Discarding the false

I can be gentle and nurturing with children, the innocent, those who are open to life and learning, those who are living and learning without even having an idea of what those are. I am sometimes impatient with those who will not learn, who will not face up to themselves, who do not have the courage to discard what they have already seen to be false, who will not mentally move on when they need to, who maintain dishonesty to themselves. Why? Because, most of all, I am impatient with myself for doing all of those things

Men fantasising about rape

To [a man, name removed]

Sorry to narrow this down to single point - it might be worth taking this elsewhere and not distracting from the main topic - but why the "Of course" in your answer to "Do I fantasise about rape...?"

I find your and others' posts genuinely interesting, without pretending to understand all of what you say. It is helpful to find people who can discuss openly without reverting to knee-jerk, black-and-white interpretations that are so often trotted out. To that end, I think the HONESTY of a man who admits to fantasising about raping a woman - rather than the frantasy itself - is an entirely positive thing. Admitting the violent tendencies in ourselves is the first step to transforming our destructive energies, etc, etc.

But the "Of course" seems to imply the inevitable fantasising by every man at some point in his life of raping a woman or more than one woman. I wholly disagree with this inevitablility. It says to me, if the violence-of-men-aganist-women embedded in society is to be overcome, then there needs to be a lot more exposure of men who have NO thought at all of doing violence to women, even in fantasy. While actual rape is horrendous and it is to be expected that it is reported on and talked about, may be the balance of attention on rape needs to be tipped towards interviews with men, particularly those viewed as strong by society, who genuinely have no such thoughts.

Best wishes,
Julian

Wisdom finds outlets where it is needed. It does not need to market itself.

The essence of wisdom is vanishingly small, but can speak to an infinity of situations.

Sometimes when I eat good, wholesome food I clear every last bit as if it might be my last meal for a long time. It is almost as it was me who lived under the Nazis and not my Dad. Or may be it is just subconsciously 'remembering' when I really didn't know where my next meal was coming from...

Like a crone

I can be gentle and nurturing with children, the innocent, those who are open to life and learning, those who are living and learning without even having an idea of what those are. But may be like acrone-minus-the-wisdom, I have little time for those who will not learn, who will not face up to themselves, who do not have the courage to discard what they have already seen to be false, who will not mentally move on when they need to, who maintain dishonesty to themselves. Why? Because, most of all, I am impatient with myself for doing all of those things

Values

If we want to establish new (or old) values, they must be embedded in communities and not just individuals.