Tom's Views

In my nearly twenty years of technical work experience, I’ve noted the following qualities, habits, and management styles that made an  effective manager   out of all of those I most enjoyed working for:

1. An effective manager makes cogent statements, yet quickly incorporates new information into his evaluation processes.
2. The most effective manager strongly sticks to his or her positions until new, significant ideas surface that disprove the validity of said positions.
3. An effective manager is expectant yet understanding.  That is, she insists on getting the job done right, but shows compassion and understanding for her workers when they run into legitimate problems meeting her goals.
4. The effective manager is demanding while at the same time, compromising and giving.
5. Soft-spoken firmness characterizes the most effective managers.
6. An effective manager knows how to do the job yet teaches and empowers his employees to do it too.
7. An effective manager is positive but realistic.
8. Effective managers are direct yet sensitive.  They clearly express their expectations and opinions but do so in the least offensive and hurtful ways.
9. An effective manager is happy yet sincere.
10. A most effective manager is easy to please. Yet he instills a sense of true accomplishment among his employees. He never publicly trivializes what his workers accomplish, even if it’s simple or just a small amount.  He never publicly puts down those who report to her.
11. An effective manager is supportive in front of other groups.
12. Competence describes an effective manager. The most effective managers know the important technical details of the tasks that their departments are performing.
13. Effective managers create a positive, low stress work environment, where employees feel valued, respected, and sufficiently challenged.

The most effective managers exhibit all of the traits discussed above. So look for them next time you’re shopping for a new manager. The most productive management styles are easy to spot, especially if you can meet other people working for the manager. Keep the above in mind as well, if you want to learn how to become an effective manager yourself.

Tom Hesley

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• Love And Happiness Make Better Workers

Low vision, faulty legs or arms, deafness, and the symptoms of simple aging can heap big challenges on people so affected, especially in dating. Further, not only is there the challenge of the disability itself to cope with, but also, the negative ways most non-disabled folks regard the disabled.  Many disabled people report that they’ve struggled over the years to date people they find attractive. The root of that struggle is this: When the non-disabled learn of the disability, they immediately bolt. They avoid dating a disabled person. This generally happens regardless of whether people tell them early on, or hesitate several weeks. No matter how well the non-disabled know the disabled, once they dub the disabled as such, natural selection seems to dictate that any romance that might have been, vanishes forever. Most healthy folks avoid the disabled men. So the disabled might as well become asexual.

Some disabilities hamper more disabled women in this way than disabled men, while for others more men are negatively impacted socially than women.  Just about any disability that impairs a man’s ability to provide well for a woman and family, discourages non-disabled women from dating him.  Likewise, any disability that impairs a woman’s ability to properly birth and raise children
discourages men from dating her.  The result is that most disabled people, regardless of sex, do not regularly date much less marry.  They are left alone and isolated.  While the healthy are lonely as they look for that “perfect mate,” so too are the disabled while they search for that rare person (disabled or not), who accepts them and who does not regard their disabilities as disabilities.

To be sure, the non-disabled (those in perfect health) will often be courteous, and perhaps even pity disabled persons, as they attempt to secure their places in Heaven with God, once their life here on Earth is done. But they’ll likely never seriously date a disabled person. They will rarely be in awe of him.  So, non-disabled women will never see disabled men as acceptable mates. He will never be the “perfect” man in their eyes due to his disability.  Nor will the disabled woman ever become the goddess in his eyes. Not even the holy enticement of the eternally good afterlife makes most of those in perfect health truly love disabled people, and view them as complete equals.

But this is so sad, because dating a disabled person can be one of the most rewarding experiences a mortal can enjoy. I’ve dated numerous disabled women and non-disabled alike in my time. I have found that helping a blind woman locate a coat that she’s misplaced, read a users’ guide for a new appliance, or describe what’s happening on TV screen to someone who cannot see it themselves makes me feel quite useful and needed.  It erases any guilt I might otherwise feel, for being too idle, and fills me with a greater sense of
meaningful purpose.  There is no more justifiable way to spend your hours, than in the service of others.  Indeed, I feel much less lonely while helping.  I sense that I’m truly making a positive difference in the life of a wheelchair-bound person for example, when I push them to lunch, or around the mall as we shop.

Helping others is perhaps the safest, yet most effective antidepressant.  It makes us feel good about ourselves, and the disabled represent a ready-supply of opportunities for helping.  Perhaps people at large would not be so depressed these days, if they’d only help others  little more. People are simply too focused on themselves and what they want for themselves.  This narcissism can leave us feeling quite sad, especially when we so often do not get what we want while believing strongly how much we deserve it.

But dating a disabled person definitely lifts spirits.  While helping them find greater happiness and joy in spite of their plights may not give you precisely what you think you want in life, helping nonetheless will attend well to your rightest needs.  True, you probably won’t make lots of money serving others day-in and day-out.  But you’ll experience increased health; both physical and mental.  You’ll truly get outside of yourself, and thus, observe a much longer-lasting sense of achievement than any job promotion, bigger house, or better car can ever provide.  Plus, you’ll lower your stress levels, as it’s much easier to please someone you’re helping than a cranky boss and his or her ever-increasing expectations of you.  So if you feel sad that you’re not making a bigger positive difference in this world, then by all means consider dating a disabled person.  I believe that the disabled were probably put here to not only test the brawn of compassion in the healthy, but also to help the healthy remain healthy by providing endless opportunities for meaningful service.  So help yourself and the disabled as well.  Date the disabled.  If you have any need whatsoever to give of yourself, you defiitely won’t be sorry.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Darwinism: Bad News For Blind Lovers
• There Is A Place For Pity Love

How is it that we’ve come to live in such a tit-for-tat or quid pro quoculture these days? Are people just so worried about losing something that they’ve become reluctant to truly give of themselves unconditionally? 

In fact, we need not   get everything back   we   give in kind  in order to secure lasting happiness; money being the possible exception to this. So why are people so intent on keeping such detailed scores of who does what and when?  Why do they insist on getting everything back that they give in such precise measures?  That doesn’t sound very compassionate of them to me. 

It’s true that getting something back for our efforts feels nice, because it shows that our beneficiaries appreciate us.  But refusing kindness to those who really need it because we estimate that they cannot give us something equally valuable back, is crazy.  Why?  Because by passing up opportunities to   give of ourselves   without reservation, we’re also skipping over chances to raise our levels of   contentment in life.  Since lacking contentment in life seems to trouble people more than ever these days, I’d say that society in general really needs to practice more   unconditional love   giving, and be far less concerned with over-giving.

Loving unconditionally (something that the selfish person might deem as over-giving) is a joyous thing and is thus, probably the most effective anti-depressant available.  Yet so many folks fail to give in the most therapeutic ways possible (E.g. unconditional giving), because they’re so concerned that they’ll be taken or that they’ll waste their lives giving without getting the happiness they seek in return.  Indeed, they have their own agendas for reaching happiness and believe that they must stay focused on only those paths to reach it, else they’ll never be happy.  So they refuse to take the time to give in ways that others need them to do so. 

Consider the dispositions of those who do not give much, and I think you’ll find them to be chronically sad, depressed, mean, and discontented with their lives.  I’m sure most of us have observed that grumpy old man or woman neighbor; the person who sees no one, and will not allow little kids into his or her yard to fetch a ball that they kicked there by accident.  Nor will this ironically lonely individual retrieve their ball for them. He’d rather deny himself their company even though it would only be for a few minutes. This sad person paces the halls in his house, all by herself, angry, frustrated, snappy, and worst of all, unfulfilled.  If only they’d try reaching out a capable hand to help others less capable now and then, they’d probably find opportunities for lasting happiness in places where they never expected to find it.  Giving is such a loving thing; at least as much so for the giver as the receiver.

My lady friend enjoys giving me long back massages, but I don’t return them because I just don’t enjoy doing them. Instead, I reimburse her favor in other ways: I help her shop. I buy her things she needs for her apartment. Plus, I bail her out when she accidentally messes up her computer.  Indeed, I devote much energy to making her day better, although it’s not the same energy that she devotes to improving my day.  So, while I’m confident that I return the general pleasure to her that she gives to me, I realize that I do not give her back precisely what she gives to me.  But there’s nothing wrong with that arrangement, as long as both people are getting things they wish to receive in the relationship. 

Thus, there’s no hard and fast rule that says that if I accept anything at all, that I must give that same thing back in return.  Who made that up?  We need less quid pro quo and more   unconditional love   both given and received, to lessen society’s need for therapists, anger management, and other expensive yet stopgap remedies for unhappiness.  Next time you feel angry, sad, or depressed, just try giving unconditionally of yourself to someone that really needs your kindness.  See if then, you don’t feel better about your life. 

Tom Hesley

Darwinism and its modern incantation, Evolutionary Psychology, are difficult reading for the blind and otherwise handicapped people. As with the Old Testament in the Bible, so far I find all bad news for the mating-minded disabled fellow in several Evolutionary Psychology texts I’ve read so far.

Further, reading the book,   Survival of the Prettiest   by Nancy Etcoff was largely to blame for the relentless sadness I’ve experienced at times, because it offers little hope for anyone who is neither really pretty, nor really rich, nor extraordinarily enabled. Admittedly,   Survival of the Prettiest   is a well-written work with hundreds of references to supporting studies. That is in fact, probably why I found this book so disheartening. The handicapped are indeed at a severe reproductive disadvantage.  As such, selection pressures steer the attractive ladies away from us. Reading that book while getting many rejections from women on the Internet, I feel now as though my dream is more futile than ever. My own experience seems to bear out precisely what Darwinism predicts. It’s no wonder I was down.  I’m daunted by Darwinism, because I’m vision-impaired.  So I wonder what my chances are if, as Darwinism suggests, women typically only mate with the highest functioning (non disabled) males.

How would Dr. Albert Ellis with all his Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) knowledge, instruct on how to advance against this seemingly impossible situation, where the blind man must face the realities of Darwinism to find a true love.  Ellis believed that humans could think their way out of more problems than they believe they can.  So the love news for the blind may be not all bad with the right thought processes in place if one has enough knowledge to properly utilize REBT techniques.

One argument that the REBT student might use to persuade the handicapped to keep pressing on in spite of the grave realities of Darwinism, is that that Darwin was quite the accomplished scientist.  That’s true, and his words shall remain preeminent in psychology now and for many generations to come.  But Darwin, in spite of his apparent completeness, still omits some of the story.

For instance, the deeply thinking REBT seeker would realize that Darwinism does not figure compassion into the mating game, because perhaps, sympathy has no healthy role as a criterion in mate selection. Nevertheless, I wonder if it would be possible for a disabled person to appeal to a woman’s kindly side as opposed to her erotic side at first, to get her to lower her barriers of   prejudice   long enough to give him a real chance. Most people resent another’s pity, and quite actively seek to avoid it. This attitude is frequently expressed by the handicapped. But pity can be a potent antidote to prejudice, long enough to open up her eyes so that she sees beyond the handicap in the fellow.

The blind ought to consider asking for ladies’ pity, openly admitting their handicap up front, and briefly relating the mating hardships they’ve encountered previously. They might consider fully acknowledging the woman’s aversion to dating someone understandably poor and lacking in social status like themselves. But they would ask her in spite of all that, to give them a break, and emphasize that they did the best they could, given their difficult-to-manage circumstances.

This would a long shot, yes. But when time is marching on, desperation indeed calls for desperate measures.   To overcome the prejudices of natural selection that social Darwinism explained so well, the handicapped truly need the compassion of attractive women to help them make their dreams of true come true. If the blind could convince the ladies that only through their compassion could they ever truly touch their dreams, maybe the women would not be so brutally rejecting. If the blind could impress on an attractive woman the power she has to brighten their lives for a time, perhaps they’d not so quickly reject when they first observe that the blind man is blind.

As painful as Darwinism-based Evolutionary Psychology is to read, reading it is probably necessary study for the blind man to develop a realistic view of his place in the dating world, and to get him thinking about ways to overcome the implied drawbacks of being blind, and move forward in the business of finding a true love.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Blind Hardships
• Consider Dating A Disabled Person
• More Help for the Blind, Please
• Power Imbalance: Blind Man Dating Sighted Woman
• To A Blind And Sad Job Seeker

References

• Survival of the Prettiest   book information

I’ve found that a fulfilling relationship starts with picking the best lovers.  But to do that, we should know what features she must and must not have to make us happy, in order to fall in love.  Our requirements of the right lovers (our dream girls) should be clear in our minds, and we should insist on them as gently but as firmly as possible.  If we do not, then we simply will not be fulfilled in the relationship.  One reason we may back down from insisting on our ideals being met, could be the   compassion   we feel for the lady.  But if we allow our sense of compassion to pull our heart strings in the wrong direction, we’ll end up picking the wrong women every time. While a noble trait in most other areas of life, allowing our compassion for her to bind us to her only leads to sadness and frustration.  It’s hard to choose wisely when compassion clouds your view. 

We should not compromise for the sake of the other because we feel sorry for her, when evaluating how attractive and thus, worth keeping we find her.  True.  We may feel sad that she’s lonely.  Indeed, her loneliness may be due to her lacking allure.  It probably is in fact.  That’s no one’s fault really; it’s just an unpleasant fact of the human condition.  So we may wish to ease her pain by spending time with her.  But allowing our pity for her to soften our resolve, to persuade us to ignore our preferences, and then go out with her anyway despite the missing attraction, is ill-advised.  It may please her in the short term.  But we’ll be miserable and unfulfilled all the while.  For every smile she aims at us as a result of our kindness, we’ll be frowning inside no mater how strong our kindly persuasions are.  In this scenario, her happiness would come at our expense; which is terrible soil for growing a fulfilling union that endures. Indeed, we have the best chances of picking a true dream girl when we’re least compassionate, and the most selfish.  Mating is a highly selfish pursuit; at least, healthy mating is anyhow.  You can’t afford to be kind when looking for a right girl to love. 

Generally speaking, there’s no room for pity in romance. The two rarely exist together because someone who is desirable is most likely not pitiable, and someone we pity, we commonly do not desire romantically. People in the main do not fall for folks that they believe to be lacking or needy (in need of pity or kindness beyond common courtesy).  Pity (or whatever it is that promotes it) extinguishes romantic love; particularly if the traits she lacks that make her pitiable in our eyes, are ones that we require in order to intensify our own passions (E.g. If a lady prefers to date taller men, then, though she may feel sorry for someone shorter, she’ll never feel in-love with him as long as she feels sorry for him).  By definition, if she feels sorry for his inadequate height, then though she may wish to be kind to brighten his days, she’ll always, deep down, think him inadequate.  He will never be “perfect” to her as long as she sees something about him to feel sorry for. 

In fact, we don’t feel sorry for people we consider completely adequate.  No amount of good will on her part will cancel out her sense that while he’s a great guy, he still just doesn’t “do it” for her.  Her compassion for him in this case, confuses the issue of her finding the right man; it derails her in her search.

There are essential roles for compassion to be sure; such as when a child gets sick, or when a lover is hurting once true love has already been established.  But pity is a lousy reason to move forward in a relationship when there’s no romantic motivation to do so.  Misfortune is never a good reason to stay with someone, so don’t mistake sympathy you feel for true love.  While kindness may be a useful component in a relationship to get us through some rough patches, it should never be made the primary reason we stay involved with someone. A lover’s chronic need for special kindness can completely extinguish the fires of romantic love.   

Now when an already-existing attraction is suppressed due to  prejudices,  diagnosis biases, and ill-informed judgments, eliciting compassion might work to persuade someone to lower these barriers and allow their underlying feelings to come through.  But the joy of being kind is a poor substitute for the desires and gratifications of true love.  If there is no attraction, then pity for the other will never suffice to fulfill us as much as a deeper, truer love for them will.  So don’t go out with someone because you think they deserve it or that they need it; do so because you feel that you deserve it and that youdesire it.  Be selfish.  Being a do-gooder might score you some brownie points with God.  But in my experience, it will never net you the true love of your life. So in order to pick the right women, make your decisions without compassion’s noble influence. clouding your judgment.  There’ll be plenty of time to show your compassionate sides to her later, but not during the mate-selection process. 

Tom Hesley

Dear [Mentat],

Our culture could improve if people regarded one another with   more compassion,   and were happier with   less personal gain; at least, less money and material items. Sometimes, people become so obsessed with economic personal gain and getting ahead financially, that they treat others not as obsessed with disrespect; deeming them lazy and irrelevant. This creates many hurt feelings and disappointments throughout our work culture here in America. Instead, we should value people less for the opportunities to get ahead that they present for our own personal gains, and value them more just because of their unique personalities. Let’s worry less about how much we can get from somebody else and focus more on enjoying them for what they offer to us, without compelling them to offer it.

If we realized that we each achieve ultimate success differently, we might expect less from others that they’re not really capable of granting. What’s easier for one might be harder for another. Some people have much natural ability (talent). Others have somewhat less. Still others have still less, and a few have no talent whatsoever. Just because a discipline is easier for one person does not make it easier for all.

Yet those obsessed with personal gain (the overly greedy) treat others as a means to their own successful ends. When the others fail to deliver what the greedy think they should (or could), the greedy mutter and curse, humiliate, fire, and resent those who’s lacking talents and ambition (in the greedy person’s view), hold them back.

Still though, the idea that putting one’s nose to the grindstone as much as he can, and then much personal gain and success will come, is somewhat fallacious. After all, I built the good career and earned a fair amount of money, yet I did not achieve the success I wanted. This puritan work philosophy works for some to be sure; it will definitely feed you. But it will not make you happy, unless of course, it’s just the money that you need to be happy. I however, required more.

Laze-faire economics, material oriented trappings, and the whole Adam Smith philosophy that personal economic gain is best for a country, leaves many out in the cold. It rejects many more than it rewards, and offers fertile breeding grounds for prejudice, exploitation, and other unethical practices. So I just can’t accept the quest for personal financial gain as the right system for humanity, sorry to say. I’m not even sure that it’s the best system we’ve seen throughout the history of humanity.

Tom Hesley

Dear [Brandon],

Many views I struggle to tolerate, though I actually wish not to put up with them at all.  But I stomach them to preserve peace with others and avoid the heated arguments that face-to-face discussions of them can produce. 

One common opinion I strongly oppose is the wide-spread opposition to building   mosques   at   ground zero   or   anywhere else   throughout America.  I find this hostile view toward Muslims offensive because such unfriendliness promotes inequality and perpetuates discord and hatred among religions.  When one religion (Christian) denies another (Muslim) the freedom to build a church (mosque), then much anger occurs as seen in the near-hysterical demonstrations against building the mosque at ground zero.  Curiously though, the Muslims supporting the mosque were virtually invisible and quiet, while it was their rivals (the Christian-American majority) who were doing most of the yelling, taunting, vandalizing the construction equipment, and so on.  Those acting the most righteous in this conflict were typically the most violent and hateful in the whole mosque-at-ground-zero affair. 

It’s infuriating that the Christian-American majority is so uninformed and intolerant about how benevolent and peaceful non radical Muslims are. Ask Christian Americans why they oppose mosque building at most any location, and most are hard-pressed to answer.  Of course, because prejudice can rarely answer the tough questions like this without lots of stammer and uncertainty.  But when they do respond, their rationale seems woefully inadequate to justify the sorts of restrictions on an entire religion that opposing Muslim mosques in America embodies.

The Majority   is a great place to be as long as it never turns against you, as it apparently has against the religious freedoms of American Muslims. People hide their flawed thinking behind the banner of preponderance (behind each other), and so, never really have to justify their misguided positions on their own; without backup from others like them. It’s the old “safety in numbers” phenomenon. That is: Subscribing to majority rule makes it much easier to persecute a person, as many others are doing the same.  Majority rule (or better yet, mob rule) is  also very dangerous for those in the minority. Certainly, majority might makes not majority right. Yet Christian Americans continue to relentlessly fight Muslims who wish to build mosques. 

You and I have lived in the minority throughout our lives.  Your sexual orientation makes you a minor (so to speak), as does my visual impairment make me a minor. So perhaps this has given us a keener appreciation and thus sensitivity about the sort mob oppression that happened surrounding the building of the Muslin mosque at ground zero. Nowadays though unlike yesteryear, I’m happy with my dealt hand of vision impairment, because it has made me a more tolerant and compassionate person toward those who are different.  I’m different myself, and I believe that that has enabled me to better appreciate and more fully accept others’ differences.  I understand the supreme benefits of a diversity-appreciating society, and the need to promote such a collective yet diverse existence.  Thus, I have no problem with Muslims building mosques anywhere they wish so long as the adhere to local ordinances.

Christians may dominate the American political landscape currently. But America is by no means an exclusively Christian nation.  We’re not supposed to be of one faith here; but a diverse and numerous set of faiths.  Both Christians and non Christians alike should keep reminding the population at large of that.  We need to replace this Christian righteousness regarding the mosques with a healthy dose of good old fashioned humility.

Many Christian American newspaper columnists I’ve read seem to just want to fight with all Muslims; particularly when they argue that the connection between Islam and terrorism is immutable — like Islam is a single person, and when a small few of them commit a violent crime, then the Christians fault all of Islam.

Finally, liberalism is sometimes discredited in America these days because it supports Muslim mosques. Well, liberalism has prevailed in most of the election cycles in the past century due to the high regard it places on the ideal of total equality. But while liberalism proved to be out of vogue in 2010 elections, many folks nonetheless espouse the liberal agenda. Numerous conservative columnists are dreaming if they think that liberal ideals carry no weight with folks.  When people are hard pressed, their conscience punishes them when they show too little compassion.  Many folks today are feeling ashamed that at one time, they opposed Muslim freedom, gay rights, enfranchisement of all races, and so on.  So too will it be the case with the Muslim mosque at ground zero. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Majority Oppose Muslim Mosque Near Ground Zero
• Mosque At Ground Zero
• Muslim Americans’ Rights
• Two Weak Arguments Against Mosque At Ground Zero

From audio journal episode   AJE-2010-05-07-19-30.

Not all   love rejection   is pointless.  Some rejection is even good, and highly   useful   in fact.  Love rejection can show us which paths to avoid in our love quests.  Rejection can actually guide us in the right direction, toward that ultimate goal of the love quest: sustained happiness and fulfillment in love.  Here are some ways how. 

So if we’re going to keep the love quest going, we should not seek to avoid   all   rejection.  True.  Love rejection makes the love quest painful.  But a love quest, like any other quest, would not be a quest without some rejection to thwart progress.  Quests are bitter-sweet, being full of both pleasure and pain; often more pain than pleasure.  So we must endure some potent losses in order to reach the wins.   To give up in the face of rejection means that we forfeit the love quest.  Rejection is the dirt, mud, and jagged branches and vines in the jungle that we must get through to reach the prize.  So rejection supplies a sort of map for the quest.  Rejection is like the walls in a maze that we bump and feel our way through.  You can’t get through a respectable maze without bumping into a few walls along the way.  Likewise, you’ll never win the love quest without having to   deal with rejection   frequently.   

Compassionate love rejection   happens when a person rejects, but does so with sensitivity and gentleness.  It may not mean forever, no.   In fact, she may be leaving the door open a crack, encouraging us to try again in the future; just not now.  She may have declined a date request, not because she dislikes us, but rather due to circumstances in her life beyond her control.  Maybe she already has a boyfriend, is busy with children or career, or she’s dealing with judgmental siblings who don’t like us.  Rejections like this hurt less, and may not hurt at all, and we should follow up on this sort; asking again every so often.  Sometimes in the love quest, persistence pays off.  Just don’t be persistent where it’s not welcome.  Don’t be a pain.  In fact, a compassionate rejection can save us much pain if we regard it properly.

Seasons change, yes, and so do people sometimes.  Even when someone rejects with obvious displeasure at our having asked them out, they could change their minds.  It’s possible yes.  But don’t count on it.  Don’t keep hounding them on the off-chance that they will change their minds.  Just be comforted that they   could   decide differently sometime later.   

Sometimes, a rejection of love may mean the opposite.  That is, the rejecter may be rejecting us for reasons other than that she feels no attraction.  She may fear what her family and friend would say if she said yes, or any number of other reasons.  So, when rejections like these attempt to conceal (but nonetheless betray) a strong desire to say yes, it’s good to try again, now and then.  She may in fact say yes the next time.  As long as she never calls me a reject, I may try again though with a history of rejection now established, I’d probably be more afraid of rejection in the future.  So I might not try again.  So to the ladies: Be careful to whom and how you say no. This no-means-yes sort of rejection can be uplifting.  But again, do not assume that no means yes until she   actually says   she means yes.  Indeed, people reject in spite of their desires to embrace, because they sense their vulnerability to the person that they, underneath it all, actually desire.  Though they like him, their affection may spur them to reject him!  They reject to avoid getting hurt while denying themselves what they intensely yearn for.  Life’s full of these crazy ironies, isn’t it? 

Rejection in love, both the pain of receiving it as well as the exaggerated enthusiasm that is often dispensed with it, are at times covers for highly positive feelings for the rejected one as well.  Perhaps the women from whom we’re most afraid of love rejection, are the ones we most long for.  Thus, these are the ones we’d have the most fun with if they’d only accept us.  So, whom we fear rejection from the most, is likely whom we desire the most.  So how we regard the threat of rejection can supply important clues as to whom we are the most intensely attracted. 

Though rejection generates much sadness, we can learn from these experiences who we truly desire, and whom we do not.  We can also figure out who truly desires us, not only by the absence of rejection, but also in spite of the presence of it.  A great way to deal with rejection therefore, is to   find the positive   in it.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

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• More Rejection Means More Fear, Not Less
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Dear [Mentat],

People expect to see folks of like attractiveness together.  They talk and act in ways that encourage that, and   without pity   for the less attractive person, society discourages the stunningly beautiful, fully  sighted woman   from dating that ugly loser guy. When one partner is very much more attractive than the other, the public shuns and sabotages such unions. They (intentionally or not) behave to undermine associations between differently attractive people, employing everything from off-the-cuff, innocent but diminishing comments, all the way up to lying and backstabbing. Through these tactics and others, society in large degree, dictates the   pecking order, without pity for those it casts out.

You remember when I was seeing  [Emmy], that young woman twenty years of age, and how that guy Bob in Philly went behind my back, trying to convince her not to date me? He obviously was trying to cut in front of me in the pecking order as he saw it, and he felt that he had every right to do so.  Plus, it wasn’t just him.  So too did a few women try to talk her out of me, when I visited Buffalo in 2004. Their typical comments to her, without pity or compassion for my feelings, and without ever having met me, much less knowing me, were:

• You’re too good for him.
• You need to find yourself a   hot   guy.
• You don’t want to be seen with an ugly guy like Tom, do you?
• You could do so much better, and you deserve to.
• He’s so lucky to have someone like you because ladies of your caliber wouldn’t usually pay him any mind.
• Any old man would want a young chick like you, just like Tom does. So his love isn’t anything special.
• I bet all he wants is your body, since you’re so beautiful.  He’ll never really love you therefore.
• Why he’s so ugly that he couldn’t get one date in five years. But you. You could have a great lover every night if you weren’t wasting your life with him.
• You’re a popular girl. But he’s a nobody.
• What could he possibly have to offer you?
• You’re strange if you see anything in Tom.
• Tom’s a nice guy, yes, but you could have so much more fun if you picked a more attractive and manly fellow.

You get the idea. When someone manages to butt ahead in the pecking order line, others standing there do their best to pull him back to where they think he belongs; like crabs in a boiling pot of water that pull those back down who attempt to escape. Like them, it seems that cultural forces work hard to make sure we don’t get someone any more attractive than we ourselves are.  Indeed, society dictates the pecking order, and does so without much pity for those it muscles or shames out of desirable relationships.

Now back to our sighted woman and   blind man   discussed earlier   here.  Since the sighted woman is a 9.5 out of 10 in terms of attractiveness, then in light of the discussion above, she’ll produce more romantic gratification in any fellow (including the blind man) than the blind man will in her. I’m assuming here that any romantic advantage a perfect 10 has, occurs mostly at level three in Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs. This may be fallacious, I know. But I need to do it for a moment to make my point.

Now, our highly attractive sighted woman is only about forty percent as likely to be gratified romantically by the blind man because he’s only about forty percent as attractive as she is (He’s a 4 and she’s a 10). So in this simple and admittedly stilted scenario, the blind man will benefit much more in a romantic sense from the attractive sighted woman, than she will benefit from him.  This assumes that society doesn’t meaningfully thwart their relationship. Also, since the pretty sighted woman has more latitude in selecting more attractive men, I’d expect that if she’s not as gratified as she could be, and at the same time, has the power to become more gratified, then why would she stay with the blind man? 

Maybe she pities him. Maybe the needs that   she   is looking to gratify through her involvement with the blind man aren’t as much level three as they are level five. Specifically, she wants to gratify her self-actualization,   growth needs   of showing compassion to a soul who yearns for it.  But the blind man on the other hand wants to gratify his  deficiency needs  of love. In short, she primarily wants to   give   in order to self-actualize herself, while he wants primarily to   get,   to quench his thirst for love. His need to receive love is thus, more urgent than her need to give it.  Thus, we have the asymmetry I spoke of earlier in my  Power Imbalance: Blind Man Dating Sighted Woman   piece. Can this sort of symbiotic relationship work in a healthful way? Intuitively, it seems not, though this would bear more complete investigation later.

At any rate given all this, I doubt that asking women to form attractions based on the compassion a blind man might inspire, will work any better than other attraction strategies that require no compassion. Sighted women probably won’t be moved by the blind man’s pleas.  But even if they are, their family and friends will probably discourage them, just as   [Emmy's]   friends dissuaded her above, from going out with me.  They may pity love the blind man.  But only without pity will they truly love him in binding, romantic ways. 

Even if the sighted women answering the call to pity are so moved to love the blind man, I’m not sure most men of conscience could really let go sexually, because he’d doubt if she’s really enjoying the sex too. If the blind man ever suspected that they weren’t, then I doubt he’d enjoy it either. Now the sighted women might get some thrill at level five from making love to the blind man, insofar as they would be performing a good deed; doing a great thing that few other women would be “big enough” to do. But I’d wonder as do you, if that would be truly enough for these women over time. I personally would just feel guilty and self-conscious getting off, if I thought that she wasn’t experiencing the same degree and type of carnal joy.

Even if a sighted woman is moved to love a blind man, she’ll probably end up dominating him and holding her superior attractiveness over his head without pity; implicitly if not blatantly. I wouldn’t want to be on the short end of that power imbalance or to feel the sighted woman pulling my heart along as I run in the dirty road behind her, gasping for air while eating the dust from her boots. It’s no fun doing your best, only to have some beautiful woman say that you’re not doing well enough, or that you should be doing something different.

E. G. Marshall, on the CBS Radio Mystery Theatre, summed it up well, saying:  Should a man pick a woman more capable [attractive] than he, then he gets humiliated. If he picks someone less capable, then he gets boredom. Thus the real challenge is to pick someone truly equal to ourselves. I just hope that I’m capable of finding long-term satisfaction with a woman of equal attractiveness to my own.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Power Imbalance: Blind Man Dating Sighted Woman
• Asking For Help
• Blind Hardships
• Help From Sighted Lovers
• More Help For The Blind, Please!

References

• Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs   definition on Wikipedia

Apple   has deemed it appropriate to remove the   Exodus International   app from the Apple App Store.  See the    Exodus International App Removed From Apple  piece for more details.

I favor Apple’s decision, and justify this opinion that opposes Exodus International‘s position with the following discussion.

So how does one resolve these seemingly conflicting premises?

1. Homosexuality is a sin;
2. Love thy neighbor;
3. Love the Lord.

The problem arises when you teach (as does Exodus International) that   homosexuality is wrong,   because these  gay is wrong    lessons very often trigger people to over react when they encounter   a gay person. In many extreme cases, such teachings incite violence against the gay, who this teaching obviously disfavors.  However, at least Exodus International attempts to prevent this over reaction by addressing the   gay bullying   that targets LGBT community members frequently.  Still though, teaching that homosexuality is wrong can provide those predisposed to committing gay bullying violence for a cause, to feel justified in acting with distain and physical menace toward homosexuals.  After perusing their web site, I do not believe that Exodus International fully appreciates this grave ramification of their anti-gay publications, and the adverse effects their teachings might have on the problem of gay bullying around the world.  Apple on the other hand, seems to have realized this, and took the highly appropriate action of pulling the Exodus International app from their app store. 

Besides, who’s to say that God himself didn’t make the homosexual gay? I don’t think anyone has ever heard God himself say that being gay is wrong. 

The devout believers claim that God made everything else, right? So why would he not have created homosexuality?  This begs the question: Why would Exodus International highly regard   some   of God’s creations (the heterosexual) while devaluing some of His others (the homosexual)? Perhaps God put homosexuals here to truly test just how loving and compassionate his followers could be. Who knows? If that was what He did, then many folks are failing that compassion test, including in my opinion, Exodus International, even if they offer thier opposition to gay bullying to difuse some of the molevalance of their gay-is-wrong position. 

Proponents of the belief that homosexuality is sexually disordered, often claim that homosexuality is just as devient and harmful to society as other behaviors such as incest, pedophilia, and rape.  However unlike homosexuality, these crimes always have victims because the perpetrator forces himself / herself on a much weaker person, imposing the will on them. These behaviors probably have genetic components but not excuses, since if left unchecked, they can victimize and wound many in long-lasting ways.  To those who would argue that homosexual bullying victims are victimized because of their homosexuality I’d say: The bullying is by no means an inherent result of homosexuality, but rather, an inherent result of unchecked   prejudice   within those who do the bullying.  The problem here rests squarely on the shoulders of the bully; not the homosexual. 

Homosexuality however is victimless. When the person being gay is amongst practicing homosexuals, and he or she does not violate some one’s wishes, then there is no victim bullied, abused, dominated, or otherwise. Thus, homosexuality is not in the same class of behaviors as incest, pedophilia, and rape.  So it’s incorrect that Exodus International regards homosexuality as a faulty fluke of nature; not to the degree at any rate, that you’d view pedophilia or incest as harmful and in need of excising.

Further, there is a constant war in every one of us between who we actually are, and what we think we should be. When society denounces homosexuality, it intensifies this war within anyone with homosexual leanings.  The result is often mental illness, deep despair, dejection, rejection, and so on. Why do people think that they should be so different than who they actually are? Unfortunately, this tendency has made psychotherapists rich, and left most of society mentally ill to one degree or another.

Now, so long as the Christians act to promote their thinking in benevolent ways (by not excluding or otherwise eliminating the gay population), then, while the whole business still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, I could live with it. However I’m not gay either. So perhaps I’m not as sensitive to the gay position as I might otherwise be. I’m sure some gays would probably still object to the notion that homosexuality is wrong no matter how benevolently it’s expressed. But for me to object further, I’d have to have firsthand experience with the gay lifestyle; which I do not.  So I’ll stop objecting further for now.

Exodus International and others who think homosexuality is wrong on principle, can express their beliefs all they want, in appropriate venues. But I’m not sure that the iTunes App Store is such a place; particularly where children have easy access and where many customers found the presence of the Exodus International app highly offensive. Maybe if they put the app in the adult content section, I’d feel less inclined to resist it, but resist it I still would.

If Apple was a part of the US government, then I’d surely oppose their censorship of the Exodus International app. But since Apple is a private-sector business, the rules against censorship become way more lax. As such, Apple need not carry anything they wish to ban, and no reason for refusal is necessary either. So, Apple is within its rights to censor this app, and personally, I’m glad that they did.

Now, about that “moral imperative” that Christians have to rid the earth of homosexuality, I’ll look at this Exodus International organization a bit further and read more of just what they’re saying about homosexuality before passing a strong judgment on them. But I’ve witnessed the sorts of oppression that others like them (who justify their anti gay sentiments with religious doctrine) are capable of. Groups such as Exodus International scare me because they act like they know so much.  Yet they know not what they know not. This particular group appears to be no different. But I’ll give them a fair shake, but will bail if they make too many claims about the wrongness of homosexuality that they fail to prove.

I’ll admit that much about the origins and motivations of homosexuality is still not well-understood. But that gives no group license to invent ideologies and “moral imperatives” that disfavor a particular sect of the population (homosexuals in this case being disfavored by Exodus International). Such believers shouldn’t act like they know something definitively when in fact, they do not; they cannot.

Already, I’m put off because a basic premise here is that homosexuality is an error, a sin, something to be expunged from humanity, and can be addressed simply by changing behavior. But I can’t make such a big leap of faith; not when the result is so much discord, hurt feelings, exclusion, and discrimination of homosexuals from mainstream society.

At least however, Exodus International admits that they don’t “cure” homosexuality and that they’re only targeting those who harbor “unwanted same-sex attractions” to quote them. I’ll review more of their writings presently.

Lastly, Apple is rich. So they don’t have to seriously consider the financial ramifications of one particular app I don’t think. They can indeed afford to include or exclude based on public feedback, which is what apparently drove them to remove the app from Exodus International. Perhaps they thought they’d lose more money by keeping the app than by getting rid of it.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Church Teaches Gay Inequality
• Exodus International App Removed From Apple
• I Oppose Exodus International
• Is Homosexuality Wrong?
• Religion Based Gay Discrimination
• Support Gay Marriage Rights

References

• What Is Exodus International   answer on Wikipedia