From NPR News
If Alaetheia can pick the digital lock her father built, she will have earned the right to decide for herself how much time she spends online.
“Right now what we say to kids is, your privacy is as precious as your virginity, and once you give it away you can never get it back,” says Cory Doctorow, a science fiction writer and blogger.
For greatest effect, watch these in order.
[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?
A new social network for Gay professionals called dot429 has started advertising on facebook. Their ads are headlines from 429Magazine, which has a column called Hollywood Duke that seems to be dedicated to documenting how Hollywood keeps gay stars in the closet. Though this choice of focus is oddly specialized, the articles are pretty well written and, after all, the headlines did get me to click on the ad. The more interesting of these articles, Luke Evans is Out, Then In, details the trajectory of a once openly gay actor, Luke Evans, being trundled back into the closet by publicists over the past few years because his career is starting to get traction in major studios. Underneath the Hollywood insider gossip, the article speaks to the part of each of us that wants heroes who fly in the face of convention and stand up for what’s right.
If life has taught me anything, its that if you want to live in a world where there are heroes you have to be heroic yourself.
The University of Washington, where I earned my Bachelors Degree, is about to celebrate its 150th anniversary. As part of the celebration, their alumni association is putting together some sort of giant yearbook. After they prodded me repeatedly with emails asking for an updated bio and contact info, I finally logged in and filled out the forms. The final bit asked for a personal message. The heading read:
“Catch everyone up on your life since you left University of Washington…tell us about your family… or share your favorite memories.”
Here’s what I wrote:
When I finished my Bachelors degree in Comparative Religion, I wanted to become a baker. When that didn’t work out, I pursued a Masters in Electrical Engineering at University of York where I explored Human Computer Interaction and 3D Audio technologies. York is beautiful to visit and the University is home to wonderful scholars. After York, I spent three years at Kagyu Thubten Choling, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Wappingers Falls, New York. There, I learned what it means to live life for others. I also learned how very very hard it is to walk that path. My experiences at the monastery inspired me to start a company, MediaShelf, which works with some of the world’s top libraries and archives to create open source software for preserving and disseminating digital knowledge. Meanwhile, I sit on the board of the Schubert Club in St Paul, MN and serve as a meditation practice leader in Minneapolis for Tergar International. I’m not married nor do I have any children yet. If I were to marry, neither Minnesota nor the US government would recognize it because I’m a homosexual. Despite this, I live in a time and place where I can be happy & openly gay. For that, I’m extremely lucky.
After filling out the alumni association’s forms with ample fields for listing spouses and children, it felt good to provide a calm, firm statement of my perspective. If I hadn’t read that article about Luke Evans this evening, it wouldn’t have even occurred to me to mention it. While re-reading the message, I feel a pang of guilt (or is it fear?) every time I get to the section about gay marriage, but I choose not to listen to that feeling. Even with something as inconsequential as a line in a giant yearbook that I’m unlikely to ever read, it often takes bravery to speak the truth.
07 March 2009
Catania, Sicily, Italy
Grand Hotel Baia Verde
Day two of traveling alone in Italy. Mainly I only notice that I’m alone at mealtime. Today I went to the Hotel’s centro benessere (Wellness Center) for a massage and a facial. I felt alone there too, soaking in the sea salt therapeutic pool and exploring the row of “emotional showers” that take turns changing colors, intensities, temperature, and scent according to a programmed succession. (Think of a cross between night clubbing, Twister, and musical chairs, add water and aromatherapy.) I wanted someone to giggle in amusement with.
Has it been only two days? I’ve been traveling solo since November. At every stop I’ve had some mix of old friends to visit, new friends to dig into, and family to catch up with. I didn’t think of myself as being alone all those weeks. Roughly 100 nights and I rarely dined alone. I would be challenged to list all of the wonderful companions with whom I’ve shared bread in these travels. None of it has served to dispel the solitude.
In Sacred Path of the Warrior, Chogyam Trungpa describes the Bodhisattva path as being deeply lonely. I feel as if I have achieved the loneliness while completely neglecting the spiritual point.
I’ve been avoiding restaurants in order to dodge that moment when I tell the host tavolo per uno (table for one), and he inevitably says “solo.” (alone.) in a declarative yet questioning way, as if he hopes I’ve spoken wrong.
Paradoxically, a powerful part of me seeks even more solitude. There’s so much writing, reading, contemplation, and མ་སེམས་ (ma sem, non-thought) that I yearn to immerse myself in. I would love to go on a month-long silent retreat right now. Nothing sounds more appealing than slow yoga under a tree somewhere – rain, sunshine, or otherwise – and a plain mat to sleep on.
Yet here I am in Sicily in a four-star hotel. Tomorrow I will move on to Rome, a capital of civilization for thousands of years. I’ve been flung here by circumstance over which I have little control, though I do choose to engage and I did dictate the terms of engagement.
I could have passed this one by. Could have skipped the conference, or simply flown home after the conference ended. Round trip to Sicily for three days of networking and then straight home .. it just sounds too stupid. My whole life, I’ve intended to come here but never found the right time. Thus, here I am. I eat the tasty food, I drink the vino della casa (house wine). I stumble through the national tongue, learn the local mass transit, and wander their streets gradually constructing that visceral mental map of each city – the one I absorb through my feet, bound to my eyes and annotated by my other senses.
The most fundamental rule when acquiring street food anywhere: get it when it’s fresh. Minimize bacterial growth by minimizing the time
between the fryer and your gullet.
How to apply this rule in London or anywhere in the UK:
Go out drinking in a place where there are lots of young people partying. Drink at a destination that is 1) busy and 2) at least six
blocks from your nearest mass transit depot. Get pissed with your friends and head towards the mass transit depot at traditional closing time (12:00 am in London), not at club closing time (about 3:00 am in London). Walk to your destination via the most populace route possible. Along the way, you are nearly guaranteed to encounter multiple “chip shops” or “kebab shops”. They are very likely to be selling doner. Choose the shop with either a) the biggest crowd, b) the most people working behind the counter, or c) the least meat remaining on the doner spit. Give preference to places that sell “chips” over places that sell “french fries”.
In London, it seems customary to eat street food on buses but not on the tube . Never leave garbage on mass transit here. Take it with you and drop it in one of the trash bins on the street.
I personally enjoy a small chicken doner with chips. I ask for everything (all of the “salad”) on the doner with no hot sauce. Vinegar, salt and ketchup are essential on chips.
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For those who have not already seen it, I think this video sums up a few of the feelings I have about Obama’s poignant victory.
>Besides a quiet dinner with friends on Tuesday evening and a morning flight from Minneapolis to DC, I spent a straight 48 hours in bed. Fever, delirium, chills, the works … all because of a sore throat.
This morning I managed to get out of my hotel and wander around Dupont Circle. It’s interesting to see how people present themselves on the street here. The best way I can make sense of it is to remember that this city is all about power. Money is a form of power, as are influence, affiliations, titles and such. Creativity, on the other hand, is a power that this city seems to see as a secondary. People’s clothes aren’t very colorful here, and their hairstyles are relatively tame. This is not to say that people here don’t flaunt what they’ve got. It’s just that what they choose to flaunt is somewhat different.
>There’s nothing quite like being cooped up in your mom’s place after 5 months of solo travel. I returned to Minneapolis on the 10th of April. It didn’t make sense to get an apartment of my own until June, so I’ve been staying with my mother in her downtown condo. Between old habits and the cable TV, I’ve been completely out of sorts. I don’t feel like myself here. The late spring hasn’t helped either.
During my first week back in the USA, I spent half my time freaking about business development logistics and spent the other half of my time figuring out how to leave Minneapolis.
My second week back, the biz dev logistics freakout got the best of me, I celebrated my birthday, reconnected with some friends and discovered (again) why I love this city.
On week three I was bowled over by the JA-SIG conference, which happened to be in St Paul this year. I gave presentations on three days out of four. The info was good and the conversations were great, but my presentations could have been better.
It’s now week four and I’ve finally started meditating again. I think this is my first moment of reflection since leaving London. As I sit here and look at the midnight skyline, I’m trying to call up a bit of perspective. These past month’s travels are like a dream. This moment is like a dream. Why do I always forget to pay attention?
flyingzumwalt 