[Flashback: I tapped this into my phone on Feb 6 2009 while out drinking & clubbing in London. I’ve fixed it for grammar before posting.]

What modern gaybars tell us me about the bullshit siddhartha said goodbye to:

• material perfection is not a remedy for dissatisfaction
• loneliness & craving run rampant in the midst of plenty
• hope & fear manifest very differently when you have no reason to really harbor fear
• all things are impermanent. this too shall pass, and it won’t be all bad

At least in the west, people tend to take for granted that siddartha was right, more accurately righteous, when he walked away from princedom. I think this is partially a defense tactic. By accepting it carte blanche we avoid internalizing the convictions he was actually acting upon.

The potency of the theravadin view lies in acknowledging that the Buddha was born a man. An extraordinary man, a blessed man, but nonetheless a man no different from yourself. Remembering this presses us challenge ourselves, our hopes, our fears, our convictions and our deepest habits.

Tonight I’m sitting in the middle of XXL, also known ad Fat Club. It’s one of London’s hottest gay bars. There have been easily over 1000 people through the doors tonight. All of them gay, all of them men, most of them looking for sex, and all of them understanding the fundamental premise of this place: take what you want, so long as you’re bold enough to do so.

In short, I sit in the midst of a (gay) hedonist paradise. Future nostalgists and those who live under more oppressive constraints will inevitably project special qualities onto scenes like this. Indeed, I did so when I was a fledgeling ‘mo in then-small Minneapolis. Allow me to proclaim, admittedly from a position of privilege, that it’s not all it’s worked up to be.

If anything, this scene feels like a study in the natural unquenchability of pure desire. Here each man stands with his body’s desires mere heartbeats away yet the underlying tone of the place is one of unrest and striving. Those who do quench their craving tonight will return soon. If not here then somewhere else, if not seeking sex then seeking some other satisfaction. Each time life rises to meet our wishes, we either turn to loftier aspirations or we lock onto the experience as an ideal that we will ever seek to regain Either way, the cycle continues.

Hope & Fear

Once upon a time; oft upon a place, a gay man had reason to fear repercussions for seeking fulfilment of his natural impulses. Here & now, that fear would be completely baseless. Nonetheless, hope & fear still dominate nearly every interaction. Why?

This too shall pass. Sometime, some place, the burdens of social conservatism will again descend upon us. I wonder, will it be all bad?