Blackfish64

They can't speak for "women" and "men", I say. They can speak only for themselves. I have always held it as an individual thing. I love assertive women. If a woman likes me, I want her to come over and tell me. I do the same.

Driving rules. It all started before I can even remember, driving my toy cars, then I got a trike, then I got a bike, then I got a bigger, faster bike, and I've been driving motor vehicles since I was eleven. Dad couldn't drive himself home from the bars sometimes. He was too drunk. So, he showed me how to do it and I took over when he was too hammered. It was quite a thrill. I could barely reach the pedals and see over the dashboard. But I made it without a scratch every time. Good thing the truck was an automatic transmission. I never had any problems driving anything with wheels until the day I got in the car with the driving instructor on my sixteenth birthday. That wretch made me a nervous wreck. I feel sorry for you. You're in a tough spot. I got my license, and I never wanted to see her again. I was just glad the nightmare was over. All my best to you. Buona fortuna!

The old "who will build the roads?" question is an unwitting confession. The person asking the question can't possibly hope to be taken seriously. The only way you can think of to build a road is by getting the money you need to do it through armed robbery? Who said it was my job or anyone else's to provide a road for you in the first place? What, are you a narcissist? We're all here to provide your precious butt with roads and bridges? I don't think so, pal. And if it's OK for you to commit armed robbery to build your roads, why then is it not OK for me to commit armed robbery to get the money I need to build my house, get me a car, and pay my grocery bill, and my summer vacations? What's good for the goose is good for the gander, eh? Will you not say? Some say that "society" would fall apart if we did not have taxation and coercion. Do they hear what they're saying? If robbery and coercion are "society", then the sooner "society" falls apart and comes to an end the better off we all will be.

You know, in reading and re-reading your posts over and over again, it occurs to me that this act of accepting my goodness and greatness is merely the act of doing it, of taking it, so to speak. In other words, instead of keeping the same old inner-dialogue I have kept around since Day 1, it might be beneficial to simply change it. Instead of putting myself down, stop putting myself down, and bring myself up instead. It appears there is no magic formula, no pearl of wisdom to dive in for on the matter. It is simply a matter of doing it, like I do everything else I do. I just do it. And when I'm done doing it, I won it, I own it, it's mine for keeps. So, why keep all the garbage around? There is no use for it. It simply stinks up and rots the place. I'm going to get rid of it, starting now, today. In fact, I already started a little while ago. I've been practicing all morning. I love simple things. This seems simple enough. I think that what a great deal of the problem for me has been is that I have been digging for so long, been in the trenches for so long, focusing on only what's wrong with me, and never on what's right with me, that I have overlooked the most obvious and simple solutions. I was so determined that I dug right past a lot of the good stuff. I mean, it's like my car, for example. When it's broken, I don't hit it with a hammer and make it worse, rather I take it to the shop and get it fixed, or do-it-myself if I know how and have time for it, which is what I prefer to do. And if it's dirty, I simply wash it and buff it out; I don't throw more dirt at it. This whole thing might be eaiser than I thought. And then again, not easy. Sometimes it gets worse before it gets better. Sometimes the old tries to hang tough and stick around. I will have to watch out for that as I go along. I have been watching John Bradshaw videos on the inner child as of late. He made mention of a very interesting self-therapy in which the user imagines himself as a child, and himself as he is now as the child's "champion". The child approaches him with pictures in his hand of things that had been done to him and about which he has questions and concerns and needs answers. I did this exercise without trying to control my thoughts. I simply let the boy come to me from a long distance. I was eager to see who would show up. And when he appeared he was four years old, with long, wavy, wild hair, big, bright blue eyes, and a big smile. The child was devoid of fear, self-doubt, or anything of the kind. I was surprised to see this. It was I, wearing all the hair Dad used to cut off my head. I had always wanted to have long hair, and Dad knew this, so he would take me to the barber as soon as my hair started to grow long, and he would sit across from me while I was in the barber chair and make fun of me while my locks were being cut off. He would be certain every time to give me the dumbest, ugliest bowl-shaped haircut he could give me on top of that. "Are you a fuckin' sissy, boy? You wanna have long hair, like a girl? You wanna be a sissy? We'll see about that, won't we boy? Ain't gonna be no sissies in my house. Uh, uh. You got another thing comin' to ya, boy." I could never understand what in the world being a sissy had to do with having long hair. I was a man. I enjoyed being masculine. I opened doors for little old ladies. I didn't hit girls, or anyone else for that matter, unless they gave me no choice, of course. I thought my long, wild hair was very manly. I saw it as a reflection of the wild and free sort of screaming, guitar-slinging, joyful, fun-loving person I had hoped to be when I grew up. Anyway, I answered all the questions the boy had about the ridiculous haircuts and the ridicluous ideas about being a man. As it turned out, Dad, the woman-beater, and my two woman-beating brothers, who followed directly in his footsteps, were the only sissies in the family. Another thing I never understood was why in the world anyone would want to follow in the footsteps of that idiot. I was dead-set against it right from the git-go. Screw you, buddy. No matter what he did, I did the opposite. He wanted me to play football. I wanted to learn the martial arts. He would laugh and refuse to allow me to attend classes. I laughed at him and quit the football team. He wanted me to play baseball. I wanted to learn to hunt and shoot a bow. He refused to allow it. I quit the baseball team. When he bought horses for himself and forced me to take care of them, I forgot more about his horses than he ever learned. I never understood how he thought to learn anything about horses while reading cheap paperback detective novels and sleaze instead of horse publications. What a retard. I watched him bullshit his way through every horse conversation he ever got himself into. He had no idea what he was talking about. It was all just a show for him. It was all expensive nonsense to feed his empty soul and mind and make him look bigger and badder than he really was. He was shit. I was the real thing. He took my guitar away from me and hid it. I stole it back from him and taught myself how to play, how to read music, in a dark corner where he could not find me and I where I would not be disturbed. I had to explain all this to the boy in my lap. I had to tell him in ways that he could understand. He understood. He always understood. I always understood. We always understood, right from the very beginning. When you want something, you take it, you work for it, you earn it. Liberty is not given, it is taken. "No" is not acceptable and is not an option. Why is it OK for him to be like he is, but not OK for me to be who I am? It is OK for me to be who I am. The End I'm going to change all this inner dialogue around and see where that takes me. And I must add, in all honesty, I have never been motivated to become who I am in spite of what Dad wanted or expected of me. The plain truth of the matter is, I never cared what he wanted in the first place. I wanted to do what I wanted to do and that's what I did. He often accused me of wanting to be different just to spite him. Nonsense. I simply knew who I was all along and only wanted to be me. I was never fighting against him, but always fighting for myself. I knew it was the only way.

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Nothing is stopping me from making it happen. I made it happen. We are here. We built this place from the ground up, from a half an acre, and it is gorgeous. It is now over fifteen acres and forty cabins, a golf driving range, a canteen, and the new restaurant. Unfortunately, I can't own land here in Thailand, so the family owns all the property. I am part of the business only. But, when I leave, I will be screwed out of my investment. Count on it. I will be walking out of here with nothing when I go. Back stateside, I will be starting life over again, from scratch, at age fifty. Yikes. Trying to get back into it on my own, as an owner, would be a massive undertaking, requiring tons of cash I haven't got. I can't see anything like that in my future. I can however see something like being a great Resident Manager somewhere for some small outfit, maybe. I don't know yet. Something like that. The hostile environment I mentioned is centered around Las Vegas, not our little place out here in the sticks. It is hostile because, as I mentioned, Las Vegas an authoritarian environment to begin with, and the main business is Gaming. Gaming has very strict rules for both house and player. It makes the job stiff and rigid. Mistakes are not tolerated and people are fired left and right. People quit left and right. It's a tough racket. I was in Gaming for over ten years without a single demerit. But I won't go back into it. I will stay simply in the hotel/resort/hospitality business, non-gaming. You would visit my place rather than another for obvious reasons, and given the nature of our conversation, it makes it even easier to explain... I was trained from birth not to think of myself, but of others first and last. If there's anything left, I might get something. Maybe. I simply made a career out of the whole mess. I turned a twist on my fate, on the brick that was thrown at my head. I took the bag of lemons thrown at me and made lemonade out of them. I picked up the brick and threw it back as best I could. I give people what they want. I don't stop until they are happy. Hotels, resorts, hospitality, are all about the guest, i.e., someone else, i.e., those who are non-me. It's easy and quite natural for me to think of others first. I'm a good doormat and provider. I might as well get paid for doing it. That was my logic way back when. Everyone is a guest. Everyone is treated as a guest. Even the employees. Again, I give them whatever they want, within reason, obviously, within the rules of the house, within my power to do so. The mask of performance, of business, of having a job to do conceals my self-immolating nature and gives me a genuine purpose, which, coincidentally, does not require a mask at all. It is in fact a genuine purpose. And it's a good purpose. And I'm good at it, what's more. After all, who knows more about pleasing people than I? No one on earth. Coincidentally, the hotel biz has taught me how to set boundaries, not only for the business, but for my self, personally. It's not only my job to say yes, but also to say no. I quickly learned that I must say no sometimes, or nothing will ever work. That's just the way it is. I must comply with and enforce the rules of the house, or there will be nothing left of the house. That was the first thing I learned in the business. Under-promise, over-deliver. In my past it was always the opposite. Or it was over-promise AND over-deliver. Stupid. What's really nuts is that when I talked with my high school counselor and he told me the hotel business was for me, I thought he was out in left field. I had no idea what the hell he was talking about when he told me this. I had never even heard of such a thing. I did not know the occupation even existed. I walked out of his office, laughing at him. No wonder I didn't bother coming to meet the guy over the entire three years of high school. Later on, in my early thirties, when I finally did get into the hospitality business, I quickly rose to the position of manager and was walking through the casino one day when the thought of that day and that conversation struck me full in the face. I had forgotten all about it for more than a decade and suddenly there it was. Here, I thought he was nuts, and then, there I was, doing precisely what he said I should be doing. Oh, well. I just thought that was quite interesting. I had a good laugh. But I get bored with all this crap. It's not what I really wanted out of life. I wanted to be a guitar player. I am a guitar player! I wanted music, writing, philosophy, and story to be my life. I didn't want to be a doormat. I've always kept these items on the back-burner, kept in practice, kept up the chops. But I had to find something that paid the bills after ten years in the masonry business and a messed up, worn out back. I had to find something that was much easier on the body, else I would end up in a wheelchair. Music, writing, telling stories, and philosophy doesn't pay the bills. Well, it does for a few, sometimes. But it didn't work out that way for me. Anyway, I can play a mean guitar, I can write, and I can enjoy myself with it all just the same. That's all I really am in the final analysis, just a sweaty, screaming man with a loud guitar, tearing up the place, bringing the house down in my Blackened 12-bar Blues style in the key of E; a mad-scientist and artist pounding away on the keyboard in solitude; a mad, mortar-slinging rock smasher and builder with a big rock hammer and a trowel in my hand. I am Thor, the God of Thunder. It was all I ever wanted. Being a God isn't too much to ask, is it? Lol. Thanks for listening and for your comments. This is good therapy.

Thank you for the kind words on my writing. I love doing it. It's funny, when I try to write my book, I can't seem to connect with that active voice. I had always thought the writing should be more formal, or something entirely different from what I usually do, but I have learned as of late that is not at all the case. Now, I am writing and rewriting and making that connection and it has started to turn out well for a change. The truth is, I have no desire to do it any other way. I only want to write the way I have always written and tell it like it is. That's just what I'm aiming to do. Writing is my dream job. I'd love to do it for a living, but no clue where, how to start. And this is where I do best. I do extremely well when prompted, when feeding off questions and ideas. I have two children. They are grown and moved on, doing their own thing by now. I got started early, at age twenty two. I was divorced early, too. The children are not from my current/second wife. There are no children between us save the two from my previous marriage and her son, also from a previous marriage. Her ex died after they divorced. She was in a bad financial mess a year before we met and left her son in the care of her family and went to America to help get things straightened up. That's where we met. Yes, I identify with being unworthy and unloved, and all the rest of it. Quite accurate. If only because I have always been that way. I am used to it. I don't know any other way to behave. I feel like if I stopped doing it, I would be lopping off my right arm. It is such a part of my identity that might not know who I am without it. Where you are incorrect is that I don't want to do anything about it. I do. But I cannot tell what is to be done. I've read books and watched videos and listened to tapes galore, and the answer does not come to me. Therapy is not an option for me. It is costly, I don't have money to spend, and every therapist I have ever met has proven to be worthless. They tell me how sorry they are that I have gone through all this and that, and what an admirably powerful man I am for having had to bear all of this and come through in such fine style, then they take my money and tell me the session is over. I wasn't even warmed up yet. We hadn't even started to work yet. And I feel that if I hear another person tell me how sorry they are and/or how strong my back is for having to bear it all, I think I will punch them in the face. People are lazy, stupid, boring, and not dedicated. They just want your money. They need to make another Mercedes payment. Believe me, if I knew what to do, I would do it. I was hoping to include a triumph like this in my story. Maybe that's what's holding me up in finishing the story. Maybe personally, psychologically I'm not ready to finish it. Yes, the self-immolation will follow me wherever I go. However my pecking old hen will not. That's a start. It's amazing how someone changes from one place to another. Yes, I am like Katy, and my wife is like Ellsworth Toohey! Well, something in that order, but not quite. Katy was obviously not a fighter, but someone who gives up on herself quite easily. I know for a fact that what I am doing to myself is wrong, and what my wife always tries to do to me is wrong. I fight it, I fight her, I try to work my way out of it, though without knowing quite what to do. I lived alone for than a decade before I met her. These days, I am finding myself wanting to go back to living alone. She's a narcissist, pure and simple. She thinks she's some kind of queen. I just laugh. She's so stiff it's a wonder she isn't dead from constipation from her attitude and all the garbage she eats. Her ideas are simply out of this world! The family business is this resort in the middle of Nowhere, Thailand. It is a gorgeous place, no doubt about it, but far away from any tourist traffic. It's all local-yokels around here. Nothing wrong with that, but... she wanted to have her own restaurant on the property, of all freakin' things, an expensive Italian restaurant. I thought she'd lost her mind. Where did she think people were going to come from around here to eat these incredibly expensive Italian dishes? Where would she find a chef who knew how to create them? These are farmers and shopkeepers around here, not high powered businessmen and city folk with lots of disposable income and a willingness to try new things just for the hell of it. Now, it's a good thing she didn't have to spend much to begin with, as the building was already on the property and needed only slight repair and renovation. But when she finally opened the place in January 2014, she was not even the slightest bit ready for it. I begged and pleaded with her to have some play days the week before the grand opening, to get all her people in here and have the chef make the meals, the servers place orders and get everything in place, find out where all the glitches are and fix them before the big crowd rolls in on opening day. I was laughed at and told to sit down and shut up. But I had both the last the last laugh... and the first cry. I've done these things before, on many occasion over the years. I knew the drill. On opening day it was a complete disaster. The chef was slow and could not get the food out on time. There was one customer finishing their meal while the rest of the table hadn't even gotten their appetizers yet. She was walking around the dining room in her Sunday best, laughing, joking, telling everyone how great this all was, making speeches, teasing people, laughing out loud, like they were all her own private audience, there only for her amusement. I was embarrassed for her. Finally, one fellow had the audacity to ask for the steak he had ordered more than forty minutes ago. She walked over to him, put her arms around his shoulders, put her face right in his face, and said condescendingly, "Now, don't cry. It will be worth the wait. My restaurant and my chef are the best in town." Coulda fooled me. The man was clearly put off by her actions and turned his head and leaned his body away from her, as if to say, "Lady, get your freakin' hands off me and get your face out of my face!" She let go of him and turned and walked away, still looking back at him, watching as he snapped himself back into place. He shook his head, obviously irritated, and mumbled something to his friends at the table. She stopped in her tracks and stared at him for a moment, as if to say, "How dare you reject me!" At that, she walked back to him and did it again! Same thing! Repeat! He turns his head and body directly and abruptly away from her as she made some other remarks. I couldn't believe it. I-couldn't-believe-it! I thought, 'This isn't happening! This is not real! She didn't just do that-TWICE!-and still not realize what she's done! This is not happening to me! I've never seen anything like it!' And all the while, the customers, sitting there for a long, long time, with nothing in front of their places to show for it, staring helplessly at her, like dumb cows, trying to be polite, and watching the spectacle. I couldn't take it anymore. I turned and walked out. I headed for the office and sat in there the rest of the day and monitored all the nonsense from the surveillance cameras. The whole thing is a wash. No one comes to the place. There are literally no customers. None. The place sits there for days and days and no one comes. Over the last week, I have finally convinced her that the menu must be changed to a more local flavor, she must advertise, and she must drop the holier-higher-better-than-thou attitude and contempt for everyone who tries to walk in the door who isn't a king or a queen. As far as I know, there is only one king and one queen in all of Thailand, and they're not coming to dinner. She has taken some of my advice and started to change the menu and put up some new signs. There are a few customers starting to trickle in. We'll see. I cannot reason with her any longer. Ever since she left the U.S., I have simply lost her. I talk to her and it's like I'm not even there. I spill a grain of rice off my spoon and it lands on the table or raise my voice above a whisper, I get a dirty look, I get creamed. She sits at the same table eating fried chicken feet and guts, talking to everyone but me at the top of her lungs, her mouth wide open and full, waving her arms and hands all over the place, barking orders at the server, and I'm supposed to sit there like a good boy and accept it like she's doing me some kind of favor. Nothing I do is right anymore. I can't talk, eat, drive, sit, smile, or do anything correctly. I'm all wrong. Everything about me is wrong. I need constant correction and supervision. I'm three years old all over again, being shamed into submission. So she apparently thinks. What's really happening is I'm taking notes and taking names. That's the part she hasn't got figured out yet. She is too busy being all wrapped up in herself, not listening to me, to notice her game us just about over. Sister has no windows in her hut. She argues and fights with the customers and tells them to leave if they don't like her rules. Never mind that there are no rules displayed anywhere for anyone to read. She's a royal nightmare and a bitch who never speaks a word to me. If I pass by her on the property, she mumbles nasty insults at me in Thai. Little Brother is an ex-drunk who beats and brow-beats his wife and constantly cries about how Mother didn't love him. Never mind the fact that Mother was needlessly, stupidly killed in a motorcycle accident over thirty years ago and that no one knows where in the world he gets the idea that he was never loved in the first place. He was spoiled rotten and slept with mother until he was fifteen years old. Though that is not unusual for Thai boys. They all sleep with their mothers well into their teens. My wife's son slept with his aunt until he went to college this year, at eighteen. Now, he sleeps in the dorm with his uncle taking care of him, making his meals, washing his clothes, etc. Anyway, Little Brother doesn't live here and doesn't come around anymore because I am here. He doesn't like me either. I've barely spoken two words to this guy in my entire life. I don't get it. Other Little Brother is the smart one. He keeps his distance from this place. He chuckles at the goings on around here. Whenever he comes for a visit, as he's leaving, he always smiles at me and rolls his eyes, as if to say, "Good luck. You're gonna need it." I smile back. He and I have an understanding. I find it heartbreaking that Mother died so early, suddenly, and tragically. These children likely would have been so much kinder and much better off than they are had she lived. Here, they had kind parents who treated them well, and they all turned out rotten mean. I had rotten mean parents, and I turned out kind. Go figure. This place is a freakin' dysfunctional nut-house. They should put a tall, electrified fence around it and call it what it really is: an insane asylum. I'm getting the hell out of here. Another dream I had, many years ago... long before I knew my wife or came here, I was standing in a jungle environment. There were big, tall trees with large leaves, and many of the leaves turning brown on the ground at my feet as I shuffled through them. It was hot and humid. I looked down a long trail and noticed a village residing down a long slope in the distance. I went toward it, hoping for refreshment and maybe a friendly face or two. Upon arrival, I got no friendly faces, but did get refreshment at an outdoor table. The server was suspicious of me and made me pay cash on delivery for the goods. No one talked to me. No one cared. It was clear they didn't want me there. They preferred to keep to themselves. Fine by me. I finished my refreshments, got up, and left. Fast forward a decade or more... I arrive in Thailand last winter. I am sitting in an outdoor cafe somewhere in the outskirts of Nakhon Pathom. The server was awkward toward me, not really knowing what to do or to say, and somewhat rude about it. It were as though my being there were an imposition for him, instead of my being just another customer and money to be made. I suppose, to some people, money isn't really important. I really hate being in places and meeting people to whom money is not important. After the meal, I get up to walk across the yard to the rest room to wash up and head out. As I am walking across the yard, it dawns on me... my dream, the big trees, the large brown leaves covering the ground, the unfriendly faces; I was standing in it. The resemblance was undeniable. My mind flashed back to the dream in an instant. The dream flashed back to my mind in an instant. The dream was made real and the real was made dream all at once. Amazing. I had seen the past, present, and future both before and after they happened. I looked down and deliberately shuffled my feet through the withering brown leaves on the ground before me. I laughed. Wouldn't ya know it? "Like leaves on trees the race of man is found. Now green in youth, now withering on the ground." The Iliad "I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill, but that time and chance happeneth to them all." Ecclesiastes

What can I say? You're spot on. I have always kept my fire to myself. Yes, I have always kept myself small and insignificant, at least as far as the rest of the world is concerned. And, yes, it stems from childhood, from Mom and Dad doing their wonderful work on me (yes, I'm being facetious). Dad beating Mom's brains in on a regular basis, screaming and yelling and fighting all the time, and I getting teased, humiliated, and brutalized over and over again. I never wanted to take any of it seriously. I mean, I always looked up at Dad and despised him, wanted him dead, and knew all along that he was a nutcase. But, even so, years and years of this nonsense does have a way of rubbing off on a child. I don't merely feel unworthy, unwanted, unloved. I am in fact. I am currently living in Thailand. My wife and her family are Thai. We are all so different from each other that it is safe to say we are completely incompatible. Her family hates me. They want me to leave. But my reasoning is that I didn't marry her family. I have no use or need for any of them, just as I have no use or need for any of my family. But that's not how things work in Asian cultures. Here, the family is everything. But she does not want to give up her family. It's unthinkable to her. So, that leaves me having to give up on her. This whole mess has become so ridiculous that I can hardly stand it anymore. I liked it much better when we lived in the United States together, alone. She was much happier and we got along much better. But, she deems it her duty to be here and to be taking care of her precious family. I just laugh at the idea. Gibberish. Meantime, we never talk anymore, never have sex, never can be reasonable with one another. Everything has to do with being centered around the family and doing what her big sister (who's a freakin' stupid whack-job all by herself) says. Yes, I always put myself down. It is such a bad habit that I don't even realize I am doing it sometimes. But then again, what do I care how the family runs their business? I don't. I mention my ideas and make my best effort, and when they get too stupid for me (and they are stupid!), I simply walk away. I am simply taking advantage of them, just as they are taking advantage of me. That is the way of the world here. That is how things are done. It's the land of the egomaniac. It's all about me, me, me, me, me, me, me here. I have always wanted to be in a situation similar to this, but under different circumstances, of course. When I was a boy, we went to a lake in Minnesota and stayed for summer vacations at a tiny resort. I immediately became enamored with the idea of having a place like it of my very own. Dad almost owned the place himself one year. But his drinking and carousing got the better of him and he screwed it all up. I was crushed. Even later on, as I graduated high school, my guidance counselor, who I met only once, two weeks before graduation, informed me that I would be best suited to a job as an overseer in a hotel/resort environment. Later, I went to Las Vegas and started working in the hotels there. It's a hostile, authoritarian environment, but I learned the trade just the same. Then, my wife and I started to invest here in Thailand, in this property, with her family, and here we are after ten long years of struggle. But it's not to be. I think I will go back stateside and start my life over again. It's the only reasonable thing to do anymore. Besides, I'm good at it. As for the prostitutes, I made mention of them only because their reaction to me was spontaneous. I wasn't looking for approval or acceptance or validation or anything of the kind. I was simply out walking around and made my trip more interesting with their company. It just happened that way. I have always been a solitude seeker and could care less about the approval of others. But now and again it is nice to be appreciated. And I was. As a reward, I treated myself to a fine two and a half hour Thai massage. Coincidentally, it was the best Thai massage I have ever had in my life, and I've had a thousand of them! It was a good day! Na was magnificent! What technique! What hands and feet! She was really amazing! I wanted to tuck her up under my arm and take her home with me. Meantime, I have been here for almost a year now, and I have not wasted my time. I have traveled around Southeast Asia and made a lot of my dreams come true. I have always wanted to come here and experience this place. It has interested me intensely ever since I was a boy, since meeting one of my childhood heroes, Bruce Lee, on film. Dad was a racist, and forbid me having anything to do with Bruce Lee films. I never got to be a real fan until I was eighteen and out on my own. I always knew I would come here. I am taking full advantage of everything I can get my hands on, everything I have contributed to getting myself here over the years. It's mine. I've earned it. I'm taking it. I am writing my story as I write this. I have wanted to tell my story for a long time now. It isn't easy, but I am up to the challenge. I have most of the outline done by now, and even some of the first draft. I have written tons! I have no idea what I am doing, but I just keep it coming. It will all work out eventually. Coincidentally, I just finished reading The Fountainhead again. I've read it many times over the years. I've always loved Roarke. That character is amazing. And I know what you mean. I keep striving. In a lot of ways, I am like Roarke already, always have been. I never did do things for others. I do things because that's what I want to do. I never cared whether people liked it or not. When someone told me a thing could not be done, or I was not to do a thing or two, I went out on my own and did it anyway. As a boy, I sneaked around and even stole to get what I needed. I knew no one was going to help me. So I helped myself. To hell with all of you. Not to rub it in their face, but to please myself. When I joined the martial arts, for example, at first I was terrible at it, and everyone laughed at me. But their laughter didn't make me quit. Nor did it spur me on. I paid no attention. Violence was a problem I wanted to solve. And I was going to solve the problem no matter what anyone said or did around me. And over the years I did just that. I solved the first part of the problem in the first eighteen months of my training. I had come a long way very rapidly, and had beat my teacher three times in a row in his own dojo, in front of his own class. I not only beat him, but beat him badly, humiliated him. He was furious. I made him lose his precious "cool". No, it was not my intention to humiliate him. It just worked out that way. I didn't do it to boast or to have others see me as great or anything of the kind. I had simply been brought up, born and raised, in violence, and I wanted to understand it, to master it, to control it instead of it controlling me, instead of being afraid, inept, and helpless, which I thought was stupid. And I was right. My "greatness", you say. I've never thought of myself as great. Perhaps I have it, this "greatness". But I don't know what it is, really, I don't. I'm not saying that to be facetious, but I really don't know what that means. I've got a feeling however that if I ever find out what that is, I will be more effective in my own life and getting my own things done, which is really all that matters to me. I think that is what I am trying to do in writing my story. Get my own things done, and focus on the "greatness" in me. I am trying to get to something I have not quite grasped yet in my life. I have found already so many great things in my life through writing, I suppose I will find this thing, too. Your comments are sincerely appreciated and amazingly accurate. I thank you.

As of the last few months, I have had this recurring dream in which I am holding in my hands a small child. It is a boy child, no bigger than the palm of my hand. I am torturing the child, poking him in the eyes with my fingers, slapping him in the face, and squeezing the breath out of him in a death grip, then releasing him and laughing at him while he gasps for breath, writhes, and tries to recover. Then I stop what I am doing and start to focus on the child and I realize, much to my surprise, that the child is, I. * * * The night before last I had a dream in which I was dressed as a woman. I looked fantastic! I was really beautiful! I was standing on a stage in front of a crowd of people, all of them looking at me, and, I, looking at myself, and I was thinking, 'Wow! Gorgeous! What a beauty! She looks very familiar... who is that?' I stepped closer and closer to get a better look and realized, once again, it was, I. I think these two ideas/dreams are closely related. Though the girl dream is new. I've never seen anything like that before. My dreams have always been macabre. I actually enjoy them. The more macabre, the more I like them. They're only dreams. I am not afraid of them. Just as I am not afraid of my own thoughts. They're only thoughts. Nothing to be afraid of. “There are no evil thoughts, Mr. Rearden," Francisco said softly, "except one: the refusal to think.” ― Ayn Rand * * * I think the girl dream has something to do with my recent trip to Vietnam, which brought about for me some revelations in my own self-reflection. I have never thought of myself as beautiful, handsome, or anything of the kind. Nor ugly, average, or anything of the kind. I never think of how I look at all, to be honest. I keep myself happy and healthy and wear good, respectable clothing, and I check myself in the mirror before going out into the world. And that's about it. I have no wish to be seen by the rest of the world in any particular way. I am not insecure about my appearance. If I am working, for example, I have no need or desire to hide the dirt that got smeared on the front of my shirt. I am working, after all, and that's what happens to men at work. They get dirty. Deal with it. If I am in dining mode, I wear a nice polo and look most presentable and comfortable. If I am out stick walking, and getting sweaty, I wear my sporty, athletic clothes and let the sweat gush where it pleases. If you don't like me, well, what can I say? You do not understand appearances and body language and what it all means. You would be doing yourself a favor if you took up that study. I walked the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, talking with prostitutes. I sit in cafes with them and eat with them. They're the best people to talk to. They're honest. They know where everything is, where to go, where not to go, what to wear, what not to wear, who's who, and what's what. I am more than happy to pay them a little cash for their time and their efforts. They are, after all, working girls and are there to make money. I don't waste their time and I don't allow them to waste mine. Of course, they don't want a trivial amount and a meal for being a companion to me for an hour or half hour; what they want is to take me to their room and get full pay for the full service they will undoubtedly provide. But I am not in the least bit interested in that. I am interested in them acting as a shield to ward off any of the alleged "good girls" who might pass by who are looking for a relationship, a visa, a marriage, a one-stop ticket to "freedom". Sorry, ladies, we're fresh out of that in the West, too. No, I am not interested in that kind of relationship either. In fact I am not interested in any kind of relationship at all. I tell them these things. I think that I am an incredibly selfish person who only wants to take care of his own needs. I have always found it that way in my life. And I think that is, for me, as it should be. I have never found anyone who is genuinely interested in me, in my needs and desires, so I have learned to take care of myself. No one is going to do it for me. That's for damn sure. All the women in my past are only interested in getting everything they can from me, trying to control me, and keeping me as their confidante, ruling me, and things of that nature. My acts of kindness were always, always, always mistaken for weakness. In my early adulthood, it was true that I was weak and had a hard time saying no. But it's not true anymore. That hasn't been true for a long time. I am only too aware of these facts in my life. I'm a nice guy. And I am going to stay that way. There's no reason to be rude or to be mean-until it's necessary to be rude or mean-or worse. I see no reason to be bitter about the rotten people who walk around on the planet. We all have a tough go of it. There is no point in making it more difficult than it is already. So, I was abused and battered as a child; that's not your fault or your responsibility, nor will I make it so. And vice-versa. We all have to fight to be free. I know I am "different", "unique". I have always known it. It has only been pointed out to me again and again and again over the years. But, happily, long, long gone are the days when every girl I parted ways with left me with her stomach and her closet full, and I sitting there footing the bill for it all, wondering why, if I am so wonderful, did I not get some goodies, too, in return for all my kindnesses. I now remain "nice", "unique", and "different" without being raped, and without wondering why in the world I can never seem to fill that great big empty black hole that runs through the middle of all these women, and why nothing ever comes back out of it for me. Even every single one of the prostitutes I met in Vietnam over my long weekend were only too aware of my being nice to them, only too aware of my being "different". Every single one from which I parted ways was both sorely disappointed she could not convince me to do the kind of business she wanted me to do with her, and at the same time well satisfied with my offering to compensate her for the time she did spend with me, and each one giving me a hug and saying, something to the effect, "You very lovely. You a very lovely man. I like you very much. You look very sharp and you know how to treat a girl. I hope to see you again soon." To which I reply, "Thank you", and press on. I learned to like me more when I learned to give myself the same chances with me as I have given everyone else.

I've listened to the audiobook on YouTube of Alice Miller's "The Drama of the Gifted Child" five times already! It ranks high on my list already, right up there with Viktor E. Frankl's "Man's Search For Meaning". I love what she had to say about depression, that its opposite is not gaiety, but the ability to feel and to be spontaneous. I am now quite enamored with that idea.

Mint is easy. You will love it right out of the box. I'm just a user and a hack and I got it going in seconds. No problem. It's a lot like Windows XP (sad to see that one go. It was the only Windows I ever liked). So, too is Ubuntu Trusty Tahr. It was coming out around the same time XP was going out, and Trusty Tahr was being touted as a replacement for XP. I think it fell a tad short of the mark for a few reasons. Number one, people still think Linux is difficult to use and are scared to try it. That's not the case anymore. They think a user needs to know code to get it going, but that's all in the distant past. I ran Mint, Ubuntu, Puppy, openSUSE, and many other Linux distros for well over six months before I bothered to learn my first line of code. Very easy to use. You will have no problems. Myth Busted! YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW ANY CODE TO RUN LINUX ANYMORE! I use Mint Cinammon. If I am not mistaken, it is the most popular Mint. And for good reason. It's solid. It rocks. Burn a copy and boot it from the DVD to give it a test run. It's free.

I started in on Alice Miller's "The Drama of the Gifted Child" yesterday. So far it's been great. I've read all of Nathaniel Branden's books up to "The Six Pillars of Self-esteem". It was there that I learned about the sentence-completion exercise. I have been using that tool for many years. Also I have two autographed copies of "Judgment Day: My Years With Ayn Rand." What a great story! I absolutely love story! All things begin and end with story. My favorite Branden's are, "The Psychology of Self-esteem", "Honoring the Self", and "Taking Responsibility". Leonard Peikoff's "The Ominous Parallels" is great. Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search For Meaning" is an incredible eye opener as well. I've read that book more than twenty times. I don't now if Ayn Rand meant for "Atlas Shrugged" to be therapeutic, but it was great therapy for me. By the time I completed that book, my thinking was transformed and I had a lot of work to do in integrating all the new ideas. I had always rejected my parent's philosophy, but never found any decent alternative until I read "Atlas Shrugged". "Night And Fog" by Arne Brune Lie. "Frederick Douglas Fights For Freedom" by Margaret Davidson. This was the first book I ever owned (I was in third grade). It was the book that turned me on to the idea of political freedom and fighting for it. Ironically, I learned my love for freedom and the American Revolution from the compulsory education system! Their plans backfired! It was there that I learned liberty is not given; it is taken.

On Name ChangeDad was a carousing, woman-beating drunkie. He changed his family name before I was born for reasons sort-of known and understood by me. To make a long story short, when I and my older sister were born, he had intended to change his name back to his original family name, so he found it useful to place his original family name to our names and birth certificates, omitting entirely his legal name. So, legally speaking, our last names were different from Dad's.Time passed and Dad never changed his name back and we had always gone by his legal name. I never saw my birth certificate until I was sixteen years old, when my sister was about to go on her senior trip to the Bahamas and was denied a passport because the name she went by was different than the name on her birth certificate. It was either go with the name on the birth certificate to get the passport, or legally change the name to the name she was going by. Mom had clean forgotten about all this through the years and was furious. She wanted all our names to be the same, and he often feuded with Dad's side of the family, so naturally, out of spite and jealousy, she wanted our names to be, legally, NOT Dad's family name. Sister agreed with Mom and wanted to go to court and get her name changed legally to the name she had been going by all of her life, and to keep separated by name from Dad's side of the family. I, on the other hand, had no such desire. I was happy to have found I had the same name as my beloved grandfather, who was always especially nice to me, and I wanted to go the other way and change my name -- to my real, family name! Again, Mom stepped in, flipped out over my thinking on the matter, and forbid it. I was a minor child and had no say in the matter, and she would be damned if I would take that dreadful family name. I was dragged into court and my name was legally changed on the same day as Sister's. Now, I have always wanted to change my name back to the blood family name. At the time I was ready to do it, I was living in Nevada, and the laws in Clark County for name change are just a pain. So, I didn't bother with that, but I did change my name online from my legal name to my original blood family name. As an author and social media user, I simply changed my name in fantasy, to see how it would feel on me. I like it. And I wanted to move to a state with easier laws for name change and finally get the job done. But, now, on the other hand, I have been using the name for a long time as a pen name, and could, instead of changing my legal name, simply go by my original blood family name as a nom de plume.The more I think about this particular problem, the more I see a lot of advantages any way I look at it.What do you think?What would you do if you were in my shoes?

I've got Peppermint. Good one. I always wanted to try Fedora, but could never find anything to work with these old 32-bit laptops I run.

Absolutely! Mint and openSUSE are my second and third favorites respectively. Puppy Linux is my first love. I have old laptops. Puppy is designed for old computers. Works flawlessly. I am also a fan of minimalist distros. Puppy is the best I have found. The entire operating system is about 250 megabytes. I started out with Ubuntu. I quickly lost interest. Though I do like the Trusty Tahr distro. How did you make money with Linux? Which distro is yours?

January last I dumped Windows and started using Linux. I am running Puppy Linux LX Pup Precise Retro on my old laptops. Any Linux fans/users on the board?

I, too am a totally physcially grounded animal. I learned destruction from Dad. He would often wreck the house and he has beat Mom nearly to death on many occasion. On one particular occassion, he killed their eight month old unborn child in a beating. On another occasion, step-brother's head was ground into a toilet he had forgotten to flush and his teeth and face were smashed into his own feces while he was drowned until unconscious, then dropped on the bathroom floor in a heap, gasping for breath. While he did beat his biological children, step brother and Mom, by far and away, got the worst of the physical beatings. We all suffered the same psychological abuse and maltreatment, i.e., the screaming and name-calling, labeling, rejection, etc, with the exception of older sister, who was Dad's pet. While I have never hit a woman in my life, I have however had my share of scrappers and outright brawls with other boys and men and have destroyed everything I could get my hands on, including my own things. It's all part of having a life that was shredded to pieces very early on. When I became a teen and left home, I started immediately learning martial arts and sciences, i.e., human demolition, as I had always desired, and became a master at it on my own terms. This activity put me on a more even emotional and physical keel. Challenging oneself and going all the way into it, living it, eating it, breathing it, sleeping it, was, as I have found, the best way to go on about the physical aspect of therapy. I discovered writing at age eighteen as well. Most everything I have written up to the early 2000s however has been destroyed. I saw no reason to keep that stuff around, particularly when I had written in such anger and violence. I was never one to start it, but if someone wanted trouble, I was more than happy to give them some. I was pushed around for too long in my life and I wasn't going to take it anymore. And I didn't. Violence is good for only one thing: self-protection. When violence is the answer, unfortunately, nothing else will do. Thinking angry thoughts and doing angry things only leads to more and more anger and feeds the fuel and the fire. I find what when I am starting to get angry, it is better to start to go the other way and think calmer thoughts. That makes the anger go away and helps me to feel better. Anger is a terrible thing when used in the wrong context. Another technique I taught myself is to take an emotion, particularly a disturbing one, and lie down with it, close my eyes, and focus 100% of my attention on it. I ask it what it is trying to tell me. I ask it what it wants of me. I ask it what it's doing there. I let it know that I am here for it, that I will do whatever is necessary so that we can get along and get on with things, get on with life, happily and productively. I don't scorn it, judge it, or try to make it go away. I simply give it 100% attention and focus. As I focus 100% of my attention there, the emotion begins to bounce around at first. It wants to hide itself from my observation. It wants to rule me and have free reign over me. I simply observe. After that passes, it kind of sits there and does nothing, but it is still strong in me. After that, it begins to dissipate and eventually fades away entirely. Sometimes while I am doing this, the real answer to the problem which triggered the negative emotion in the outset appears and my problem is solved. Sometimes the trigger was simply my own negative reaction to some thing or another and I had only set myself off. Therapists often tell you that you need to "get in touch with your feelings". This is sometimes the wrong thing to do. I was an angry person already. What good will it do me to get even closer to my anger? This makes no sense in my final analysis, but for years that's precisely what I did. So, naturally, I was nothing but angry all the time. I was told I "had a right to be angry!" When I started to go in the opposite direction, when I stopped fueling my anger and viciousness, I started to change and things started to get better for me. I am still that physically grounded person and animal. There is nothing wrong with that. I actually enjoy it. I love my stick walking and my time on the mats with my reaction partners and/or with the operant fighter. I love being out on the open trails and exploring miles and miles of new roads, preferably dirt roads and trails! I love chopping wood, planting things in rich, black dirt, and fishing and cleaning and cooking and eating the fish. I am a savage. As far as being destructive goes, the reverse has occurred over the years; where once I smashed only objects over my frustration in not knowing what to do about the people around me who made me angry, I now smash only human beings, and only in self-defense. The way to stop violence is to simply know when to use violence and when not to use violence and to act accordingly. The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights is explained as a right to use violence in self-protection, whether it is protecting the self from criminals or a community from the State. I could not agree more. And there are those who hold there is no such thing as "rights", but that human beings have "properties". Well, that works, too. If violence is a property of man, of the individual, then we need to learn to own it, master it, accept it, on our own terms.

Any fans of this book on the board? It is one of my favorite books!

I'm originally from the United States. I've lived mostly in Minnesota and Nevada. As far as the climate, it has done me a world of good to get out of the desert that is Las Vegas. I have lived there over the last thirteen years, and I think it is better for my health to be in this more humid climate. Maybe I will go back to the Midwest when I go back stateside! Possibly North Dakota. My research finds a great economy up there, lots of jobs, good wages, and sound banking practices. I live in rural Nakhon Pathom, about an hour from Bangkok. No worries about violence around here. Even before the junta it was quiet. Foreigners can't own land here. But they can own buildings, second stories and up, and businesses. I don't own anything or even have a job. My wife's family owns a resort and we live here in exchange for running the place. Yes, building permits are incredibly relaxed. If the Thai even bother getting a permit at all, they pretty much build whatever they want wherever they want, even on public land. Nobody seems to care. I suppose the closer you get to the big cities, the more they care however. But out here in the country, if you need to build yourself a hut to live in, go for it. And even though I am married to a Thai, I have to leave the country every 60 days and renew my visa. If not married to a Thai, I would have to leave every thirty days. But since I can show a marriage certificate, I get a thirty day visa on arrival, and another 60 days for a fee of 1,600.00 baht. I like leaving every sixty days. I love to travel. I pick a new country every time I have to go. This Friday I am going to Viet Nam for a few days. Many people come to Thailand thinking it's some kind of utopia. That's all bunk. It can be pretty great if you have good income in US dollars. But if you are thinking of coming here and going to work, or if you are a broke old worker and laborer, well below poverty, like me, you will end up just like everybody else. Stay where you are. I got here by accident. I met my wife in Las Vegas thirteen years ago and she just happened to be a Thai. I have been here a few times over the years. I am going back stateside in December. I think this will be my last visit. Thailand is some beautiful country however if you have it in mind to see it. And don't worry about the junta. It is peaceful here for a change and very easy to get around. Enjoy.

Good luck with your regrowth. The more I read about this, the more I want to try it myself. Personally, I have never had a problem with things as they are, but after reading all the benefits of regrowth, I am amazed and inspired.

Great piece. Thanks!

I draw the line when I meet cops on the road and they pull me over for a traffic stop. I talk to them. I am pretty good at talking my way out of any tickets. Plus, I carry concealed firearms, so I obey all the traffic laws anyway. I haven't had a ticket since 2001. I haven't even been stopped since 2007, and it was a company vehicle I was driving; the company forgot to renew the tags and I didn't bother to look at the plates. My fault. He was nice, I was nice, and he let me off with a verbal warning. When/if they ask if they can search my vehicle. I simply tell them, "I don't consent to any searches." If they tell me to get out of the car, I get out of the car, rolling up my windows and locking my doors and taking the keys from the ignition behind me. If I don't want to talk to a cop and he asks me questions, I simply ask him three questions, over and over and over again, if necessary: 'What is the nature of your inquiry? Am I being detained? Am I free to go?' No matter what that cop says, I simply repeat the questions. They almost always give up. If they're smart they'll give up. Barring the above items, I don't talk to cops. I don't like them, I don't trust them, I don't call them, I don't want them, I don't need them.

If you have a Kindle, there is a lot of free stuff on Aristotle there, and lots of paid stuff as well. Your public library should have a ton, if not a complete works, on Aristotle.

I wrote this in response to FreeDomainRadio.com show: "Saving A Soldier: No Thanks For Your Service (NSFW)". This is the absolute best Free Domain Radio Show I have ever seen. This is my childhood in a nutshell, minus the drugs (I self-medicated with marijuana, and, later on, alcohol), and incarceration. I, too, had the terrible childhood, minus a few items (thank goodness!). I was abandoned, confined, abused, demonized, rejected, scorned, labeled. Dad was in the Marine Corps, and he was always telling me, "When you turn eighteen years old, boy, you're joinin' the Marine Corps... they'll make a man outta you!" I had to wonder if the Marine Corps had in store for me the same things they had in store for Dad. If Dad was an example of a man, I did not want to ever become a man.I turned my back and chuckled at him, "That's what you think, Buddy. The Marine Corps? Me? That'll be the day." I neverdid join any branch of the military service, but I did go to the post office on my eighteenth birthday and complete my draft card with this in mind: 'if my country is attacked, I will go, for I believe in the use of violence for the purposeof self-defense, which is the only thing that violence is good for. But if there is some nonsense like Viet Nam, or something crazy like that, even though I am drafted, I will object and I will not help them. I will even go to jail ifnecessary. That was my thinking on the matter at the time. This was on Tuesday 14 December 1982.My family is "poison", too. I keep away. It's not so much about what happened in the past, but that nothing changed. No one put in the work, like I did, and tried to grow up out of the mess and tried to make something else of their lives. Their lives are simply a repeat of the nonsense we lived as children. So, too, was my life for much of my adulthood. Making things as good as they could be, as good as they are now, has been a hard battle. I was never fortunate enough to run into a good therapist and get things straightened up. I fell into many of the same traps I was in as a child. I fell in with the wrong people, the wrong women, the wrong scenes. I know Dad's always hated me. But I didn't care. I would not go his way under any circumstances. I never sought his approval. I simply hated him right back. I was his slave and his prisoner. I could do nothing about that. But there were other things I could do. Grandma hated me, too. "You'd better watch that one! He's different! He's going to make trouble for you! You'd better keep a close eye on him!" Said the old witch, from out of her booze-infested, slurry, sloppy mouth, between drags off a cigarette and trying to catch her breath as she spoke. I turned my back on Grandma, too. "Look who's talkin'", said I. I've always been kinda cocky and a rough-and-tough. And I could be very sensible when I needed to. I knew that both Dad and Grandma were a lost cause. To hell with them. The irony of the situation was that Dad, the big fake-tough-guy Marine Corps bonehead was a yellow woman-beating drunkie. It was Mom, the tiny girl, one-hundred-ten-pounds-soaking-wet, who was the tough one in the family. I took after Mom while my two brothers took after Dad. She took his ferocious beatings, one of which killed her eight month old infant, still in her womb, and put up with his daily psychological abuse and maltreatment, while working two and three jobs to pay for the household, and taking care of the household, while Dad spent all his money, if he happened to have a job, on booze, other women, gambling, and cavorting. No, this guy has never spent a day in jail or so much as paid a fine for his insanity. In fact, to this day, he brags about how he "Will say sorry to no one", and that, "No one's gonna call me on anything!. I answer to no one! I'll live to piss on all your graves!" I learned to hide and to sneak and to lie to get what I wanted. I would hide myself away and read the books I wanted to read, and explore my own mind, my own thinking, and to sneak away and have joy and adventures when I could. I was a little philosopher very early on. My point is that even though I was a victim, even though I was beaten down and beaten back, I always brought the fight back to Dad, and the other irrationals in my life, one way or another. While they were tearing me down, dressing me down, trying to get me in line, I was learning and building my own life my own way. Even as a small child I knew there was something better than Dad and his ugly little mother, who he was scared to death of! Ha! Damn cowards. Damn fools. Damn drunken, careless, ignorant, stupid fools. These days, Dad is getting old, I think he's seventy six or seventy seven now, and he wonders why no one comes around to pay him a visit. And, to make things worse, he is a narcissist through and through and he hates being alone! He's always got to have someone waiting on him. He thinks he's god's gift to the green earth and that he deserves better and whatever he likes. He told my older sister, the only one who still speaks to him, as she was always his special, favored pet who could do whatever she wanted and could never understand why no one liked Dad and didn't want to be around him, that Dad "Has things to tell me" and "Wants to talk sometime". If that's the case, why does he never call or write? She has no answer to that question. The truth is, we have nothing in common. I don't like him and he don't like me. And any contact with him only leads back to bullshit. The last time I tried to get on with him was in the mid-1990s. I thought it was the right thing to do. I felt obligated to be the bigger person and let bygones be bygones and get on with things. After all, Mom had said, "He's your father!" So I wrote a letter to him and went to see him after many years. He acted all friendly and showed me his new house and his new cabin on the lake and all the plans he had for it. It did not take me long to realize that he was simply trying to recruit me, to get me to volunteer to do all that work for him for free. He is a cheap, conniving old bastard, to be sure. He's the kind of person who takes advantage of every kindness and stretches it out as far as it can go. He mistook my fresh act of kindness for my former weakness and helplessness. I just laughed at him and sped off. "Do your own work, bum. I was forced to be your slave when I was a boy and a teen. There was nothing I could do about that. But I'm a big boy now. You get out of line with me, old man, and I'll beat you up. I'm not a big, yellow sissy and a punk, like you. I don't flail and pull my head back in a fight, like you do. You forget, I've seen you fight. I've seen you get your punk ass kicked. There's a difference between you and I. I don't beat women and children, never have, never will, and I don't cry like a bitch when I don't get my way. I'm a real warrior. When I tuck my chin and search your body for targets from under my brow, you may know that I go all in all the way, every time, with the full weight of all that I am behind every blow. No, thank you. Not for free, not for love nor money will I help you." And that was that. He went back inside the house to clean out his soiled underpanties. I am so proud of myself that I never let my glow, my light go out inside of me. I have always kept it brightly burning. I did not let them take that away from me. As a young boy, I knew there was a place inside of me that could never be taken away and no one could ever get to unless I let them. I never let them in. And now I just laugh. I'm a firm believer in the act of doing nothing. I'm a firm believer in the word, no. Let them all go. Let them find their own way. They, who claim to know everything, and that you know nothing, let them find their own way, just as you were forced to do. Let them poke around in the dark, in terror, in their own personal hell, in their own self-inflicted misery and shit. Let them do it. Do not support them. Do not feel sorry for them. They need for you to doubt yourself in order to get you in their corner, validating their own miserable little lives. But I have better things to do. Just say no. It's that simple sometimes.

That sounds good. But what about the rest of the workout? I find the stick walking does everything. It's pretty amazing!