ought to be required reading…
Ganked from icedrake:
I particularly like the part about making friends with women, and seeking the company of women who can stand on their own.
Merry Christmas to all, especially the FBI
It’s nice to know, in this chaotic world, that Santa can leave a little cheer for everyone this season, including John Ashcroft and the FBI.
While we were all preoccupied with Saddam Hussein’s capture and dealing with the inlaws for Christmas, President Bush secretly signed into law the Patriot II Act. This new act allows the FBI to get financial information on anybody, even those not suspected of a crime, without a cort order or subpoena and without showing probable clause. It also removes Congressional oversight from the FBI’s use of the powers granted in the original PATRIOT Act.
Happy new year, everyone!
Less than a week to go!
Shelly and I are flying out to San Francisco for eight days on Friday, January 2. We’ll be staying in downtown SF, near the Metreon. We’ll be going to MacWorld, and at some point meeting up with feorlen and altenra, and possibly some other people as well.
Anyone in the SF area up for meeting? Any suggestions for things to do? We’re planning at least one trip to Power Exchange…
Some Thoughts on Romantic Comedies
I don’t understand romantic comedies.
They’re perennial favorites at the box office, and they all seem to be cut from the same basic cloth. The most interesting thing about Hollywood romantic comedies is the peculiar mythology about love they all share in common.
And a mythology it is. When real people behave like the characters in romantic comedies, they get hit with restraining orders. At some level, we all know that the ideas about love that you find in romantic comedies–love at first sight, love conquers all, love persevers over all obstacles, soulmates always find each other in the end–are as mythical as the Tooth Fairy. Yet for some reason, there is a demand for stories that reinforce this myth nonetheless.
I find the whole thing fascinating.
What is the need in modern society for this myth? Why does it seem that we, as a culture, so desperately want to believe things about love which we know are not true?
I personally find the reality of love much more satisfying and empowering than the myth; a relationship, to me, has more value if I choose to make it work, and it succeeds on the merit of the effort that I and my lover pour into it, than if it succeeds because it was fated. I find the idea that I build my relationships more empowering than the idea that they exist because for some cosmological reason they were “meant to be.”
But it’s obvious to me that mine is a minority opinion. It seems that many of the people around me want to believe that love happens because of forces outside their control, and that happiness is a state of being granted by right to anyone who has found their One True Love.
I don’t get it. This idea must be comforting to people, and people seem to see value in it, but I just don’t get it.