¡HAPPY 39th BIRTH...EARTH...BREATH~DAY TO ME!

Live your own life with boldness and authenticity, and you add value to all of life. Expect the best for yourself, fulfill that expectation with honest, effective effort, and everyone benefits.

Being bold does not mean being a brute. Boldly following your own desires does not require that you trample on the lives of others.

There is more than enough abundance for everyone. Life affords plenty of space for the fulfillment of every person's own unique dreams.

You are here to be you, so don't be ashamed of that. Celebrate your uniqueness by expressing it in ways that add new and compelling richness to the world.

Every day delivers fresh opportunities for you to show life how good it is to be alive. Do it with kindness in your heart, with respect, love and originality.

The world is hungry for the special value that can come only from you. Boldly and generously, let it flow.

Here's to enjoying the last of the dirty thirties!

¡HAPPY BIRTHDAY...EARTH~DAY...BREATH~DAY TO ME!

I do my best to celebrate my birthday every day, not just once a year, because each breath is a gift, and every moment is a cause for celebration! So today I will make a special effort to enjoy & celebrate this breath-day! Oooh.. and there are CAKES!

THE GAY GAP YEAR...

A gap year is usually taken at the end of high school. Young people take a year off – the gap year – to pursue something non-education related. It’s usually travel. And it’s usually a means to buy some time, before having to make the next major life decision – study or work.

Gay men, for a number of reasons, face a similar situation at some point in their lives. It might not be post-high school necessarily. In fact, it usually comes a bit later. Typically, you settle into a career. Find a guy and settle down. Then you make the biggest financial purchase of your life – your home.  And then what?…

That’s when the gay gap year comes in.

Which brings me to the question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately – what next?

I’m wondering if there are any other gay guys who have or are experiencing something similar. Is the gay gap year (or years) something that happens to us all once we reach a certain point in our lives? Once we’re settled, happy and sorted – does a craving for something more creep in? Are the gay gap years a time for us to continue our own self-discovery, and think about what bigger contribution we’d like to make in the world?

I DIDN'T RANT...

I keep reading that my blog entries about religion are rants. This would be troubling to me if I didn't understanding, a rant is an explosive diatribe, a poorly articulated spewing of raw emotion. To successfully write a rant one would need to use a lot of foul language and a small army of exclamation points. Any casual reading of my blog would, I believe, suggest quite the opposite. I have always steered clear from hyperbolic venting, preferring to make my case in subtle, understated ways. In fact, if any one word were to be used to describe my entries, I think it would be "stealthy." Or perhaps "subversive." If I were to use two words, I might go with "winkingly clever." But "rant"? I hardly think so. 

In the meantime, I will continue to calmly offer my opinion regarding the world as I see it, right here. If, for some reason, my detractors find that unacceptable, I will not stoop to using ugly words and exclamation points. Winkingly clever requires inference.

 Go inference yourself.

QUITTING WORK @ 45

Forty five years is an arbitrary ‘menopause time’ for men. Life has more meaning than making money. It’s been said it’s harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven. In other words, serving two masters at the same time is like having two wives who ask you who you love most when the answer, ‘the same’, doesn’t work! Or, to be a master at two sports at any time in life is not only unlikely, but will there be time for knowing yourself, and for another to know you, and you them?

Life to have fullness in meaning only happens with the passion to seek it’s meaning along with knowing who you really are ‘without the attachments’. Knowing life means taking a ‘break’ from the chase of the material pearls. To continue in life making more money than is needed is a form of gluttony, and ‘pride chasing’, as in the seven deadly sins. There comes a time in life, when the inner quality of you needs to have the care and nurturing that serving too many ‘masters’ will never allow. Not possible!

It is better to begin valuing, and with action, the inner aspects of life and love as early as possible rather than plunging into a life that has no breaks until it’s no longer easily possible to stop, and push the ‘reset’ button to an innocent open heart and mind. Life almost always continues as it started from early on, but the first few years as an adult is the time to reset or correct habits, misconceptions, etc., and move into one of love and inner blossoming be it through love of another, meditation, or both.

Life has ‘open windows’. To be an athlete of note, one isn’t likely to become that starting at 30. There are seasons and times for everything. Wisdom can have an open window throughout one’s life, but what’s been done in the past is a good indicator of that possibility. Have a passion for gardening, the window is always open. One, who is a smoker, may avoid Alzheimer’s disease, but it’s because death comes first in that open window.

Find a passion or two as early as possible, keeping focused on it, and one that you would do for perhaps years while having nothing to do with money. Let it be from the heart. Mine is around this with meditation and love, along with fun at ‘free speech activism’ as a social giving back for the privilege of being alive at this incredible moment in time. Seek your passion, and by forty five be ready to consume yourself in it with positivity, awareness, love, and compassion for all. The gold in life is in the ‘inner qualities’. Life isn’t just a masquerade to let what doesn’t really matter get in the way. Be the gardener of who you really are deep within!

BEING A WHORE MADE ME A BETTER PARTNER

I never knew what it was like to be free with my impulses. The years of suppression turned me into a dummy. I had zero skills. All that existed was the urging of sexual gratification, which had been denied to me my whole life. Love and intimacy was unfamiliar because all I wanted to have was physical contact with another man. Growing up it was all I wanted, and now that I was here in a place where I felt okay to express myself, I wanted to make up for the lost time.

There’s a thing out there called the Two Year Phase, which has to do with gay men, particular ones born and raised in suppressing environments, who become promiscuous as soon as they come out. It typically lasts a couple years for them to get it out of their system so to speak. Once it’s over with, they’re able to mentally place themselves in proper alignment with the experience of peers their age. For me, it lasted three.

Men in general have an interesting relationship with sex. Mental images and sexual urgings speak a language in unison with our brain, sending messages about what we really want/need. Sometimes it’s just a fantasy, but other times it fuels a desire to grab what’s missing from the equation. For me, while sex proved to be convenient, it desensitized my understanding of what true love was.

I marked “sex” off my checklist real quick. That was over and done with. As I found myself becoming more comfortable in my own head, I opened new opportunities to seek love and romance too. But it was hard, and I struggled to find it.

Sex was out of my system, which made it easier than I thought. What I didn’t have experience in was intimacy and emotional connection. That required practice. I had to throw myself out there and meet single guys who wanted to find love. The conundrum was being able to get past the sex part. Sex was easy to get, but relationships are a hard nut to crack.

I discovered that love and sex, while easy to separate at times, live by the same rules. In order for me to allow myself to open up, I needed practice similar to how I got sex out of my system, I also needed to get dating out of my system.

Many of the guys I dated during this time were having the same struggles. They’d gone through years of promiscuity and were “over it.” They were looking to find someone willing to go with them to the next level. We were on the same page so it was much easier to share ourselves with one another.

If it weren’t for years of promiscuity, we might not have recognized how important love is in making sex meaningful. Some discover it early while others find it later. Obviously, not all gay men have the same experience. Everyone exists in different areas when it comes to love and acceptance, but I can’t help but notice that LGBT people handle things in a different order than our straight counterparts. When you’re growing up in an environment that suppresses identity, it’s crucial to discover yourself at some point later in life. Most of the time we’re struggling to catch up to the rest of the world, who’s had a healthy progression, we learn valuable lessons through trial and error rather than on TV or Romantic Comedies.

I can only speak from my own experience, but the years I spent exploring my sexual boundaries and discovering what it all meant allowed me to be present in love. Love is something that happens organically while sex often unfolds by an effort to feel valuable. What I learned, however, is that being loved by another human being is a true testament to how valuable I am – having multiple sex partners never made me feel wanted, just lusted after. It took being in the trenches (sometimes literally) to know what was missing all this time.

30 THINGS I'VE LEARNED ABOUT GAY RELATIONSHIPS WHILE BEING SINGLE...

Too often gay guys fall into a pit of depression and blame themselves for their singleness when the truth is, there is so much potential in it! The longer we appreciate this time, the better we’ll be in the long run when love comes knocking on our door. Here are a few things I’ve learned along the way:

#1) You’re not alone. Single people account for more of the population than ever before. It’s quite easy to feel like we’re the odd duck when it comes to being single since we see most of the world is holding hands with each other. But open your eyes. There’s are plenty more single guys out there than you think.

#2) First impressions are rarely what they appear to be. Human beings are prone to change their mannerisms, points of view, vocal inflections, even appearance to seem better than they actually are. We all do it. It’s a rule of life. Don’t assume a person is what he says he is in the first two hours.

#3) When a guy really likes you, you’ll know it. The truth is when a person has feelings, he wants to live inside your head. He wants to call you, text you, read your Facebook profile and skim through your pictures. If he’s not making any effort AT ALL to stay in contact, it’s a pretty safe bet where his feelings lie.

#4) Sleeping with him on the first date sends a wrong message. I know, I know. Telling a gay guy not to sleep with a man on their first encounter is a long shot. But trust me, not sleeping with him on the first date (and even the second) prolongs a mental form of foreplay that enhances the mystery and imagination, leading to more interest.

#5) Gay Relationships will not solve all your problems. It’s funny how amidst our worries of paying rent, paying our debt, fixing our career paths, planning our retirement, and making the people around us know we love them we focus only on finding a relationship as if it were the end all, be all to other responsibilities. It’s not.

#6) Sex is not more powerful than the connection you create, no matter how much you think it is. A relationship that’s built only on sex always ends when the sex gets boring. A gay relationship built on intimacy, compatibility, trust, loyalty and honest connection will last forever. Sex can change, but a true connection is hard to break.

#7) If imagining a second Christmas or Birthday with him makes you cringe, it’s time to question your future. Clearly your gut is trying to tell you something and the longer you ignore it, the more devastating you will be in the long run.

#8) If you really want him to pay attention to you, pretend you’re less interested than you actually are. It works. And yes, I don’t understand it either. This is different from playing hard to get – that’s a bad thing to do. Simply making him work a bitt harder for your attention tricks him into thinking you’re more valuable. And we all want to be with someone of value.

#9) Bad dates are lessons in disguise. Every date you go on should have something to take from it. Calculate the good from the bad and eventually you’ll see the signs that make you filter out the bad eggs from the good ones.

#10) Liking someone for the wrong reasons never works out. Being attached to a guy simply because he’s good looking, is good at sex, has nice connections or has an awesome apartment is never going to be good for you in the long run.

#11) A gay relationship doesn’t define your worth. Just because you’re single does not mean something is wrong with you or that you need to change everything about yourself in order to find a guy. You have value. We all do. We’ve won the biggest lottery there is in the universe: life. That means we’re worthy of everything it has to offer.

#12) Opposites attract, but similarities stay together. It’s easy to be attracted to our polar opposites simply because they’re more interesting, but in the long run it’s the people who have similar goals, similar tastes, similar morals, and similar plans that stay together.

#13) Whoever prompts the first date must plan it (and possibly pay for it). It’s sheer consideration. If you’re asking a guy to alter his weekend plans for YOU, then it should be without question that you ought to pay. If he offers to split it, then let him. But don’t assume.

#14) Dogs can get you a phone number. Even if it’s your best friend’s dog that you’re taking care of while she’s away for the weekend, take it to the dog park and I guarantee you you’ll be in gay male heaven.

#15) Hearts can lie, but your gut never will. Listening to your intuition is the most important thing anybody can do. It’s the command center of all things YOU. Hearts can be broken. If you’re not careful, you can let it become the loudest voice in your head and soon it’ll become an anchor that prevents you from moving on.

#16) You’ll recognize the ridiculous habits people do when they’re in “love” or like. Love can definitely blind people from reality. When you’re single you’re more able to see it from an outside perspective so that when it happens to you, it’s easier to separate reality from a fantasy.

#17) You teach people how to treat you. The way you handle yourself, whether it’s independently or dependent on others, becomes the catalyst of how society treats you. Don’t be surprised.

#18) No one knows what’s inside your head. People aren’t mind readers. They only know whatever it is you tell them. It’s easy to get aggravated whenever someone can’t relate to you on a personal level, but perhaps you’re not giving them a chance to.

#19) Dating should be more fun than the fantasy. Dating should always be taken with a grain of salt. It’s fun, enjoyable and could last as long as you want it to. When it’s tied down by unreal expectations, you tend to capsize reality. Never compare it to the fantasy in your head.

#20) Everyone chooses the people they have in their lives. No one is permanently attached to your hip. You have a say in whoever you decide to be in your life, even family. Don’t feel obligated to keep people around that don’t deserve to be.

#21) You aren’t as  naive as you think. There’s a difference between being optimistic and being naive. Feeling hopeful and positive towards whatever the future holds is a great way of living so long as you learn from past disappointments. Entering new situations having learned something keeps you from repeating mistakes. Go back in your mind and collect everything you’ve learned – I guarantee you it’s a lot.

#22) Unconditional love is more important than conditional love. No person should come into your life with ultimatums or verbal contracts. Love is not only an emotion, it’s the acceptance of everything we are. That’s more powerful than unexpected conditions.

#23) Never date someone you don’t like. There’s no reason to keep a man you don’t like on a leash simply because you want a man around. The longer he’s there, the more time you waste.

#24) Being single isn’t a punishment or a sign that you’re a failure. People are single for many different reasons. In fact, some people are better off being single than in a relationship. Society pressures us into thinking we need a man, when in fact we don’t. You’re not messed up. You don’t need constant therapy to figure out why. Being single isn’t a good or bad thing. Never take it as a depressing sign that you’ve failed at life.

#25) The quality of man you date is proportional to how satisfied you are with your well-being. Your actions and the way you view yourself on the inside and out will alway attract a person who is similar – it’s the law of attraction. When you try to be a better person than you were the day before, you’ll eventually meet a person worthy of the goodness you have to offer.

#26) Everyone has a past. You can’t always expect a man with a clean slate to walk into your life every time. We’ve all traveled down rocky roads and made it out the other end in one piece. Some are stronger than before, while others are still working it out. You’re angel either so you might as well give him the benefit of the doubt.

#27) Settling only brings short-term happiness. Settling might make you feel satisfied for the moment, but it’s never going to welcome longterm satisfaction.

#28) The memories you make while you’re single are the ones you’ll treasure most in the long run. This is the time you can have guilt-free fun and enjoy not being tied down with personal responsibility. It’s the time you can truly test your limits. Enjoy it.

#29) Being single is not the same as being alone. “Alone” is a very harsh word because it bleeds into all aspects of your life. Friends, family, and everyone else you  meet in life are reaching out for you to pay attention to them. You’re never alone. That’s the biggest epiphany you will ever have.

#30) You learn to love yourself. Separate from outside pressures, you learn to value your strengths, attitudes, morals, goals, weaknesses, flaws, attributes, perspectives, and everything else that makes you YOU. When there’s no noise, there lies an easier vessel to see things for how they really are.

¿WHOSE ACCEPTANCE REALLY, REALLY, REALLY MATTERS?

I’ve spent the bulk of my life chasing after acceptance, and running the hell away from it once I had some. At the age of 28, it’s finally become clear to me that the acceptance most worth seeking is self-acceptance.

‏We’re born with a need for acceptance by the people who raise us through childhood. In infancy, it’s easy. All we have to do is gurgle and look cute. Bingo: accepted! But as I grew up, I learned that in order to hold on to that acceptance, I had to learn the gender of “boy.” I had to live boy, then man and in so doing, I lost touch with all the fun parts of me. After I accepted myself, life became fun. And my family and I fell back into mutual acceptance.

‏Seeking acceptance causes us to follow the rules of the people whose acceptance we seek. I’ve contorted myself into many mind-boggling identities by going after acceptance at school, in my neighborhood, at church functions, and so on.

‏

‏So, my brothers and sisters, look your greatest fears in the eye, one by one. Determine which is justified and which is prompted by the need for acceptance from someone who’s not you. Solve the real fears, and let go of the need for an acceptance that makes you hurt. You'll thank yourself for it. 

TODAY IS MY EARTH~DAY!

So on this day I invite you to be present & embrace each and every moment that comes your way, I know I will!

¿CAN MY ONE ON ONE TIME HELP OR HURT MY RELATIONSHIP?

Let me just put this out there I really enjoy a good jack-off.  It’s not compulsive in any way, I just enjoy a bit of ‘me-time’.  I jack off about once a day and I pretty much always use porn to help me get off. I have sex too in a monogamous relationship of six years. The sex we have is good, REALLY good, but it’s nothing like the porn I watch.

In my jack-off sessions I tend to get off watching myvidster videos of ‘rugged, masculine men, having rough and ready encounters’. Within my relationship the sex is intimate and I get that physical and emotional connection. The other day I was talking to a friend about the sex that I have and during the conversation, my friend told me, ‘it’s a bit weird that you’re still jacking-off so much even though you have a healthy relationship’. It’s almost like there’s something missing from your sex-life. 

I beg to differ because from the time I knew myself, I was the only one giving me pleasure until I got curious about involving another person. So I put my ‘porn versus real-life’ situation to you, do you think masturbating even though you have a partner is unnecessary?

¡HELLO 2K14!

It is hard to believe that another year has slipped away. 2013 is now but a distant memory.  The advent of a New Year always brings a fresh beginning; an opportunity to metaphorically cast off baggage from the prior year, and to carry forward good memories, memories that instilled in us a sense of hope that the coming year would move us forward toward a better understanding of ourselves, and those around us.

A new year also accords us an opportunity to refocus on what is important to us and to more fully comprehend what our life’s purpose really is.  It is a clean slate upon which we can set new goals, create new opportunities, and look optimistically upon the future.

As I reflect upon the past year, and look forward to the New Year, I have to take stock of the many good things in my life, despite the adverse events, and negative news that seem to intrude and cause brief disruptions along the way.  I am grateful for the many wonderful things in my life that sometimes seem to get lost in amongst our daily trials and tribulations.

New Years Day 2014 is the beginning of a new chapter of my life on many fronts.  With the advent of a new chapter, old ones must end.  I am sad in a way that those chapters must recede into memory, but I shall carry with me lessons learned and memories engrained into my consciousness forever forward in the subsequent chapters of my life.

Happy New Year and make it YOUR YEAR to rise above that which is holding you back.  Become the person you are meant to be and achieve the things you are meant to achieve.  Live your life and don’t look back.  Let go of the past, as it has no bearing on what is possible in this New Year.  Take charge and create the vision of yourself on your clean slate as we enter into this New Year.

THE MAN I AM

This time of year generally calls for some obligatory self-reflection which, unfortunately for some of us, dissolves into an excuse to pick ourselves apart. It’s a bad habit shrouded by all of the hoorah that goes along with crossing the threshold into a fresh set of 365 days and with them, a bounty of new opportunities to become thinner! smarter! wealthier! healthier! more organized! more accomplished! just better overall! In that pursuit of personal reinvention, goal-setting can dissolve into fault-finding.

Self-improvement is good. Self-improvement is necessary. But there’s also something to be said for being happy where you are, with who you are, without feeling like a complete personal overhaul is in order for the new year, a birthday, a fresh relationship, a career change, whatever. That fixer-upper spirit can be emotionally and psychologically draining, especially if you consistently fall short of your own expectations which we, tend to set for ourselves. If we’re never going to be perfect, is there ever a point where we’re satisfied with who we are, sans a little fine-tuning here and there to accommodate the ebbs and flows of life?

Every day I feel like I’m finally starting to know me for real. I’m an open book and I have learned, without apology, how to celebrate the man I’m not as much as I celebrate the man that I already am.

¡WELCOME BACK!

SO MY VACATION IS HALF DONE & NOT A MOMENT TOO SOON, I'VE MISSED YOU!