Spin…Spin…Spin…BEGIN

You know how, when you spin a globe, it’s fun to stop it with your finger and imagine yourself in whatever place you randomly touch?  That’s what it’s like to write… a fleeting thought, pulled from the mind and placed onto a page, almost as if the world did stop turning.

Lazily (though I prefer to call it energy-efficient) I’ve taken to the camera for capturing instances that warrant memory.  My computer holds thousands of files, images, 2-dimensional slices of countless good times.  Alas, with a life overflowing with adventure, technology doesn’t hold up.  I’m a SUCH camera destroyer!

Yes, it’s broken again.  Perhaps I should have listened to the little voice that said “don’t bring the camera into the ocean,” back in Maui, but…  Okay, so I’ve got no excuse.  Needless to say – that 30 bucks for camera insurance is some of the best money I’ve ever spent!

So I write.  (It’s always better with multiple tools in the box, no?)  Unfortunately, it takes a bit longer…  But lets just say I’ve found a place to put my finger down.  It hit me Thursday afternoon.

Around 3:30, I was at an outside table at a dive on upper Hawthorne.  My buddy from high school days was sitting across from me and my best pal from middle school was about to show up.  We were killing time while Violet got her first filling across the street.  (You remember Violet?  She’s my incredible 10-year old.)

She took it like a champ!  But that came a little later.  At this point I was having pangs of worry that my bubba might be suffering – sorta made me sick in my tummy to think about.  Forcing myself back into the present, I let the fear go.

Three young women walked by.  The one in front was skinny and sickly looking.  Each had at least one or two sores on their face.  Within a few moments, they all turned around and confusedly walked back in the direction from which they came.  The last one wondered out loud to her friends:

“I don’t even know why I just said that.”

It wasn’t hard to see that they were on some heavy shit (unless you haven’t seen it before).

Getting to that point,  like the leader who was so frail and gaunt (and whose friends were well on their way), is not as difficult as one might think.  And know what?  I bet she thinks she’s pretty.  Or she thinks she thinks she’s pretty.

Maybe she used to be.  But none of that matters here.  What they suffer from isn’t precisely clear.  (One could argue they hardly even feel it.)  It is more important to realize that, whether or not they survive, they are not in that struggle alone.

Each of our flaws, shared socially, can be defined in social terms; cause, effect & greater consequence.  It’s tough not to compare oneself to the images we’re bombarded with each day.  Heroin chic?!  They’re FAR closer to achieving that “look” than (I bet) you or me.  With the patterns is a message:

Females are to be waif-like and delicate.  Damsels in distress.  They are to be taken care of and supplied with beautiful things.  Kept.   They can be naughty or they can be nice, but they must be helpless – that is, without a man.

Do you believe this crap?!  In humans, it’s females who hold a power no man can provide.  We are the Gatekeepers.  And the males?  Seed-bearers, driven to spread their seed far and wide.

The spark of life appears at conception.  Two become one: new life begun.  Think of the parts!  Each of the pair carried a piece of the key.  But, his was relatively cheap.  Hers on the other hand, will only work for a particular 48 hour window during each moon cycle and will begin significantly wearing out by around the age of 35.

See a disparity?  A typical male could populate the entire planet with a single hand!  Sperm is SO easy to come by!  Pun or  not, males in our species have an abundance of the stuff, readily available for…harvest.

The investment typically made by the female (her precious egg, her body for 9 months of intense child-bearing, her milk for the first year & so on), shan’t be denied.   She clearly must be cautious when making decisions involving sex and be educated on not only the potential and risks of social warping but also perception & the drives that feed her impulses.  Awareness of such things change what it means to be alive.

Behavior modification ensues.  Success by adaptation!