Tom's Views

Back in 2005, I sought ways of becoming a more patient man, and to bear my hardships with more grace, humility, and acceptance. So a friend recommended The Book of Job, from The Old Testament in The Bible. “After all,” he said, “have you never heard of   the patience of Job?” Yes I had. But I generally avoided The Bible, being the non religious person that I was, and still am in fact.

However, I found a copy of the Readers Digest Large Print Bible laying around. I think I won it or something some years ago. So I pulled out volume one, walked down to my pavilion, and read, and read, …, and read! Wow, I must have missed something that first time through. So I read it again. Then, I went to the bookstore and purchased several other bibles, including the NLT Complete Reference Bible, and The Original American Heritage Study Bible. I also dug out a New American Standard Bible that I’d purchased back in 1992. I read the tale of Job from each of these, and I also looked for clues to better understanding the Book of Job in an Illustrated Bible Dictionary.

Yet my interpretation of Job’s story stayed the same as when I’d first read it. That is: This story illustrates no patience on Job’s part! I mean, here’s a fable of a man, forced by God to endure great hardship. But where was his patience? He complained loud and bitterly the entire time, about the pains, the sores, and the losses of his fortune and family. Indeed, most of the book was him ranting and railing against his situation, and making the case to his friends that his condition was exceedingly terrible and how he couldn’t understand why God would do this to him.

Not that I would have behaved any differently under a similar curse. Yet I found it strange that my friend would offer up Job as this pinnacle of serenity, when I found him to be nothing of the kind. After all, he had no choice but to endure, because pitting his meager human powers against those of the almighty would obviously have been pointless. So, as I understood the book, Job did nothing voluntarily to warrant the hero status often assign him in modern culture. His hardship did not prove him to be a patient man.  While it’s true that he might well have been patient in areas outside the scope of this tale, this shows nothing of that side of him.

Nonetheless, the Book of Job enhanced my patience with my situation a little, because through reading it, I came to better understand that I have it nowhere near as tough as he did. Sometimes, it’s beneficial to examine folks with more dire circumstances than our own, and Job’s were indeed far worse than any that I’ve ever suffered.

But then, the story of Job is likely fictitious; no doubt written as it was, to exaggerate his troubles, to convey the baffling degree of God’s power to readers, and scare them into submitting to the church. That diminishes its credibility, and thus limits the amount of comfort I can draw from it.   Was the story written to illustrate a human’s capacity for patience, or to show how feeble man is in the face of God?  I don’t know.  But, it would have meant far more to me if we could know for sure that the smite against Job really happened, and that the pages faithfully recount the experiences of a real, flesh-and-blood man.  It would be helpful to know that it’s not just some ancient writer’s imagination gone wild, and that whatever heroism Job embodied indeed could be attained by mortals.  But unfortunately, I fear that Job was no more real than Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, Mighty Mouse, or Bat Man.  So even if he did epitomize patience in the tale (which I believe he did not), it would be foolhardy to expect ourselves to be as patient as he, since in all likelihood, the tale was just that; just a tale.

Tom Hesley

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Dear [Emmy],

So you’re blind and shy about   asking for help;   fearing the rejection that’s almost sure to come. Well, you’re right to feel anxious because most folks will indeed reject you; sorry to say. They’ll avoid taking you on afternoon mall shopping trips for that dress you want, and they’ll feel put out if you ask more than a few times a year for rides. They’re too busy with their lives to devote much time to you regularly; though we all need some routine devotion, and as handicapped folks, we need more of that than our fully-sighted peers. In short, and sadly: People just aren’t that helpful these days; the declining membership in service organizations like the Lions Club proves this.

But what people forget in this age of republican hype and spin, is that we must serve others frequently, to stay truly happy. Further, and ideally, in order to get the most thrill out of the deed, we must perform it altruistically — without expecting anything back. We need to feel useful; like we’re making a positive difference, and giving in this way to a person in need makes achieving this sense of being needed simple.

But it’s common these days for people to dismiss this chance to not only make someone else happy, but to please themselves as well. They’re so focused on their own needs, and obsessed over making sure that no one ever takes advantage of them, that they miss these real opportunities to feel good about themselves. They look down on folks asking for help, believing that they should either do it by themselves, or just live without it. To them, pitying someone is bad, and thus, compassion for another wastes their energies. They argue that putting their own needs first makes them happiest.  This is certainly true if we’re talking about the basic needs of survival, security, and to a lesser degree, love.  But beyond those mandates, people could spare much more of themselves to brighten the lives of the less fortunate, and less on getting ahead in life.

Yes, the people who continually reject your aid requests are mistaken. It could be that they’re the ones who are really blind, because they don’t see the remarkable gift that you’re offering when you request their assistance. They trash your request as an annoyance, when they should really treasure it and want more of it. This reminds me of a song from the group ABBA. It’s called “People Need Love,” and there’s a line in it that goes as follows, “People need the trust of a frail old man.” The authors really got it because people need to feel needed and to know that another is counting on them. They’re wrong not to see that, and so are you.

When you get afraid to ask others for help, keep these points in mind. You’re not imposing on them. True, you are asking something of them. But you’re offering something in return (though they should not expect that), that more than offsets any energy they’d use in granting your wish. You’re offering them a chance to be useful; something most all of us look for in some degree or other. It’s not your fault if they don’t get that, and there’s nothing wrong with you asking. If they say no, just ask someone else, and if you learn how to do this without anxiety, tell me how.

Take care.

Tom Hesley

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I recently had an opportunity to help a dear friend obtain psychotherapy at a much-reduced rate. I’m including a letter I sent to my therapist, asking if he’d take on this case, and was overjoyed when he agreed! What a generous and compassionate soul. We need many more like him in society.

I wanted you to see this because it illustrates the extensive financial hardships with which many blind and visually impaired folks must live throughout their lives. Hopefully, you’ll see, as I do, that the blind need more financial and social services help than they get. A person cannot improve his social standing too much, much less come to terms with a recent blindness or dysfunctional family issue, when all he receives from the government is barely enough to pay rent, eat, and have basic utilities. As a nation, we ought do more to provide for our handicapped citizens, because it is not good enough that they just be able to exist. They need to prosper too as does any human being. So read the letter below, and see if you don’t agree.

I’ll call my friend Sandra.

——

Dr. Therapist,

Per your recommendation, Sandra contacted your colleague Dr. Roshawn today and got a $50 per session quote. We both believe this to be quite generous on Roshawn’s part. However, at this rate, Sandra cannot afford weekly sessions. Why not? Well, bear with me as I outline her financial situation, and you’ll see what I mean.

Her regular monthly income is approximately $710, which is comprised of Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a yearly rent rebate check, and a few dollars in food stamps. Plus my family and I help her out when she runs short.

Her monthly expenses are $200 for rent, $300 for groceries, and $100 for phone, Internet, and cable. This only leaves $110 per month in discretionary funds for clothing, bus fare, medical co-payments, entertainment, and such. We’ll gladly provide supporting documentation if needed for all this.

She could afford $50 to $75 per month for her individual therapy at present. But this is not very much; to be sure. But it reflects nonetheless, the hard reality of her limited resources. There’s no better example of a hard-luck case than Sandra’s.

However, I don’t believe Sandra communicated to Dr. Roshawn the full extent of her difficulties. Dr. Roshawn does not know for example, that Sandra is totally blind in addition to suffering from severe carpel tunnel syndrome. She’s aware that Sandra is unemployed, but does not know why. The two have talked on the phone but have never met face-to-face. Sandra gets bashful revealing these “complications” to strangers.   Thus, she omits key facts when describing herself.  So I think Dr. Roshawn might have based her per-session rate quote on incomplete information.  Had she known all of this, Dr Roshawn might have given us a more affordable rate.

Since you know Sandra a bit, would you mind speaking to Dr. Roshawn on her behalf to obtain a more manageable rate? Feel free to forward this email to any and all interested parties in your organization if you think that could help line up quality therapy for Sandra. Or if Dr. Roshawn can’t help us, would you take on Sandra’s case yourself? She responds well to you and I think she’d get much benefit from seeing you individually. If you can’t assist, we certainly understand, and appreciate all that you’ve done so far.

I hope that between us, we can arrange for the assistance that Sandra needs in a way that satisfies all involved.

Take care.

Tom Hesley

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I was blogging again today and wrote this response to someone on the Real Skinny blog:

I hope women understand that not all men share my particular tastes and that therefore, I speak here for no man but myself.

Some men like me, enjoy the longer, thinner legs, while others like shorter, stubby ones. Some like the big bubble butt while others, like me, enjoy just enough butt for a handful in each hand. Thus, just because I’m not attracted to a particular woman’s legs doesn’t mean that NO ONE ELSE will be. In fact, a quick walk down South Street in Philly proves this. You’ll find lots of couples strolling there when it’s warm, and most of the women I find nothing intriguing about. But the guys they’re with think they’re wonderful. Enough said?

You say that men scrutinize and judge too much.  But those words just sound so harsh and non precise. I’d rather think of it as guys just trying to find a mate that gives them the most pleasure. Now what’s wrong with that?  Don’t you do the same?

I never claimed to accept ALL women’s bodies as they are. I just accept the ones I like, and leave the rest for someone else.   Seriously though, I don’t have the capacity to love any- and every-body that crosses my path. I doubt that you do either. But I admit it, and I don’t believe that creating such an unconditionally loving nature would even be possible at the current stage of human physical and social development. To do so, you’d have to somehow short-circuit a basic building block of human evolution; that is Natural Selection.

We all have things we’re looking for, even if we’re not seeking thin bodies with long, lanky legs. And when what we want is not found in a potential lover, we move on. Natural selection depends on this behavior to keep the strong surviving, and the race as a whole improving over time. So we’re not being shallow when we’re choosy about which person to lie with; we’re just being natural.

You speak of this “losing erotic appeal” as though us guys (or gals) have a choice in the matter. In my view, we don’t. We don’t decide when the feelings of attraction come or go.  So when they leave, we’re powerless to bring them back. Tell me: Is your eroticism as easy for you to control as, say, the light in your bedroom? If so, then you need to write a book and tell the rest of us how you do it. It’d be a million-seller to be sure, and I’d want to get the first copy.

In my experience, flattering clothing and other devices (like toilet paper in the bra for example, or high heels in fact) are very often used to mislead potential mates about a person’s real appearance. If you were a man who enjoys big breasts, would you not be offended when, as you remove your date’s shirt, you saw her chest “deflate” from a 38-D down to a 34-B right before your eyes; her boobs falling onto the floor revealing themselves to be nothing more than carefully positioned wads of toilet paper? This is really bad because not only did your date lie to you about her real look, but she contemplated this lie beforehand. That makes it a pre-meditated lie; the worst kind of black lie.

But I concede that this sort of thing has happened since the beginning of humanity, when people painted their faces to hide their “imperfections”. It’s gone on a long, long time, and no doubt will continue for a long, long time. I rail against it. But it’s so ubiquitous that changing it in my life time will be impossible. So, I accept it, grudgingly.

But you know? I’ve not seen any definitive studies that show that women who wear the stuff that changes their natural shape have any better luck at sustaining long-term relationships than those who just put their natural foot forward; allowing their small boobs and short legs to hang out, figuratively of course. Of course! Where’s the proof?

Finally, though I generally find the longer legs sexier, this is not always true. It’s just a rule of thumb. In addition to the fact that she has long legs, thousands of other data points contribute to determining how beautiful I perceive her to be. Both physical and non physical, this other information also determines how sexy her legs look. In other words, it’s not just her legs that make her legs sexy. Her gorgeous legs would cease being gorgeous if I learned that she was a killer or that she is otherwise mentally ill.

So I get leery when talking about specific body parts alone making or breaking the lady. We might like a vanilla milk shake due to the taste of vanilla in it. But taste vanilla by itself, without the sugar, milk, and cream, and you probably won’t like it. In this case, the vanilla makes the shake, but the shake also makes the vanilla. Without the vanilla, the shake doesn’t taste as good, and without the shake, the vanilla tastes bitter and unpleasant. It’s only when you perceive them both together as a whole, that you get a truly delicious dessert; even if you think that what really pleases you about the shake is that subtle taste of vanilla within.

Likewise with women. The legs can make the woman, partially. But without circumstance, her personality, and her spirit to animate those legs in sexy ways, there’s very little sexy about them; even if they’re the most shapely legs on the planet. Without her mind to work them, they might as well be the legs of a mannequin.

So the accusation that men are just into shapes of bodies is not correct. Even when they tell you that you have sexy legs, they’re really saying so much more; not just about your body, but about the person they think you are too.

So ladies: Learn to read a little more between the lines.

Tom Hesley

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While parusing some blogs lately, I found one where folks were defending their overweight-ness. So, I chimed in as follows:

While the fact that two thirds of Americans are overweight might make obesity seem “normal,” by no means is this the healthiest way to live. Your arguments imply that it’s okay to stay obese, since so many others are the same (safety in numbers?). But just because everyone’s doing it doesn’t make it right. Whether one person jumps off a 500 foot cliff or a hundred thousand do it, jumping is still as dangerous, because no matter how many people leap, every last one of them will die (no safety in numbers here). The same is true of obesity.  Because a size 12 is   the average, should not make it   the ideal. When it comes to health, what makes a condition truly better is not (or at least, should not) be determined so much by what everyone else is doing.

Perhaps some overweight people struggle to like themselves because they know implicitly that their condition is not healthy.  They see how much harder it is to distance walk, climb up and down stairs, and perform routine tasks in general, than what less heavy people must endure.  They hate that they must fight so to get slimmer, when the thin seem to achieve this with ease.  Thus, many capitulate in this fight, resenting that they must work so much harder at maintaining a healthy body weight than others.  Then, they come to see the effort as feudal; throwing all restraint away, and then compounding the issue by gaining evening more pounds.

The problem with just giving up however, is that society expects someone unhealthy, to stop the behaviors that created their unhealthful situation in the first place, as well as to make reasonable and visible efforts to improve it.  But when the condition persists, particularly when that illness appears correctable through some healthful (though admittedly tough) choices, society, fairly or not, looks down upon the unhealthy person for their continued infirmity.  They see him as neglecting his body by choice, and so, creating needless hardship for himself and others by  choosing   to remain heavy.  Since most people, fat or thin, hate being disliked, such negativism directed at them triggers a backlash of rebellion.  They campaign against thinness; resenting those who prefer the svelte, and so have taken to the streets with slogans like, “big is beautiful.”

But wouldn’t it be healthier for the obese to, instead of arguing against societal preferences, to lose weight so that they more closely resemble society’s thin-and-healthy ideals? Generally, people who match these expectations have the most confidence and highest self esteems. So if you really want to give someone a genuine confidence boost, don’t want to encourage them to be fat by saying that it’s okay to be fat. This sends a harmfully bad message; it promotes unhealthy living because it’s unhealthy to be fat. So we shouldn’t be telling the obese that it’s okay.

Yes, the body, whether fat or thin, is an amazing super machine. But let’s not allow our awe of it to obscure its illnesses. It does a sick person little good to extol his body’s virtues while he’s dying from pneumonia. Typically, only taking the necessary steps to get better will actually cure him. You can list all the positive truths about yourself you want. But in the end, if you were fat to begin with, you’ll be fat when you’re finished. You’ll not be able to mask that truth no matter how many pep talks you give yourself. Society will be out there to remind you of your lacking progress against this disease all the time. Again, the best way to deal with the lack of self confidence that comes from being overweight is to lose the weight.

We tell women that their bodies need to look a certain way (thin), not because we’re shallow, but because thin is a healthy way to be. Proven over and over again, thinner people live the longest and have the highest quality of life. So the thin ideal is not some sort of conspiracy among men to keep women down, or anything sinister like that. It’s merely an expression of what people (males and females alike) want to see. Even the heavy would typically rather date the thin than they would other heavies.

People’s desires for healthy associates probably come from natural selection. Put simply: The healthier you are, the better your chances of having healthy offspring, and passing your healthy values and beliefs to your kids. Evolution weeds out unhealthy preferences (such as an attraction to fat mates) because those who support them are less likely to pass them onto subsequent generations – they often end up dying before ever having children. Anything that interferes with a person’s reproductive capabilities is frowned upon by natural selection. So it’s natural that people on the whole prefer the company of the thin to that of the frumpy.

One poster lost me when s/he argued that if everyone looked the same (thin) then they’d also act, do, and be the same. This idea is ridiculous because it totally dismisses the individuality that comes from our minds. Even if everyone had a thin body, the differences in their upbringings and experiences alone, not to mention their genetic dissimilarities, would make them quite different from one another. Even if we consider just the thin bodies, we can’t say that they’re all exactly the same, just because they’re all thin. They still have different fingerprints, shoe sizes, colors of hair and eyes, and so on. They would be ticklish (or not) in different places, and each would still have their own unique scents. So there’s no reason to think that the “diversity of experiences” that we all now enjoy would be any less in a world without the Rubenesque.

Kids ten years old or younger are right to be concerned about their diets, since establishing unhealthy eating patterns at these ages is very easy, yet so hard to reverse once they reach adulthood. Now if their concern becomes an unhealthy obsession, then this is another matter entirely. But if all they want is to eat only what they must to keep their bodies well-nourished and slender, then we adults ought to encourage that. Because we do not, we’re seeing the highest rates of childhood obesity in history.

On believing that you’re beautiful: This only gets you so far. Perhaps you are. Perhaps you’re not. Who decides? You, or the people around you? When I view myself in the mirror, I see a reasonably handsome guy peering back at me. But I also hear often from women that I’m unattractive. Not all of them feel that way. But many do. So, am I really attractive or really unattractive? There is no absolutely right answer here. If I’m interested in mating with those women, then I’d better at least consider their opinions a little. But their opinions need not affect my self image so long as I keep in mind how relative and non universal it all is. No matter how ugly they insist I am, they can’t change how I feel about that man in the mirror. So while their opinions are worthy of some consideration, it’s not worth allowing them to define your self image. You can master this skill whether you’re fat or thin.

I’m not suggesting that maintaining a healthy weight is easy. I myself have fluctuated between 138 and 194 pounds during my adult years, and I’m currently near the high end of that. But though a healthy weight is difficult, it is for me nonetheless, still the ideal. One day, I’ll get back to 140 and keep it there. Hopefully, that will be this year.

You don’t need makeup or fancy clothes to be beautiful. This part I agree with. Yes, some part of society’s obsession with thinness is driven by the extensive marketing machines of the cosmetics and clothing industries. But though these companies, through their relentless ad campaigns, make society wish it was thin to an excessive degree, the thin ideal itself is right, as discussed above. These companies know it’s right, and they’re exploiting the fact that everyone else, deep inside, knows that it’s right as well.

A person’s sense of his own beauty must come from within. But given how socially interdependent and interconnected we humans are, it’s difficult for even the most resolute among us to be totally insensitive to others’ opinions of us. It seems that if you really want to maximize your self opinion, then you need to make yourself into a person of which the greatest majority of your social circle approves. In our culture, getting thin will move you a long way toward greater acceptance and approval from the crowds.

Take care.

Tom Hesley

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[Emmy] and I watched three episodes of   Dr. Phil   today. I found the one on gold diggers offensive. Not the episode itself. But the guest women who engage in such a devious activity were hard to listen to without getting fired up. I mean, they lead a man to think that he’s going to get sex if he spends money on them. Then they deny him once he’s buys them iPods, watches, expensive purses, and the like. It would be hard to trust a woman who uses this bait-and-switch technique.

It’s sad too because all these women were beautiful; the kinds of women who typically appear in men’s’ fantasies. I’d probably never get to experience them, even for a short stint, because they’re out of my price range. They don’t seem to care that because the way they are (so insistent on getting money for their company), that so many men will live their entire lives without ever realizing their dreams of being with a gorgeous lady. Wouldn’t it be great if people focused more on helping each other be happy than selfishly filling their wallets while disregarding their neighbors?  Gold-digging is not loving.  Accepting the limits of another seems to be one ability that gold-diggers lack sorely.

Tom Hesley

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This is great news for anyone suffering from paralyzing diseases, spinal cord injuries, and organ problems.   With the ban lifted, it’s now full speed ahead to find cures for these debilitating afflictions.  I fully support lifting this restriction.

Great job, Obama!

Tom Hesley