Tonight I was chatting with my Sikh author friend Pardip, and we were trying to talk about Arabs.  Pardip is a relatively well known author, I think I probably outstrip him for international audience and sheer graft, but he has a loyal following.

Now Pardip really hates Arabs, apparently they did something to Punjabis that is hated to this day.

It became apparent after a few minutes that it was not at all possible to have a rational conversation with Pardip, so I am sorry to say I muted him and moved on to an apparent snowflake American, who suggested to me that all cultures must be respected in all countries.

That would seem to be racist? I said.

Bitch from hell that I am, I was explaining the new laws on domestic abuse.

Why would a Lybian woman living in Scotland have less rights than a Scottish woman?  I asked.  Can you see the problem?

Alas this yank seems to have been a bit thick.  He is also very kinky, which means that assumed subservience is his thang.  Agreed subservience is a very different topic to legal subservience.

What the kinkies were worried about, is that in their situation of agreed consent, would the new laws on bullying and domestic abuse affect them getting their jollies?

Obviously not until somebody somewhere decides they are not OK in exactly the same situation they were in yesterday and forgets to actually say so, like a perfectly normal adult.

In my case I was concerned about this, since our rich Libyan friend, below decided suddenly to apply his culture and gender to mine and was actually entertained in doing so because, according to him, of his money.

My great grandfather started a revolution on the basis of equalizing rights.  It is looking as if I have to do the same thing, in the face of a lot of confusion and coy racism, where people think yes let us have battered women from country X because it is OK there.  Let us pretend we think this is OK because to do otherwise would be racist.

That is the same principle as allowing an adult male to use the police to bully a woman who went to a great deal of trouble to create a gift and do him a favour.

Do we want to live like this?  Is there really any confusion as to whether a Pakistani/Indian/African/European woman has the same rights as a Scottish woman to answer back?

If you think there is, then you’re the racist.

The chair is going extremely well, and I am working on second runs of the basic work prior to adding some calligraphic pattern and rendering it ready for the carpet layer.  After that I will be putting on the first backing, waterproofing it and putting in the windows to start the resin process.

Today I discussed returning to management consultancy or entering the world of natural health, because that makes perfect sense, apparently.  I have no idea how this is going to work when the economy crashes, but I have a lot of survival skills.

I considered how many ways I could, if I wanted to, get the Libyan prosecuted and wondered whether I should waste my time doing this.

Why?  Well he had absolutely no reason to damage me, and yet consistently threatened me as a response to my creating a gift for him.

Little Shiva very similarly had absolutely no reason to damage my job, and yet felt quite free to make sure my career would be terminated.  Why do people do this?  It is a waste of time and energy.

My theory is that when they feel powerless, they try to harm you to create an illusion of power that does not actually exist.  Little Shiva ended up getting himself fired, and the Libyan  is currently squandering money on a second rate vegan cafe to reassure himself that he isn’t a moron. Unfortunately he is, so this will not help him very much.

I have now had another three opportunities to cause him harm, and I have said no to every one of them.  I regard such behaviour as a waste of my time.  He thinks jihad means annoying non-believers.  I am not sure who has told him this, but whoever it is is also not very bright.  It is also possible that he has simply not listened to his imam, as he apparently only has one topic of conversation, which is himself.

The amount of power this individual has is alarming.  As we speak, people are being killed and maimed in a war.  It was news to him that people were starving, never mind being shot or maimed, such is his lack of awareness of the world around him.

So, besides lack of empathy or basic awareness, feelings of powerlessness and lack of insight, why do people set out to harm you for no reason?

I think you should take it that you have something they don’t have.  In my case I am an open-minded and generous person who cares about others, and they seem to have tremendous difficulty with this concept.  Like Americans, if they don’t understand you, they then try to destroy you, so you can kind of take it as a compliment.

In this way, you can preserve what is good about you rather than getting suckered into a negative vortex.

Turning the other cheek, therefore, is an expression of power.

I have had a very difficult week all things considered, so I am going to review my behaviour.

I will no longer be supportive of erratic behaviour, nor will I be attempting to help people who cross my path with problems.  I think this is overdue, and I think this will help me save a lot of time I had previously wasted on pointless things.

I have been guilty of being too nice about some things, and responding in kind to people I should not have wasted time on.  Apparently you get to do whatever you like to other people even when they are extremely kind to you and get you through a bad emotional situation.

I was told by the police this week that attempting to encourage a persistent law breaker to obey the law was a bad thing, and that I was apparently at fault despite being pestered by a person with at least four personalities.  The correct course of action now appears to be to report breaches of the law and use the police as nannies to deal with it.

As far as I am concerned, recent events have told me that people with money and sheltered lives take pleasure in wasting police time attempting to damage each other, and I find this deeply offensive.  The police are there to solve crimes, not waste hours and hours of time bringing cases against people who are basically just irritants and who do not even know what jihad is.

People are starving to death whilst you arse each other around, it is not remotely virtuous to piss about like this. You are supposed to be functional adults and we do not live in a school playground.

I do wonder now, what Muslim women married to morons do for several years whilst their lives are messed up by poor decision making.  I assume the only answer is to get a divorce, as if you choose to misinterpret the hadiths about women, listening to them is the very opposite of what you are supposed to do, even in cases relating to the laws of the land you happen to be in, and even if you are educationally subnormal/high as a kite.  You would have to be deaf or extremely stupid to tolerate this.

In any case, I am very glad the dunce made the mistake of causing me problems, as he has effectively banned himself from bothering me again.  I need do nothing at all.

As for my so-called friend thinking this is a good time to kick me when I am down, bye then.  I will of course refund you when it is possible to do so. And no, I still don’t think your bullshit is a police matter.

Today I think I will write about power dynamics and how they are often distorted in even the kinkiest relationships.

I have written about this in several stories, I was very gentle with Little Shiva, as I was talking from a more emotional standpoint and for some reason the stories wrote themselves for him.  I had very little to do with it, it just poured out.  Likewise the chair, whilst a ton of work, is not taking up much in the way of struggle space.

It was also interesting to see Little Shiva’s different voices when dealing with different people.  My priority early in life was always work, so I think I see things in a very fluent and consistent way across different parts of my life.  Little Shiva was apparently unusually coherent with me, yet wildly inconsistent with everything else, including work and, as it turned out, his actual relationships.

When it comes to power play, the BDSM community are probably the best at expressing fluidity.

As I mentioned in Best Sex Study Ever submissives are often the bossiest partner.  They largely dictate the direction they want things to go in for their chosen relationship, and the dominant partner is then tasked with carrying them out.

Obviously people vary in intensity with how far they want things to go, some people just want to play out some book they have read, such as the unreadable 50 shades stories, and they aren’t really considering the consequences for the rest of their relationship – perhaps it doesn’t actually matter to them.

Cultural differences can also cause confusion.  Other countries are often far healthier in terms of hormone levels, and this also makes a difference.  The rapid decline in sperm count in Western countries, which we are supposed to take as being a mystery, has accompanied the feminism that has brought us part of the way towards some idea of equality.

So, looking at these things together, what happens when one partner is role playing for sexual reasons, whilst the other has a set of beliefs that mean subservience is assumed? What does it do to the respective partners, and is this relationship situation ever going to resolve itself?

I had a chat with a former Arab friend about this quite recently.  He insisted his culture demanded that people adapt to suit him, and I was quick to assure him that since he lived in Scotland, it was not other people that had to adapt. He suggested at one point that women have too much power in Western society, that it was male responsibility to ‘take care’ of women.

This assumption, that women have no control over their behaviour, no opinions and could be written off as simply crazy for acting exactly like a normal thinking human, was what prevented women from voting for several centuries.  It is far from progressive and quite shocking. The individual concerned was making use of this to manipulate his relationships with women far further than intended, largely due to a combination of insecurity and disrespect for other people generally.

I have now heard numerous stories of Scottish-Arab failed marriages, and my comment is usually along the lines of – yeah I’m sure the sex is great for a while, but I don’t see how assumed dominance in men (Arab) is going to go with angry warrior women. (Scotland)  It is a disaster waiting to happen for all sorts of reasons, the main one being that the role playing has a completely different meaning for each partner involved.

In one recent case, the picture became so distorted that the only way of resolving the situation was to reject it.  No discussion was possible.

The answer to this is obviously one of communication, but when you are dealing with a brick wall of posturing and contempt, communication is no longer likely.

I think what this example that I am very loosely referring to shows is that romance and long term relationships are separated where no compromise can be reached – people who keep the romance in their relationship have a far better chance of survival because the give and take elements are more pronounced.

This is not something that is easy to pull off once people get into a routine.  Arguing over the dishes just isn’t terribly sexy unless you choose to make it so.  It is made even less likely when one partner sees no reason not to assume that his idea of roles is static. You cannot argue with static ideas, therefore no compromise is possible.

Personally, I would not choose to engage in such a situation but for those that do, it is very important to establish boundaries early on and stick to them, rather than entertain the all or nothing approach, which is basically a power grab by one partner or the other. A more strategic approach is necessary to avoid the  time consuming and expensive business of failure.

Personally, I identified early in life that being lied to was a lot worse than being cheated on.  It is the insult to your affection, your intelligence, the damage to your self worth of finding you believed someone that simply lied to you.

Today I find that this is just as true.  Whilst I am not, and have not been in a romantic relationship with anyone but myself for many years, I do not tolerate friends lying to me well at all.

Nor do I tolerate people who think they can take their delusions out on me.

In yet another pickle – a person showing all the signs of narcissism without actually having sufficient wit to have the condition is currently targetting me because he cannot target his preferred option.  I have tried ignoring the narc tendencies and being a friend anyway, but this dude tells you that you are attacking him, no matter what the evidence to the contrary, whilst badmouthing you to anyone that will listen.

He is welcome to do this if he wants, it is unlikely to have a significant effect on my life, but this ‘local worthy’ is not very worthy at all.  I could go into details, but it is not the place to do it.

I have encountered other people he has done this to, they have reacted strongly to it.  I don’t plan to.  Why?  Because it is not worth my effort to do so.  The more he does this, the clearer the pattern of his behaviour becomes, and it just makes what he is doing more obvious.

Eventually, nobody will listen to him at all.  Today he announced that he thought the vast majority of people were ‘shit,’ but I was considered relatively OK even as he made numerous threats.

Even if that were true, it would not be helpful for you to notice.  Twisty and I have had many a conversation about people’s reactions.  It turns out that I am a far happier person than most because I choose to ignore it, even when it severely affects my life.

I think this habit is an important one.  If an element of people’s behaviour can be ignored or avoided to reduce your stress levels, then do so.  It is just not helpful to react, even inwardly, to resting bitch face, badmouthing or pissy behaviour because it wastes time you could be spending on something a lot more interesting.  Just let it go.

It turned out that even though Twisty and I have known each other for almost two decades, I still have many stories he has not heard, because I am usually doing something new.  He, on the other hand, likes to burn out synapses by reliving his traumas.  I do not think this is helpful to him at all.

So, I think the first motto for today is ‘drop it already.’

The second motto for today is not so good.  Do not give the gift of your friendship easily, because most people just waste it.

I found the Lehenga for Little Shiva’s chair, and am awaiting funds for a bigger Trishul.  I am toying with the idea of some Ohms as well. Lips are going very well, but I will be looking to replace an entire tonal range, they are so big.

Still a lot of sewing needing done, and I have a lot less time at the job I took to get this done as it is getting busier.

Little bit sad today, some people are being a bit lame, but things are looking up on the income front.

Don’t miss the previous chapter, and am reviewing a few things from the past that I should not have bothered with as a result.  People will mess things up regardless, it is a good idea sometimes to get out of the way and let them do it rather than protecting them from themselves.

I think it is the powerlessness that annoys me the most.  I like to look at problems and find solutions for them.  Other people apparently like to roll about in them.

I think it might be time for some writing, since I still do not have anybody capable of filming and no longer feel I want to make anything due to being let down so many times. I am not sure how I am supposed to promote anything like this.  It is tedious.

May go and work on the games, since life has moved on since I was last doing it.

Seriously considering asking Boris out.  I have no idea which tiresome little Tory he is seeing at the moment, but chances are we would have more fun.  I will ponder this some more.

Today’s burning topic is healthy relationships.  The first question we need to ask is what constitutes a relationship?  The Sweet Somatic Narcissist I used to live with said after a couple of months he didn’t want one. Since this was unavoidable as we worked together 20 hours a day, I laughed at him.  You open your mouth, therefore you have a relationship.

So let us be more specific.  How does one express one’s esteem for another person?

Well, I would say it starts from your feelings about yourself.  If you do not hold yourself in reasonably high regard (a recent acquaintance certainly did not) then you aren’t offering anything to anyone and you are likely to end up in a sort of death vortex rather than a relationship with another person. In the event that you as the product aren’t worth anything, then you really shouldn’t even attempt to have a relationship in the first place.  I once had a lovely chat with Kerry Katona on this very subject.

So point one would be figure out what your product is – if your product is a negative, self-hating, whiny mess, then you need to go and do something else for a while until you are vibrating at a higher frequency, so to speak.

Once you have decided to be a reasonably pleasant individual, one who feels gratitude for nice things that happen rather than attempting to toxify them with your own bile, then you may find that you learn to appreciate it when you meet someone stupid enough to actually like you.

The next step would be to find someone you hold in reasonably high regard, rather than somebody you don’t actually like and find it incredibly hard to tolerate.  If a person annoys you within the first four weeks, it is likely that your feelings of irritation will be amplified to an unbearable degree within six months, and you will positively hate them within a year or so.  So your almost full tick list may become a kind of trap.  I have dumped quite a few perfectly nice people to avoid wasting their time on this basis.

So point two would be find someone you actually like, rather than someone you seek to control or torture to make yourself feel better about being an essentially crap human being.

Once you have located this marvellous person, you need to figure out what you are bringing to the relationship, rather than considering the matter of what you want to get out of it.  I realise that for many sad, grasping, negative individuals this will sound simply crazy, but even if your prospective partner is rolling about in dosh, they have needs too, and you should really be considering what you add to their life.  Otherwise, gender regardless, you are simply a cheap nasty whore out for what you can get.

So point three is to identify what you are actually offering and consider whether the balance is worth it. Unless you are in a Venus in Furs situation, which you may actually be, then having your shoes licked is pretty damn boring.  (been there, done that)

Assuming that we have made it this far, we now need to consider your horizon.  What is your growth potential within this relationship?  If there isn’t one, then it is game over at this point.  If there is one, then you need to actually communicate to make sure your long view is compatible.

So point four is to identify your mutual growth space and ensure that you are singing the same song.

Of course, there are many self-hating people out there with mummy and daddy issues, and they can be perfectly happy to tear lumps out of each other, involving other people and their time and money in the process.  These people are to be avoided at all costs, as they are inevitably not much smarter than the average toddler in an emotional sense.  They are timewasters who do not even consider that they are less than charming to deal with.

Many people actually imagine that they do not have to be honest, straightforward and generous in their interactions with others.  These, regardless of income, are tragically unhappy individuals who are not worth your time or energy.  They are incapable of saying please and thank you and lead pretty unhappy lives.

It is far better, and far happier, to devote yourself to personal growth until you meet someone else who works as hard.  Leave the imbeciles to jealousy, petty fighting, dishonesty, pique and wholly imaginary superiority.  It is all they have.

Since my true love (Wolfe) is rumoured to have at least 50 wives, it was particularly interesting to recently meet another polygamous person, although he was more directly from the Middle East and had an entirely different take on it.

Both methods are quite far from the Mormon idea of being ‘blessed by sharing.’

In Wolfe’s case, his business blossomed via his astute hiring policy, and I fully appreciate that things have worked well for him.  It is not particularly appealing as a prospective life however.

In the recent acquaintance case, although he was very informative, I became aware that my ideas about polygamy do not fit with the Muslim ideal either.

From my albeit scanty knowledge of Asian polygamy, it is pretty similar to the Muslim ideal, and follows many of the same precepts.  Here is how my recent polygamist described the lifestyle:

1. There has to be some kind of agreement, in the case of the specific episode, it was explained that wives are often assigned the task of finding the next wife.  The dude in question has to be physically capable of keeping his wives satisfied.  It is not a completely male-centric thing.
2. Wives do not interact terribly much and either have their own houses and families, whilst the male moves between them, or in the event there are sufficient resources, their own floor of a large house.  Sometimes a room each will do, the idea being that the room represents the ‘space for the love.’
3. Everybody does a whole lot of communicating to solve problems.

The model had not worked at all well for this person, because he did not let it.  He is not a good example of a polygamist at all.  Having experienced polyamory – well at least in my case it would have been more like polyandry really, since my partners were friends before and after as I spend little time with women and don’t fall in love terribly often – it all seems a bit like prison.

My friend in Eastern Europe was surprised to learn that I am not entirely against polygamy, but I have a completely different perception of it to most people due to previous experience.  I am not terribly maternal, for example, as I have little to no experience of children and am obsessed with work.  Had I engaged in a polygamous relationship at some point, I would have been more confident in my ability to maintain my other obsessions whilst having kids.  My feeling, however, is that most people in Western countries are too selfish, vain, jealous and self-serving to make the effort.  We have lost our ability to adapt readily.  I informed her that there was no danger of my getting involved with this person as I would expect to be at the very least a family friend before there was any question of it.  You aren’t marrying the dude, you are marrying the couple, so to speak.

So, I realised, my ideas about polygamy are a bit like my ideas about management.  You have to be emotionally expansive, mature and generous to make it work.  You have to have an open personality and be ready to change if necessary, and from a personal perspective, separate houses would seem to be an invitation to jealousy and paranoia, both of which are a waste of your time.  If you cannot manage this, or for some reason, such as money or mean-spiritedness,  seek to obliterate the perceived competition, then you have no business being involved at all and are actively harming the family.

Well, since Twisty was too frightened to participate in No Glass Walls, and despite making every effort to meet useful people in the last year and a half or so I have thus far failed to find anybody or get to know them well enough to ask, I have decided to abandon it and start a new project.

This is not for want of effort, I am a nice person,  despite being a very large personality with great leadership skills, I seem to frighten little people.

The inspiration behind my latest work Haram Bawbag, was a case in point.  He made a series of erroneous assumptions, and when these all turned out to be incorrect, attempted to depress me into playing the little woman.

Those readers who have met me, and quite a few who have not, will know that this strategy is not likely to meet with much success.  All he has achieved is making himself look sexist and racist.

Apparently women are not to use power tools for some reason.  Why a penis is required to use a sander is anyone’s guess.  It could have something to do with the owner of the penis making that assertion, but I couldn’t possibly say.

Anyway, it looks as if campaigning against racism should really be focusing on non-white communities as far as I can see and from recent experience.  There is still a lot of work to be done on women’s rights as well, so why we have to insult ourselves looking at free the nipple campaigns when many countries view women as basically punch bags for poor male self image I do not know.

Joy is Power.  When someone tries to take your joy, they are trying to take your power.  Don’t let it happen.