n00b's blog: "muse views"

i have a pretty simple philosophy.  a decision based on race is a racist decision.  i had a prof in college who used to argue with me about that statement, tell me that i was being too simplistic, and i just didnt understand what i was talking about.

i also had some other people tell me that the only racists were white, that someone who was a minority could not be racist.  

i grew up in a pretty monochromatic world, the percentage of minorities at my school was less than 1%.  i figured that everyone was like me.  i guess intellectually i thought there were differences, but i always figured that deep down everyone was the same.  

in many ways, i think everyone is the same deep down.  i think generally parents care for their kids, people want to get ahead in life, they want to find love and happiness.  

not everyone defines those things the same way, and that is Ok.  

so back to my original thought.

if we ever hope to eradicate racism, we have to get past the idea of racial differences, racial priorities.  until we all see each other as just another color, in a spectrum of colors.  each unique, each with different attributes, but each the same.

so i stick by my initial statement.  when we stop making decisions based on race, we can then become a society without racism

sorry, nothing about the NSA, CIA, or any other three letter agency that is all sexy and dangerous.  i'm talking about smart people.

i have always been attracted to smart women, smart people in general.  i enjoy the conversation, the exchange of ideas.  i even atteneded a few MENSA gatherings in the past, but that really wasnt my scene, almost seemed more like a competition than a celebration.  but i digress.

i love the flash of brilliance, and i swear i can see it when it happens.  for some it happens so frequently that its like turning on a light, you just need to decide how much illumination you can stand.  other times its like a strobe, suddenly there is clarity and focus.  occasionally i have those, but its rare.

i have been fortunate enough to spend some time with some hyper intelligent people, IQs in the 180-195 range.  usually they have been very humble about their accomplishments (yeah, ANYONE can graduate medical school .. at 19).  i think the most humbling experience of my life , but it was also a lot of fun, was taking a "real" IQ test with a friend of mine.  i had to keep tripping her up with telling her wrong answers (she would always stop and tell me exactly WHY it was wrong) so that i even had a chance of keeping up with her.  it was fun, and ... strangely sensual.

i have known many beautiful women in my life, but the ones i really remember were the ones that challenged me intellectually.  i wont be so transparently fake as to say looks do not matter, obviously in our media driven culture they have been given great weight, but i will say that appearance is an adornment of intellect.  to a large degree, given enough intelligence, and enough common interests, and appearance greatly fades in importance to me.  i think i expressed how i feel in a poem once, part of which i will post here;

The one universal I seem to find

Is that men don’t see a woman’s mind

Beauty and brains don’t seem to coexist

Like some paradox that shouldn’t exist

I pity those men, and their grave error

I seek first the beauty from the interior

And another universal truth I seem to find

All women are concerned about their behind

Or their waist, or their legs, or the size of their feet

Not one have I ever met who felt them selves complete

What a shame that is, and I’ll tell you why

Beauty is so much more than what meets the eye

Don’t get me wrong, I love eye candy too

But give me discourse with wit, and I’ll love you

when i was very young, and this was very long ago, back in the 60's in fact, i yelled a slur at a police officer.  i really don’t know why i did it, other than it was the 60's and rebellion seemed to be the thing to do.  the officer i yelled at swung his car around and stopped me.  he didn’t arrest me, he didn’t hassle me, he talked to me.  that encounter framed by respect for the law for several decades.  i formed a deep and abiding respect for officers of the law because that one officer had the decency to talk to me, instead of just knee-jerk reaction to negativity that i thoughtlessly and needlessly threw his way.  in my mind, that officer will always and forever be the ideal against which i measure others.

when i read now of 134 shots being fired at two unarmed people in their car, the police officer standing on their hood and unloading his weapon into their lifeless bodies, then i am dumbfounded by a judge that rules that nothing untoward happened.  i wonder what the future holds for all of us.  it used to be that many officers went their entire career without having to pull their weapon out of the holster.  that it was single digits numbers who actually fired their weapon.  all that has changed though.

i blame the supreme court.  the supremes gave police the constitutionally protected ability to lie to those whom they are sworn to protect.  and while i understand why this was given, i think the practice, and the effects of this have rippled through the years in a kind of butterfly effect that has created a kind of cascade failure of trust and respect.  pretty difficult to respect or trust someone that you know can lie to you without consequence.

i hope that increased transparency with the use of technology will reverse what i see as a police force that is quietly becoming a police state.  a law unto themselves.  i pray that i am wrong, but i fear i am right.

dating has become something like a job interview, but you are just not really sure you want the job.  in my decade and a half of being single i have had the entire gamut of experience, from wondering if its too rude to leave before the salad arrives to having a last first date, virtually everything inbetween.  

its been several years now since i was last seriously involved.  i am wondering if i have been single for so long that i have lost the ability to be in a long term serious relationship.  my favorite quote about being unattached is "single is great, lonely sucks".  i guess i am not that lonely.  

i dont really enjoy traveling alone, but i have done it so long that it doesnt really bother me.  its really most awkward when i go diving because .. well, there isnt a dive buddy.  but it gets worked out, and i have never been told i cant go somewhere because i didnt have a buddy with me.  i dont go to clubs , or bars because .. well, they just dont interest me that much.  for these and many other reasons i have really begun to wonder if i am just too settled in the single life.

i enjoy meeting people usually.  when i travel if i know someone in the area i am almost always open to a cuppa jo or a nice dinner.  but after 3 dayes in 2 months i dont think its appropriate for you to start demanding that i hold up my end of our "relationship".  

maybe it is more fantasy than reality to me these days.  i believe i am most happy when i am in a satisfying and rewarding relationship, but i think i now know that i dont have to be in a relationship to be happy.  only time will tell i guess

i am incredibly apathetic when it comes to all things social media.  i dont tweet, my facebook is blank, i am not linkedin.  now before you start labeling me some kind of modern day luddite, i guess i should tell you that i used to be very involved with tech, in fact it was my career for a long time.  but with all of the personal information that people put out there on the web these days, i cant help but think that 10 years, or maybe even 5 years from now we are all going to slap ourselves and say "what was i thinking?".

i could never have had a career in politics, no way i could ever subject myself to living in a fishbowl.  i am by nature a very private person and the thought of putting every little thing in my life out there (or even the major things) just makes me cringe.  its not that i fear what people would say, believe me my give a shit on that ran out a long time ago, its that i just dont want to live my life like that.  some people value privacy, and some people do not.  i am one who values it highly.

so ... why the hell am i on fu?

good question.

about 8 years ago a very good friend asked me to respond to an email, told me that it would really help her out.  it was a fu referral, and i got roped into filling out a profile.  which sat for quite a long time not doing much.  then i did a little, then a little, and i think everyone here knows the rest of that story.  maybe in another post i will recount how my old profile got deleted.  maybe.  

anyways.  pretty boring for starters, i will try to be more topical in the future.