GuidoWorld

Taking Up a Life World

There is a tendency in humans to see things as a series of opposing forces. We see things as good or bad, happy or sad, healthy or sickly, intelligent or stupid, or a person as an enemy or a friend. Though convenient and often instructive, this style of thought is more often than not lazy and misleading. We can label this style as binary or dialectical thought.

This binary style of thought has led us to define being human into a life world composed of body and mind. Though not necessarily opposites, they still function as separate and often competing forces in our life. Those who become aware of the numerous gaps created by this binary view of human existence create a third realm with concepts such as the soul or spirit. These terms attempt to provide human existence with some depth, literally giving life a third dimension, rather than the flat two dimensional world of mind/body.

Yet, if we take a few minutes to reflect on how we actually experience life we find a very lush and diverse world that fills out the flat concepts of body and mind. Our bodies and our minds are richer and fuller than their common definitions.

When people talk of the body they generally are referring to the collection of organs, tissues, bones and muscles which makes up the corporeal world of any organism. When they speak of the mind they are generally referring to the ego or conscious part of life.

When pressed further most people will add that the body has senses which allow us to see, hear, taste, smell and touch the world around us. They will say that the mind includes not only thoughts, ideas and theories, but emotions and fantasies. The longer they talk the more the edges between mind and body become blurred, and they begin to encroach upon the turf usually reserved for the soul/spirit.

So lets take a minute to look at the roles of the mind and the body.

When I reflect on my experience the first thing I’m struck by is how complex and amazing the body really is. The body is in the world even when my conscious mind is busy or preoccupied.

Way before infants have conscious thoughts they are highly immersed and interactive with the world. Like older humans, infants begin breathing, blinking and digesting without any need for conscious assistance or intervention. Quickly they begin to make reflexive and creative adjustments to objects that could hurt or obstruct their movement. While some of these skills are instinctual the vast majority are learned from interacting with the environment. A good portion of these learned skills are not done through conscious thought, but rather trial and error by a body which is just responding and adapting to a world.

An infant does not make a conscious decision to learn how to talk, walk or think. On one level they are innate abilities hardwired into human beings yet they are also skills which our bodies develop and refine without the need for conscious intervention (mind/ego).

No matter how conscious of our world we become as we age, the vast majority of our actions take place in the preconscious world of our body. When I speak to a person, words just spontaneously flow out in a comprehensible manner (usually). In most situation my ego is not actively involved and is not forming and choosing all the words flowing out of my mouth or emerging through my finger tips as I type.

It is my body which acts and adapts to the outside world. Often when I drive a car, work on a project or walk down the street my conscious mind is busy thinking about other things. Yet, during this time my body is making thousands of important decisions and modifications allowing me to function.

My body is much more than a collection of organs and bones, it is that which takes up and lives in a world. Without my (ego’s) being in charge my body perceives and makes “sense” of the world around me. Out of all the millions of sensations invading me each moment it selects and chooses what to focus on which creates my experience.

It is the body which selects all the light images in my field of vision and creates recognizable objects. Likewise it selects from all the sounds and smells available in my environment certain ones allowing me to have the experience of hearing and smelling. My body organizes sensations into experience.

In some ways one could say that my body is experience, while my ego is the experiencer. My ego is that which takes credit for or is embarrassed by what I spontaneously do, say or think. It is my conscious awareness (ego) which takes ownership, guides and learns.

While my body lives in and adapts to the world, my ego is capable of altering the world. My ego is that which goal sets, chooses situations to enter into or avoid, guides and makes changes the rituals the body has developed. While the body and ego both learn the body learns through responding and adapting (trial and error) while the ego can plan, create and proactively choose its experiences.

While the body creates and is the instrument (vehicle) of experience, the ego is the experiencer. The ego is that which savors, understands, plans and takes ownership. It is that which has a history and finds meaning in life and experience.

Being the experiencer, the mind feeds and plays off of what the body presents as our experience. While the body sees, the conscious mind can visualize. While the body touches the mind has emotions and feels.

While the body is pretty anchored in the here and now, the mind is free to anticipate as well as ruminate in the past. While the body mainly deals with what is, the ego can deal with what could be or what will be.

Yet, the body and the mind are interdependent. We do not “have” an experience without an experiencer (conscious mind/ego). Likewise there is nothing (no-thing) to experience without a perceptual/sensorial body creating and responding to a world.

Before ending I’d like to point out one last thing which amazes me about our body and it’s ability to create experience for the conscious mind to use and appreciate. Though our bodies create experience through a selection process it is incredible how much material it does select and store (document) for our conscious retrieval.

Let’s say I’m relating to a friend a discussion I was having with a few people a few days ago. In the midst of my story the friend asks me where we were and who else was there. Even though I was absorbed in the conversation and hung on every word, I shock myself by the amount of stuff I can recall when pressed. Suddenly I remember the music in the background, the sound of crickets in the night, maybe even a whiff of cinnamon from a candle in an adjoining room. All of this was perceived, recorded and documented for my retrieval though I can recall no conscious thought of these details while I was engrossed in the conversation.

It is also fascinating to recognize how varied this documentation may be in a given situation. Sometimes I can only remember the fact that music was in the background, at other times I can add the music make me feel sad, or that a female was singing. In other similar situations I’ll be able to recall the actual song, or what part of the conversation matched up with a specific song.

In previous posts I talked of how we sometimes have a tendency to deny or undervalue our lives and human experience in general. In fact in situations such as human sexuality we have a tendency to view our inherent drives as evil or as an evil to be overcome. In my next post I will try to articulate in what ways we have denied and demonized human experience in general and tried to replace real experience with an ideal experience. And once again pose the possibility that any denial of our basic humanity causes pain, suffering, and perversion.

Jim Guido

What’s Coming… What has Been

In the next few days I hope to finish my series of posts having to do with male sexuality. The following are the intended topics:

1) Taking up a Life World. This will focus on the amazing way in which we take up and live in a world. It will try to articulate human experience from the sensory to the conscious.

2) Experience and Limitations: In this I will try to show once again how our negative stance towards human experience has us degrade and deny our natural existence. I will focus on the positive aspect of limitations and how limits provide the very structure necessary for human experience to exist.

3) Male and Female Sex Symbols: I will try to present a balanced view of the phallic symbol in modern society. While we are very familiar with the negative stereotypes of the phallus in violent and aggressive war symbols such as missiles and guns, we are often ignore the constructive phallic symbols such as the pen and paintbrush. I will also try to present a balanced view of the sex symbols based on the female genitalia which are almost completely ignored.

This will lead into a discussion where I pose the possibility that while modern society might be male dominated it is female oriented.

4) The last post involving male and female sexuality will discuss the differences between logic and reason, and how it affects our sense of reality and our ability to appreciate and accept human life and death.

In review my first ten posts dealt with economic issues, and the last sixteen have dealt with human sexuality.
Since these posts were developed in a building block fashion, I hope you will take the time to read them in the order they were written. The next series of posts will again build off the last two series especially in the sense of unmasking popular myths and prejudices regarding human life and happiness.

I am also mixing down the last few songs on a new CD which I will post over the next few weeks. I hope you are enjoying the songs and books currently posted. I soon will use the blog portion to discuss some of my songs and their lyrics which will then be stored in the reverie section on the lyric page.

I hope to write a new post tomorrow.

Thanks for listening and to and sharing in my thoughts and observations.

Jim Guido

Celebating Being Human

In the last post I mentioned that I felt that modern society has a tendency to deny our humanity. This is not to imply that previous societies have embraced our humanity, but only that our current structure denies and denigrates our human experience.

In many of my recent posts focusing on male sexuality I’ve talked at length of how we have tried to hide and oppress the male sex drive. We treat the male sex drive as something to harness and if possible to overcome. We contrast love with sex and state that the male sex drive is animalistic and blind to the higher nature of man.

In these posts I’ve also discussed the drawbacks to treating the male sex drive as an evil or an obstacle to love. There is much logical and practical evidence to prove that repression of natural instincts leads to unhealthiness and deviancy. It would seem that embracing and understanding the male sex drive would go along way to having men be more healthy emotionally and psychologically. It would also be logical that men who have had their needs met would be more sensitive and open to the needs of their partners and people in general.

Yet, the denial of being human isn’t relegating to just the male sex drive. There is very little in what is natural or truly human which isn’t denigrated or looked as an obstacle to be overcome.

We have been made to feel that our bodies are something to be ashamed of and to be hidden. This is not to say that I’m promoting nudism, but it would be nice if people were able to be proud of their bodies and to view the human form as a thing of beauty and wonder.

Woman in our culture are encouraged to alter their looks and cover their faces in make-up from a very early age. It is hard to imagine women feeling good about their natural selves when they are expected to “improve” their looks and “hide any physical weaknesses” through cosmetics and fashion.

The human scent has likewise been deemed to be disgusting and in need of constant alteration. While good hygiene makes sense and a body awash in bacteria can be quite aromatic, the onslaught of deodorants, shampoos, colognes, etc. leave the human body smelling like an orchard rather than a human being. In days past a person was able to remember their absent lover by smelling their clothes or their pillow nowadays one has to go to a fruit stand to help rekindle the lingering memories of a lover.

Human experience has a long history of being denigrated or viewed as an obstacle to happiness. In most religions and spiritual practices our senses and experiences are viewed as a danger at best and an illusion at worst. Eastern mysticism considers our ties to our senses and external reality as being the cause of all suffering. While this may harbor some truth it also misses the fact that our senses and experience are the cause of almost all of our joy and sense of satisfaction.

Our unwilingness to accept and embrace our mortality has led us to create concepts such as god, the soul, and eternal life. In the religious spiritual world the mundane world of human experience is reduced to the profane and all manner of meaning is placed outside this life into the realm of the sacred. Everything human is reduced to painful trivia and all that is divine and supra-human is the source of “human” joy and salvation.

Likewise, in modern psychology, the human ego is viewed as a relatively blind and foolish thing, in need of help from the unconscious and therapeutic objectivity to get over its natural state of suffering and self-loathing.

I, of course, take issue which most of these view points. Though human life is far from perfect, I find it worthy of being embraced and praised. Human existence and experience is truly amazing. All of the critics of human experience make many valid points, but growth and human development should be seen as goals and not as a sign of an inherent evil in being human.

In the next post I will take a few minutes to reflect on what makes human experience a thing of beauty worthy of praise and admiration and not an obstacle or illusion to be overcome.

Jim Guido

Healthy or Over-sexualized

There are those who feel that my posts on male sexuality indicate that I am over-sexualized, or place too much importance on sexual intercourse. There are also those that think while I’m overemphasizing the male sex drive, I am underemphasizing the female sex drive.

In response to my underestimating the female sex drive I’d like to point out that I have discussed and praised the female orgasm and the female ability to experience sensuality in a very rich fashion. Yet, my point was that the female sex drive is  not as hormonally driven as the male. It is rare for a female to be controlled by the biological imperative whereby obtaining sexual intercourse becomes their highest priority if not obsession. I have heard of no studies which show that the typical female spends the majority of her adolescence thinking and fantasizing about sexual intercourse and male body parts.

We refer to female prostitution as the oldest profession. Even if that is an exaggeration it speaks to the male need and obsession with sexual intercourse. One does not spend so much time and money on something that isn’t essential to their make-up. The fact that woman have not felt a need to buy sex and men did not make selling sex to females an occupation is indicative of the fact that there is a qualitative and quantitative difference between male and female sex drives.  In the previous couple of posts I stated what I saw to be the differences in sexual motivations and priorities between the sexes.

Now, when it comes to a discussion of whether I am a relatively typical male or an oversexed  maniac I would beg to point out the following.  Though I talk frankly about the importance sexual intercourse and physical intimacy has played in my life, I also want it to be known that I feel I have made sex a positive in my life. I have embraced my sexual needs and pleasures in a healthy manner and have not had my sexual desires control me or make me behave in ways contrary to social values.

In my entire life I’ve had a relatively small number of highly satisfying long term relationships in which sexual pleasure and intimacy have been prominent. I have never had a one night stand, I’ve never cheated or had an affair, I have never gone to a prostitute or even been in a strip club for that matter.

I have spent the majority of my life working with troubled adolescence and their families.  This has allowed me to see people in crisis, and see people in the process of improving their lives and themselves. My near three decades of experience in this field has led me to the following conclusion regarding mental and emotional health.

The healthier a person is the more they get there needs met in a direct fashion. The more  unhealthy they are, the more they attempt to get their needs met in an indirect fashion. I bring this up because it is pertinent in our discussion of sexuality.

It seems logical to me that a society which strives to repress, deny or overcome any basic aspect of man will produce unhealthy and dissatisfied people. I feel our attitudes towards male sexuality are unhealthy and somewhat draconian, in which we view the male sex drive as an obstacle to be controlled and overcome rather than a innate trait to be cultivated and understood.

The more we try to control  and deny male sexuality the more perversions and sickness we create. The more we imply that our innate desires and tendencies are bad, the more confused and personally alienated we are destined to become.

Though in recent posts I have focused on male sexuality, this is not the only area in which I feel we are in denial of our human nature. When I look at human society I see many ways in which we are in denial of our basic humanity and we exert great effort in overcoming these basic qualities.

I’m not advocating that we should rebel against all civilization and attempt to return to our animal nature. What I am advocating is that we don’t assume that every animal or innate tendency we have is bad or needing to be overcome. It seems to be that our unwillingness to embrace our humanity and accept the fact that we live and die, has caused us to create ideals and goals which are both counterproductive and unrealistic.

I would like to live in a world which celebrates our humanity and looks to use our basic drives and inclinations as a starting point. Yet, currently we seem to going in  the opposite direction. Instead of celebrating our physical, emotional and conscious world of mortal visceral experience, we place everything of importance outside of ourselves. Instead of savoring sensory experience and how we live in the world, we glorify all that lies outside of ourselves, and make it our only “true” source of satisfaction and fulfillment.

We denigrate the body, sensual experience, life and death, and the limitations that make all experience possible, by revering supreme beings, spirituality, and the unconscious.

All of these issues will be central to the bulk of what I put up on this website, as well as the subject matter of future posts. I once again invite you to listen to my songs and read  my lyrics, for they all aim at celebrating life while pointing out the ways in which we try to deny our humanity.

In the words section of this site you will find chapters from my novels and non-fiction works which again focus on the celebration of human existence and how to try to get one’s needs met in a healthy direct fashion.

If I were to start at one spot to best understand my basic philosophy it would be to read my non-fiction book Exploring Intimacy.  Because of its central importance to what I wish to convey to people, the entire book is able to be read on this site.

Jim Guido