If you could see inside my heart,
there you'd find that missing part.
The clues I give are not that big,
for when I speak a grave I dig.
How do you describe a heavenly dove,
with all its earthly being?
Like how I feel could be called love,
but is a greater feeling.
2
Do you see me
As I see you?
Beneath your heart
Do you long for me too?
Any moment
Of any day,
Would you stick by my side?
Or throw our love away?
Will you remember me
As I'll remember you?
Will you promise me
That our love will be true?
3
When stillness steals across the night
and our music fills the air with thoughts of you,
my soul will turn in the lenghtening shadows
to look for the message you have written on my heart.
When twilight phantoms cover every curve,
and darkness approaches on silent feet,
my heart will seek the radiance of your touch
that brings the soaring flight of passion's wings.
Let us roam beyond the stars to touch the night
and as we move to desire's beat; our souls entwined.
I will give you the bounty of my loving embrace
molded to the sultry singing of your passions song.
4
If I were a telescope
I'd eagerly delve into your mystic galaxy.
Hmmm? I wonder...
What constellation would be of greatest interest to me?
Would it be the twinkle of the stars dancing in your eyes
As the little dipper slips me a sip of your Heavenly brew?
I hungrily lick my lips,
Yearning for the bounty of my fill of you.
Perhaps I'd gravitate towards the Soul-ar source
Nature's Mentholatum seeping through my pores.
Penetrating emotional boundaries
Soothing atonement for malicious tendencies
In life's vast waywardness
Finally free.
If I were a telescope
I would bathe in the silky delights of your Milky Way
Causing ripples in the waves of cosmology
That extends beyond all that is perceived with the naked eye.
Instinctively, I reach up to catch shooting star kisses
cast from the sky.
As clouds play charade with my intellect,
Ripe tears of joy reflect
The distant orbs of light serenading me.
I laugh as you tickle my nose instinctually
Melting away snowflake mountains of fear
In the spiritual awakening of a new morn.
Inhibitions subside...
Finally free.
If I were a telescope...
I would dwell forever in the enchantment of your infinity.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
DATING/THOUGHTS: WHY EVEN THE STRONG GUY GETS WEAK WHEN DEALING WITH THE OPPOSITE SEX
When you think about it, despite feeling difficult, the problems people struggle with in dating sound pretty trivial.
For instance, we have been walking and talking their entire lives, yet walking up to an attractive woman and opening our mouths to say “Hi,” can feel impossibly complex to us. People have been using a phone since they were children, yet the agony some go through just to dial a person’s phone number you’d think they were being waterboarded. Most men have kissed a woman before and they’ve seen hundreds of movies and instances in real life of other people kissing, yet as she stares dreamily into his eyes hour after hour, he tells himself he can never find the “right moment” to do it.
Why? It sounds simple, but why is it so hard?
There are men who have built business empires, gone to war, played violent sports, climbed mountains, written novels — and yet the mere sight of a petite woman in a sexy dress sends their hearts racing and minds reeling.
Dating advice often compares improving one’s dating life to improving at some practical skill, such as playing piano or learning a foreign language. Sure, there are some overlapping principles, but I can’t imagine a grown man trembling with anxiety every time he sits down at the keyboard. And I’ve never met a man who became depressed for a week after failing to conjugate a verb correctly. They’re not the same.
Generally speaking, if someone practices piano daily for two years, they will eventually become quite competent at it. Yet many people spend most of their lives with one romantic failure after another.
Why?
What is it about this one area of life that the most basic actions can feel impossible, that repetitive behavior often leads to little or no change, and that our psychological defense mechanisms run rampant trying to convince us to not pursue what we want?
Why dating and not, say, skiing? Or even our careers? Why is it that a person can conquer the corporate ladder, become a militant CEO, demanding and receiving the respect and admiration of hundreds of brilliant minds, and then at night cower and stutter his way through a date with a beautiful stranger?
As children, none of us get 100% of our needs met. This is true of you. It’s true of me. It’s true of everyone. The degree of which our needs aren’t met varies widely, and the nature of how our needs are unfulfilled differs as well. But it’s the sad truth about growing up: we’ve all got baggage. And some of us have a lot of it. Whether it is a parent who didn’t hold us enough, who didn’t feed us regularly enough, a father who wasn’t around often, a mother who left us and moved away, being forced to move from school to school as a child and never having friends — all of these experiences leave their mark as a series of micro-traumas that shape and define us.
The nature and depth of these traumas imprint themselves onto our unconscious and become the map of how we experience love, intimacy and sex throughout our lives.
If mom was over-protective and dad was never around, that will form part of our map for love and intimacy. If we were manipulated or tormented by our siblings and peers, that will imprint itself as part of our self-image. If mom was an alcoholic and dad was screwing around with other women, it will stay with us. If our first girlfriend died in a car accident or dad beat us because he caught us masturbating — well, you get the point. These imprints will not only affect, but define, all of our future romantic and sexual relationships as an adult.
You and I and everyone else have met hundreds, if not thousands, of members of the opposite sex. Out of those thousands, multiple hundreds easily met our physical criteria for a mate. Yet out of those hundreds, we only fall in love with a very few. Only a handful we meet in our entire lives ever grab us on that gut-level, where we lose all rationality and control and lay awake at night thinking about them.
It’s often not the one we expected to fall for either. Susie was perfect on paper. Jane had the great sense of humor and was amazing in bed. But Melissa is the one we can’t stop thinking about, the one we involuntarily keep going back to over and over and over again.
Psychologists believe that romantic love occurs when our unconscious becomes exposed to someone who matches the archetype of parental love we experienced growing up, someone whose behavior matches our emotional map for intimacy. Our unconscious is always seeking to return to the unconditional nurturing we received as children, and to re-process and heal the traumas we suffered.
In short, our unconscious is wired to seek out members of the opposite sex who it believes will fulfill our unfulfilled emotional needs, to fill in the gaps of the love and nurturing we missed out on as kids. This is why the people we fall in love with almost always resemble our parents on an emotional level.
Hence why people who are madly in love say to each other, “you complete me,” or refer to each other as their “better half.” It’s also why couples in the throes of new love often act like children around one another. Their unconscious mind can’t differentiate between the love they’re receiving from their girlfriend/boyfriend and the love they once received as a child from their parents.
This is also why dating and relationships are so painful and difficult for so many of us, particularly if we had strained familial relationships growing up. Unlike playing the piano or learning a language, our dating and sex lives are inextricably bound to our emotional needs, and when we get into potentially intimate or sexual situations, these experiences rub up against our prior traumas causing us anxiety, neuroticism, stress and pain.
So that woman rejecting you when you approach her isn’t just rejecting you, but to your unconscious you’re reliving every time your mother rejected you or turned down your need for affection.
That irrational fear you feel when it comes time to take your clothes off in front of a new someone isn’t just the nervousness of the moment, but every time you were punished for sexual thoughts or feelings growing up.
Don’t believe me? Think about this. Someone no-shows for a regular business meeting with you. How do you feel? Annoyed likely. Maybe a tad disrespected. But chances are you get over it quickly, and by the time you get home and are watching TV you don’t even remember it even happened.
Now, imagine someone you are extremely attracted to no-shows for a date. How do you feel? If you’re like most people who struggle in this area of their life: like shit. Like you just got used and lead on and shat on.
Why? Because being flaked on rubs up against your unconscious fear of abandonment, fear that nobody loves you and that you’re going to be alone forever. Ouch.
Maybe you freak out and call them and leave her angry voicemails. Maybe you continue to call them weeks or months later, getting blown off over and over again, feeling worse and worse each time. Or maybe you just get depressed and mope about it on an online forum, asking for advice to prevent it happening in the future.
Every irrational fear, emotional outburst or insecurity you have in your dating life is an imprint on your emotional map from your relationships growing up.
It’s why you’re terrified to go for the first kiss even though she’s sent you 100 signals saying she likes you. It’s why you freeze up when it comes time to introduce yourself to a man you don’t know or tell someone you just met how you feel about them. It’s why you clam up every time you go to bed with someone new or you freeze up and get uncomfortable when it’s time to open and share yourself with somebody.
The list goes on and on.
All of these issues have deep-seated roots in your unconscious, your unfulfilled emotional needs and traumas.
A common way we bypass dealing with the emotional stress involved in dating is by disassociating our emotions from intimacy and sex. If we shut off our need for intimacy and connection, then our sexual actions no longer rub up against our emotional maps and we can greatly diminish the neediness and anxiety we once felt while still reaping the superficial benefits. It takes time and practice, but once disassociated from our emotions, we can enjoy the sex and validation of dating without concerns for intimacy, connection, and in some cases, ethics.
Objectification of sex and members of the opposite sex. Objectifying someone is when you see them only for a specific purpose and don’t see them as fully integrated human beings. You can objectify people as sex objects, professional work objects, social objects, or none of the above. Men tend to objectify women sexually. Some women objectify men as avenues for gaining power or influence. But objectification is ultimately disastrous for one’s own emotional health, not to mention one’s relationships.
Sexism. Viewing the other sex as inferior or inherently evil/inept is a sure way to redirect one’s emotional problems outward onto a population at large rather than dealing with them yourself. Without fail, men who treat and view women as some inferior “other,” are more often than not projecting their own anger and insecurities onto the women they meet rather than dealing with them. The same goes for women.
Manipulation, lines and tactics. By adopting lines, manipulation or tactics to meet and seduce women, a man is withholding his true identity from the woman and therefore is withholding his emotional map as well. If a woman is falling for the perception of who he is rather than who he really is, then there’s far less risk for conjuring up the buried emotional stress and pain of his prior relationships.
Overuse of humor, teasing, bantering. A classic strategy of distraction. Not that jokes or teasing are always bad, but an interaction of nothing but jokes and teasing is a means to communicate without saying anything important, to enjoy yourselves without actually do anything, and to feel like you know each other without actually knowing a thing. This is most typical of English-speaking cultures, as they tend to use sarcasm and teasing as a means to imply affection rather than actually showing it.
Stripclubs, prostitution, pornography. A way to experience one’s sexuality vicariously through an empty, idealized vessel, whether it’s on a screen, a pole, or running you $100 an hour.
Generally, the more resentment one is harboring towards the opposite sex, the more one objectifies them. Men who had turbulent relationships with their mothers, men who were left by their wives or girlfriends, or men who were tormented by women growing up, these men will likely find it much easier and more enticing to objectify and measure their sex lives than to confront their demons and overcome their emotional scars with the women they become involved with (See:Madonna/Whore Complex).
Women also disassociate their emotions and objectify men as well. But there’s a lot more social pressure on men to ignore their emotions, particularly “weak” emotions such as a need for intimacy and love. It’s more socially acceptable for men to objectify their sex lives and boast about it. Whether you think that’s right or wrong or doesn’t matter, it is how it is.
Disassociating from your emotional needs is the easy way out. It requires only external effort and some superficial beliefs. Working through your issues and resolving them requires far more blood, sweat and tears. Most people aren’t willing to dig deep and put in the effort, but it yields far greater and permanent results.
1) The biggest misconception when it comes to working through an excess of emotional baggage is that these feelings ever completely go away. Research and brain imaging indicates that fears, anxieties, traumas, etc. are imprinted on our brains in similar ways that our physical habits are. Just like you’ve developed a habit of brushing your teeth every time you wake up, you have emotional habits of getting sad or angry any time you feel abandoned or unwanted.
The way to change is not by removing these feelings or anxieties altogether, but rather consciously replacing them with higher order behaviors and feelings.
This can only be accomplished through taking action. There is no other way. You cannot rewire your responses in healthy ways and confront your insecurities if you aren’t out there actively pushing up against them. Trying to do so is like trying to learn how to shoot free throws left-handed without ever actually touching a basketball. It just doesn’t work.
If you have a habit of flipping out and leaving angry voicemails every time someone doesn’t call you back, you don’t get rid of the anger, but rather channel that anger into a better and healthier activity, like say, going to the gym, or painting a picture, or punching a punching bag.
2) Anxieties can be overcome through utilizing implementation intentions and progressive desensitization. For instance, if you have a problem getting sexual or making the first move with women, start with baby steps. Tell the next woman you go on a date with that she’s sexy. Once that feels comfortable then challenge yourself to have a conversation about sex. After that challenge yourself to hold hands with a woman. Then challenge yourself to kiss a woman.
I’ve set up online programs that utilize progressive desensitization to help men overcome their anxieties around women.
Obviously this takes time and requires consistently facing situations which make you uncomfortable, but that’s the idea. You must overlay old emotional habits of fear and anxiety with new healthier ones of excitement, boldness and assertiveness. Mentally train yourself so that any time you feel anxiety, you force yourself to do it anyway.
3) The final step — once you’ve learned to channel your negative emotions in constructive ways, once you’ve eaten away at your anxieties and are able to often act despite them — is to come clean with people you date about your needs and start screening based on them.
For instance, I’ve always had a fear of commitment and needed a woman who was comfortable giving me space and some freedom. Not only do I openly share this with women I get involved with now, but I actively screen for women with these traits.
Ultimately, your emotional needs will only be fully met in a loving and conscious relationship with someone who you can trust and work together with – and not just your emotional issues, but hers as well. We unconsciously seek out romantic partners in order to fulfill our unfulfilled childhood needs, and to do so cannot be completely done alone.
This is the reason that honesty and vulnerability are so powerful for creating high-quality interactions – the practice of being upfront about your desires and flaws will naturally screen for those women who best suit you and connect with you.
This kind of authenticity changes the whole dynamic with women. Instead of chasing and pursuing, convincing and persuading, you focus on consistently improving yourself and presenting that self to the women of the world. The right ones will pay attention and stay. And whether you spend a night or a year with them, this enhanced level of intimacy and mutual vulnerability will help heal your emotional wounds, help you become more confident and secure in your relationships and ultimately, overcome much of the pain and stress of that accompanies sex and intimacy.
An Invitation for Change
I invite you to post in the comments below what your emotional hang ups are in this area of your life, where they probably come from, and how you could overcome them in an open and honest way.
As an example, I was bullied all my life. As a result, I became highly sensitive to confrontation and any negative emotions of others. I became the consummate Nice Guy and for years struggled to assert myself in my relationships and around women. In fact, I objectified my sex life quite a bit and adopted some narcissistic behaviors in order to push me through some of these insecurities.
My fear of commitment is undoubtedly rooted in my parents’ divorce and my knee jerk reaction for years was to run away any time a woman attempted to get close to me. I slowly eroded that fear by opening myself up to intimate opportunities little by little over a long period of time. I was incapable of becoming intimate with a woman unless I had an escape route (i.e., she had a boyfriend, or I was going to move to another city soon, etc.).
Spending all of my adolescence living alone with my mother has made me particularly sensitive to female affection, and like a smoker rationalizing reasons to smoke one last cigarette, I have often rationalized myself into intimate and sexual situations with women who I perhaps should not have been with or didn’t actually like as much as I thought I did.
This is my emotional map — at least part of it. These are the hang ups and issues that I’ve battled and slowly beaten back with years of active effort. These are the realities that I express openly and seek out the proper women who can handle them.
For instance, we have been walking and talking their entire lives, yet walking up to an attractive woman and opening our mouths to say “Hi,” can feel impossibly complex to us. People have been using a phone since they were children, yet the agony some go through just to dial a person’s phone number you’d think they were being waterboarded. Most men have kissed a woman before and they’ve seen hundreds of movies and instances in real life of other people kissing, yet as she stares dreamily into his eyes hour after hour, he tells himself he can never find the “right moment” to do it.
Why? It sounds simple, but why is it so hard?
There are men who have built business empires, gone to war, played violent sports, climbed mountains, written novels — and yet the mere sight of a petite woman in a sexy dress sends their hearts racing and minds reeling.
Dating advice often compares improving one’s dating life to improving at some practical skill, such as playing piano or learning a foreign language. Sure, there are some overlapping principles, but I can’t imagine a grown man trembling with anxiety every time he sits down at the keyboard. And I’ve never met a man who became depressed for a week after failing to conjugate a verb correctly. They’re not the same.
Generally speaking, if someone practices piano daily for two years, they will eventually become quite competent at it. Yet many people spend most of their lives with one romantic failure after another.
Why?
What is it about this one area of life that the most basic actions can feel impossible, that repetitive behavior often leads to little or no change, and that our psychological defense mechanisms run rampant trying to convince us to not pursue what we want?
Why dating and not, say, skiing? Or even our careers? Why is it that a person can conquer the corporate ladder, become a militant CEO, demanding and receiving the respect and admiration of hundreds of brilliant minds, and then at night cower and stutter his way through a date with a beautiful stranger?
As children, none of us get 100% of our needs met. This is true of you. It’s true of me. It’s true of everyone. The degree of which our needs aren’t met varies widely, and the nature of how our needs are unfulfilled differs as well. But it’s the sad truth about growing up: we’ve all got baggage. And some of us have a lot of it. Whether it is a parent who didn’t hold us enough, who didn’t feed us regularly enough, a father who wasn’t around often, a mother who left us and moved away, being forced to move from school to school as a child and never having friends — all of these experiences leave their mark as a series of micro-traumas that shape and define us.
The nature and depth of these traumas imprint themselves onto our unconscious and become the map of how we experience love, intimacy and sex throughout our lives.
If mom was over-protective and dad was never around, that will form part of our map for love and intimacy. If we were manipulated or tormented by our siblings and peers, that will imprint itself as part of our self-image. If mom was an alcoholic and dad was screwing around with other women, it will stay with us. If our first girlfriend died in a car accident or dad beat us because he caught us masturbating — well, you get the point. These imprints will not only affect, but define, all of our future romantic and sexual relationships as an adult.
You and I and everyone else have met hundreds, if not thousands, of members of the opposite sex. Out of those thousands, multiple hundreds easily met our physical criteria for a mate. Yet out of those hundreds, we only fall in love with a very few. Only a handful we meet in our entire lives ever grab us on that gut-level, where we lose all rationality and control and lay awake at night thinking about them.
It’s often not the one we expected to fall for either. Susie was perfect on paper. Jane had the great sense of humor and was amazing in bed. But Melissa is the one we can’t stop thinking about, the one we involuntarily keep going back to over and over and over again.
Psychologists believe that romantic love occurs when our unconscious becomes exposed to someone who matches the archetype of parental love we experienced growing up, someone whose behavior matches our emotional map for intimacy. Our unconscious is always seeking to return to the unconditional nurturing we received as children, and to re-process and heal the traumas we suffered.
In short, our unconscious is wired to seek out members of the opposite sex who it believes will fulfill our unfulfilled emotional needs, to fill in the gaps of the love and nurturing we missed out on as kids. This is why the people we fall in love with almost always resemble our parents on an emotional level.
Hence why people who are madly in love say to each other, “you complete me,” or refer to each other as their “better half.” It’s also why couples in the throes of new love often act like children around one another. Their unconscious mind can’t differentiate between the love they’re receiving from their girlfriend/boyfriend and the love they once received as a child from their parents.
This is also why dating and relationships are so painful and difficult for so many of us, particularly if we had strained familial relationships growing up. Unlike playing the piano or learning a language, our dating and sex lives are inextricably bound to our emotional needs, and when we get into potentially intimate or sexual situations, these experiences rub up against our prior traumas causing us anxiety, neuroticism, stress and pain.
So that woman rejecting you when you approach her isn’t just rejecting you, but to your unconscious you’re reliving every time your mother rejected you or turned down your need for affection.
That irrational fear you feel when it comes time to take your clothes off in front of a new someone isn’t just the nervousness of the moment, but every time you were punished for sexual thoughts or feelings growing up.
Don’t believe me? Think about this. Someone no-shows for a regular business meeting with you. How do you feel? Annoyed likely. Maybe a tad disrespected. But chances are you get over it quickly, and by the time you get home and are watching TV you don’t even remember it even happened.
Now, imagine someone you are extremely attracted to no-shows for a date. How do you feel? If you’re like most people who struggle in this area of their life: like shit. Like you just got used and lead on and shat on.
Why? Because being flaked on rubs up against your unconscious fear of abandonment, fear that nobody loves you and that you’re going to be alone forever. Ouch.
Maybe you freak out and call them and leave her angry voicemails. Maybe you continue to call them weeks or months later, getting blown off over and over again, feeling worse and worse each time. Or maybe you just get depressed and mope about it on an online forum, asking for advice to prevent it happening in the future.
Every irrational fear, emotional outburst or insecurity you have in your dating life is an imprint on your emotional map from your relationships growing up.
It’s why you’re terrified to go for the first kiss even though she’s sent you 100 signals saying she likes you. It’s why you freeze up when it comes time to introduce yourself to a man you don’t know or tell someone you just met how you feel about them. It’s why you clam up every time you go to bed with someone new or you freeze up and get uncomfortable when it’s time to open and share yourself with somebody.
The list goes on and on.
All of these issues have deep-seated roots in your unconscious, your unfulfilled emotional needs and traumas.
A common way we bypass dealing with the emotional stress involved in dating is by disassociating our emotions from intimacy and sex. If we shut off our need for intimacy and connection, then our sexual actions no longer rub up against our emotional maps and we can greatly diminish the neediness and anxiety we once felt while still reaping the superficial benefits. It takes time and practice, but once disassociated from our emotions, we can enjoy the sex and validation of dating without concerns for intimacy, connection, and in some cases, ethics.
Objectification of sex and members of the opposite sex. Objectifying someone is when you see them only for a specific purpose and don’t see them as fully integrated human beings. You can objectify people as sex objects, professional work objects, social objects, or none of the above. Men tend to objectify women sexually. Some women objectify men as avenues for gaining power or influence. But objectification is ultimately disastrous for one’s own emotional health, not to mention one’s relationships.
Sexism. Viewing the other sex as inferior or inherently evil/inept is a sure way to redirect one’s emotional problems outward onto a population at large rather than dealing with them yourself. Without fail, men who treat and view women as some inferior “other,” are more often than not projecting their own anger and insecurities onto the women they meet rather than dealing with them. The same goes for women.
Manipulation, lines and tactics. By adopting lines, manipulation or tactics to meet and seduce women, a man is withholding his true identity from the woman and therefore is withholding his emotional map as well. If a woman is falling for the perception of who he is rather than who he really is, then there’s far less risk for conjuring up the buried emotional stress and pain of his prior relationships.
Overuse of humor, teasing, bantering. A classic strategy of distraction. Not that jokes or teasing are always bad, but an interaction of nothing but jokes and teasing is a means to communicate without saying anything important, to enjoy yourselves without actually do anything, and to feel like you know each other without actually knowing a thing. This is most typical of English-speaking cultures, as they tend to use sarcasm and teasing as a means to imply affection rather than actually showing it.
Stripclubs, prostitution, pornography. A way to experience one’s sexuality vicariously through an empty, idealized vessel, whether it’s on a screen, a pole, or running you $100 an hour.
Generally, the more resentment one is harboring towards the opposite sex, the more one objectifies them. Men who had turbulent relationships with their mothers, men who were left by their wives or girlfriends, or men who were tormented by women growing up, these men will likely find it much easier and more enticing to objectify and measure their sex lives than to confront their demons and overcome their emotional scars with the women they become involved with (See:Madonna/Whore Complex).
Women also disassociate their emotions and objectify men as well. But there’s a lot more social pressure on men to ignore their emotions, particularly “weak” emotions such as a need for intimacy and love. It’s more socially acceptable for men to objectify their sex lives and boast about it. Whether you think that’s right or wrong or doesn’t matter, it is how it is.
Disassociating from your emotional needs is the easy way out. It requires only external effort and some superficial beliefs. Working through your issues and resolving them requires far more blood, sweat and tears. Most people aren’t willing to dig deep and put in the effort, but it yields far greater and permanent results.
1) The biggest misconception when it comes to working through an excess of emotional baggage is that these feelings ever completely go away. Research and brain imaging indicates that fears, anxieties, traumas, etc. are imprinted on our brains in similar ways that our physical habits are. Just like you’ve developed a habit of brushing your teeth every time you wake up, you have emotional habits of getting sad or angry any time you feel abandoned or unwanted.
The way to change is not by removing these feelings or anxieties altogether, but rather consciously replacing them with higher order behaviors and feelings.
This can only be accomplished through taking action. There is no other way. You cannot rewire your responses in healthy ways and confront your insecurities if you aren’t out there actively pushing up against them. Trying to do so is like trying to learn how to shoot free throws left-handed without ever actually touching a basketball. It just doesn’t work.
If you have a habit of flipping out and leaving angry voicemails every time someone doesn’t call you back, you don’t get rid of the anger, but rather channel that anger into a better and healthier activity, like say, going to the gym, or painting a picture, or punching a punching bag.
2) Anxieties can be overcome through utilizing implementation intentions and progressive desensitization. For instance, if you have a problem getting sexual or making the first move with women, start with baby steps. Tell the next woman you go on a date with that she’s sexy. Once that feels comfortable then challenge yourself to have a conversation about sex. After that challenge yourself to hold hands with a woman. Then challenge yourself to kiss a woman.
I’ve set up online programs that utilize progressive desensitization to help men overcome their anxieties around women.
Obviously this takes time and requires consistently facing situations which make you uncomfortable, but that’s the idea. You must overlay old emotional habits of fear and anxiety with new healthier ones of excitement, boldness and assertiveness. Mentally train yourself so that any time you feel anxiety, you force yourself to do it anyway.
3) The final step — once you’ve learned to channel your negative emotions in constructive ways, once you’ve eaten away at your anxieties and are able to often act despite them — is to come clean with people you date about your needs and start screening based on them.
For instance, I’ve always had a fear of commitment and needed a woman who was comfortable giving me space and some freedom. Not only do I openly share this with women I get involved with now, but I actively screen for women with these traits.
Ultimately, your emotional needs will only be fully met in a loving and conscious relationship with someone who you can trust and work together with – and not just your emotional issues, but hers as well. We unconsciously seek out romantic partners in order to fulfill our unfulfilled childhood needs, and to do so cannot be completely done alone.
This is the reason that honesty and vulnerability are so powerful for creating high-quality interactions – the practice of being upfront about your desires and flaws will naturally screen for those women who best suit you and connect with you.
This kind of authenticity changes the whole dynamic with women. Instead of chasing and pursuing, convincing and persuading, you focus on consistently improving yourself and presenting that self to the women of the world. The right ones will pay attention and stay. And whether you spend a night or a year with them, this enhanced level of intimacy and mutual vulnerability will help heal your emotional wounds, help you become more confident and secure in your relationships and ultimately, overcome much of the pain and stress of that accompanies sex and intimacy.
An Invitation for Change
I invite you to post in the comments below what your emotional hang ups are in this area of your life, where they probably come from, and how you could overcome them in an open and honest way.
As an example, I was bullied all my life. As a result, I became highly sensitive to confrontation and any negative emotions of others. I became the consummate Nice Guy and for years struggled to assert myself in my relationships and around women. In fact, I objectified my sex life quite a bit and adopted some narcissistic behaviors in order to push me through some of these insecurities.
My fear of commitment is undoubtedly rooted in my parents’ divorce and my knee jerk reaction for years was to run away any time a woman attempted to get close to me. I slowly eroded that fear by opening myself up to intimate opportunities little by little over a long period of time. I was incapable of becoming intimate with a woman unless I had an escape route (i.e., she had a boyfriend, or I was going to move to another city soon, etc.).
Spending all of my adolescence living alone with my mother has made me particularly sensitive to female affection, and like a smoker rationalizing reasons to smoke one last cigarette, I have often rationalized myself into intimate and sexual situations with women who I perhaps should not have been with or didn’t actually like as much as I thought I did.
This is my emotional map — at least part of it. These are the hang ups and issues that I’ve battled and slowly beaten back with years of active effort. These are the realities that I express openly and seek out the proper women who can handle them.
DATING: IF YOU ARE NOT MARRIED BY 40s YOU HAVE ISSUES.
If you are in your 30s and want to be married but aren't, something has gone wrong. Somewhere along the line you made a mistake. Not you parents, not "society," not your ex-boyfriends: you. Maybe you've let yourself become too assertive, maybe you aren't in shape, maybe you wasted time, or maybe you believed the popular misconceptionthat your career matters most. Whatever the case, you need to recognize that it is time for change. Acknowledging this is the first step towards fixing the problem - whatever it is.
Your failure to be married by 30 is very likely due to the fact that you focused your efforts on other things in your twenties: a career, travel, partying, etc. Change that. Quit your job, move to the city, get rid of your partying friends, or do whatever else you can to make dating a priority. As the expression goes, "desperate times call for desperate measures." Although "desperate" is probably an overly severe descriptor for your situation, you understand the point: you need to take more dramatic steps towards meeting the right man.
Leverage your life experience or dating experience to recognize immediately the men who just want sex, or are uncertain of their future with you. They are wasting your limited time. Treat them like the leeches they are: cut them off, and make time in your life for the men who are interested in you as a person.
Women I meet too often launch into proving their worth by unknowingly waving all of the red-flags. The message here needs to get out to these women. I'm NOT impressed by your world travel, your MA in communication, your "bad luck" with exes, your "sexual liberation/empowerment". Just meet me half-way with some kind of future-orientation, self-respect, moral compass, empathy/understanding of the male position, and alignment of words and actions. Certain contexts things like travel and seeking fun and exoticism are precisely the things that often indicate a lack of restraint, future-orientation, fiscal responsibilities, priorities, and delaying gratification for greater goals/rewards in the future. Qualities that indicate strength of character, which is important in a wife and mother.
Your failure to be married by 30 is very likely due to the fact that you focused your efforts on other things in your twenties: a career, travel, partying, etc. Change that. Quit your job, move to the city, get rid of your partying friends, or do whatever else you can to make dating a priority. As the expression goes, "desperate times call for desperate measures." Although "desperate" is probably an overly severe descriptor for your situation, you understand the point: you need to take more dramatic steps towards meeting the right man.
Leverage your life experience or dating experience to recognize immediately the men who just want sex, or are uncertain of their future with you. They are wasting your limited time. Treat them like the leeches they are: cut them off, and make time in your life for the men who are interested in you as a person.
Women I meet too often launch into proving their worth by unknowingly waving all of the red-flags. The message here needs to get out to these women. I'm NOT impressed by your world travel, your MA in communication, your "bad luck" with exes, your "sexual liberation/empowerment". Just meet me half-way with some kind of future-orientation, self-respect, moral compass, empathy/understanding of the male position, and alignment of words and actions. Certain contexts things like travel and seeking fun and exoticism are precisely the things that often indicate a lack of restraint, future-orientation, fiscal responsibilities, priorities, and delaying gratification for greater goals/rewards in the future. Qualities that indicate strength of character, which is important in a wife and mother.
DATING: WOMAN WITH EMOTIONAL ISSUES
Over my years of dating, my over how may first dates, my ten ex girlfriends and my countless Internet conversations, I have learned some things about dating. Looking back, the variety in the women that I have met amazes me.
Some of the things that have occurred to me make me believe on a fundamental level that there should be certain foundational dating rules that everyone should follow. Now, I’m not talking about the wait 72 hours to call her after she gives you her number foolishness. I mean fundamental rules that will help both people have a happy, healthier and more successful time of it.
Awhile ago, I went on a date with a girl who we will call…. uhmmm….yeah. I have no idea what her name was. Let’s go with, Brandi. Brandi and I met on Eharmony and spoke a number of times online over the course of a few weeks. As we spoke, I became progressively more excited about our upcoming date. Beyond being surprised at how much we seemed to have in common, her pictures made her look quite cute. Of course, dating site pictures have betrayed me in the past, but I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. Fool me once, shame on them. Fool me 30 times, shame on them.
Example: “Well, since my photo I have gained 100 pounds, stopped the laser hair treatment for my beard, switched from contacts to glasses, shaved my hair super short, and pierced four parts of my face. But other than that, I look totally the same!”
She was extremely flirty with me, making me think that she really liked me. Frankly, who doesn’t like being flirted with? I became very optimistic for this first date.
At the start of the first date, I immediately realized my huge mistake. I didn’t bring a big enough car. You see, I drive a BMW X3, and there was nowhere near enough room for all of the baggage she wanted to bring on our date. Of course, I am not talking about just any old baggage, but your and my favorite, our old friend, emotional baggage.
Good things about the date: I was right. We had a ton in common. She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever been out with, and dinner was a lot of fun.
Bad Stuff: She did not disclose certain information, issues, and baggage before the first date, and I had no idea what I was getting into.
I left the date completely confused by her mixed signals and eccentric personality type. I spent the next two days thinking about it way more than I actually should have. I have a very active mind, and it doesn’t need much of an excuse to over-analyze.
Finally, I called her. We spoke about the date, and I basically pressured her into being honest with me. Women that I date often have a difficulty with honesty. That is when I found out the previous information and that she was not interested. Instead of being upset, I was actually relieved. I realized that, while she was extremely attractive to me, she was not at all right for me and needed to get her shizzle in gear before she could date anyone.
This is when I created My First Rule of Dating.
Rule 1: The Baggage Limit – A person is only allowed one carry on and one checked bag on a first date. If they bring any more baggage than that, then there is no room for their date’s baggage. This will always create bad times for both parties.
This rule does need a bit more explanation though. Why do I specify first date? Well, depending on the type of relationship, more room for baggage might become available as the date continues.So you are probably asking yourself now, “What do I do with the baggage that I can’t bring with me on the date?” I am so glad that you asked. Here are your standard types of baggage.
Carry on and Checked Bag – These are the two items of baggage that you can bring with you on your first date. These should be issues that you cannot hide and if someone wishes to continue to date you they need to get past right away. It is possible that these bags won’t be open on the first date, but they are there waiting to come up in the initial dating process. Examples of things that should be disclosed on the first date are presence of children, current legally binding relationships such as marriage, smoking or obsessive drug habits, or if you have the opposite genitalia of the gender you specified you are.
Left at Home Bag – You can leave a certain amount of baggage at home and bring it on subsequent dates. That way, some of your baggage can be worked out during the dating process as you get to know each other. Examples of this kind of baggage include: family issues, medical problems that might come up, crazy diet you might be on, obsession with cats, or perhaps a collection of decorative plates.
Shipped Bag – You can also ship some of your baggage to a certain time in the relationship. There are certain things that you will need to work out, but you know that you won’t have to work them out until a certain point in the relationship. Maybe you ship it care of: first time we have sex. Or maybe care of: first time they meet my parents. Examples include: daddy issues, bankruptcy issues, parents are crazy racists, Dad is an avid gun collector, or maybe a paralyzing fear of monkeys.
Storage – It is possible to lock away some of your baggage until extremely later in life. Possibly when you get married, or even later on than that. This baggage doesn’t need to be unpacked right away and can wait until the opportune time. Often, stored bags are ones that you yourself are not completely aware of. Examples include: Issues with having children, predisposition to health problems, unfortunate loss of a family member, or perhaps you are secretly a Cylon and aren’t aware of yourself.
Bury it in the Backyard – Some baggage that we carry with us through life will never be truly dealt with and may never come up. It’s just part of who we are and how we tick. This baggage is buried in the backyard. Maybe someday you will want to dig it up, but for the most part, you just have to not really worry about it. Examples include: self esteem issues, self image paranoia, or extreme fear of hippopotamuses.
Note: If at any time you have more baggage than can fit in your home, then you should cut down on baggage before attempting to date anyone. Unfortunately, people usually do not understand how much baggage they truly have.
Okay, so back to my example. On our date, she brought a lot of baggage with her and all of it was “Type 1″ baggage. There was no way that we could get to know each other or make any type of real connection because she was too busy dealing with her own shizzle.
Some of the things that have occurred to me make me believe on a fundamental level that there should be certain foundational dating rules that everyone should follow. Now, I’m not talking about the wait 72 hours to call her after she gives you her number foolishness. I mean fundamental rules that will help both people have a happy, healthier and more successful time of it.
Awhile ago, I went on a date with a girl who we will call…. uhmmm….yeah. I have no idea what her name was. Let’s go with, Brandi. Brandi and I met on Eharmony and spoke a number of times online over the course of a few weeks. As we spoke, I became progressively more excited about our upcoming date. Beyond being surprised at how much we seemed to have in common, her pictures made her look quite cute. Of course, dating site pictures have betrayed me in the past, but I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. Fool me once, shame on them. Fool me 30 times, shame on them.
Example: “Well, since my photo I have gained 100 pounds, stopped the laser hair treatment for my beard, switched from contacts to glasses, shaved my hair super short, and pierced four parts of my face. But other than that, I look totally the same!”
She was extremely flirty with me, making me think that she really liked me. Frankly, who doesn’t like being flirted with? I became very optimistic for this first date.
At the start of the first date, I immediately realized my huge mistake. I didn’t bring a big enough car. You see, I drive a BMW X3, and there was nowhere near enough room for all of the baggage she wanted to bring on our date. Of course, I am not talking about just any old baggage, but your and my favorite, our old friend, emotional baggage.
Good things about the date: I was right. We had a ton in common. She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever been out with, and dinner was a lot of fun.
Bad Stuff: She did not disclose certain information, issues, and baggage before the first date, and I had no idea what I was getting into.
I left the date completely confused by her mixed signals and eccentric personality type. I spent the next two days thinking about it way more than I actually should have. I have a very active mind, and it doesn’t need much of an excuse to over-analyze.
Finally, I called her. We spoke about the date, and I basically pressured her into being honest with me. Women that I date often have a difficulty with honesty. That is when I found out the previous information and that she was not interested. Instead of being upset, I was actually relieved. I realized that, while she was extremely attractive to me, she was not at all right for me and needed to get her shizzle in gear before she could date anyone.
This is when I created My First Rule of Dating.
Rule 1: The Baggage Limit – A person is only allowed one carry on and one checked bag on a first date. If they bring any more baggage than that, then there is no room for their date’s baggage. This will always create bad times for both parties.
This rule does need a bit more explanation though. Why do I specify first date? Well, depending on the type of relationship, more room for baggage might become available as the date continues.So you are probably asking yourself now, “What do I do with the baggage that I can’t bring with me on the date?” I am so glad that you asked. Here are your standard types of baggage.
Carry on and Checked Bag – These are the two items of baggage that you can bring with you on your first date. These should be issues that you cannot hide and if someone wishes to continue to date you they need to get past right away. It is possible that these bags won’t be open on the first date, but they are there waiting to come up in the initial dating process. Examples of things that should be disclosed on the first date are presence of children, current legally binding relationships such as marriage, smoking or obsessive drug habits, or if you have the opposite genitalia of the gender you specified you are.
Left at Home Bag – You can leave a certain amount of baggage at home and bring it on subsequent dates. That way, some of your baggage can be worked out during the dating process as you get to know each other. Examples of this kind of baggage include: family issues, medical problems that might come up, crazy diet you might be on, obsession with cats, or perhaps a collection of decorative plates.
Shipped Bag – You can also ship some of your baggage to a certain time in the relationship. There are certain things that you will need to work out, but you know that you won’t have to work them out until a certain point in the relationship. Maybe you ship it care of: first time we have sex. Or maybe care of: first time they meet my parents. Examples include: daddy issues, bankruptcy issues, parents are crazy racists, Dad is an avid gun collector, or maybe a paralyzing fear of monkeys.
Storage – It is possible to lock away some of your baggage until extremely later in life. Possibly when you get married, or even later on than that. This baggage doesn’t need to be unpacked right away and can wait until the opportune time. Often, stored bags are ones that you yourself are not completely aware of. Examples include: Issues with having children, predisposition to health problems, unfortunate loss of a family member, or perhaps you are secretly a Cylon and aren’t aware of yourself.
Bury it in the Backyard – Some baggage that we carry with us through life will never be truly dealt with and may never come up. It’s just part of who we are and how we tick. This baggage is buried in the backyard. Maybe someday you will want to dig it up, but for the most part, you just have to not really worry about it. Examples include: self esteem issues, self image paranoia, or extreme fear of hippopotamuses.
Note: If at any time you have more baggage than can fit in your home, then you should cut down on baggage before attempting to date anyone. Unfortunately, people usually do not understand how much baggage they truly have.
Okay, so back to my example. On our date, she brought a lot of baggage with her and all of it was “Type 1″ baggage. There was no way that we could get to know each other or make any type of real connection because she was too busy dealing with her own shizzle.
POETRY: SHE IS YOU
I'd calm the waters where 'ere you sailed.
If I were a ship and you the captain,
I'd set our course sure and true.
and if I were the captain and you my mate,
I'd love you forever at each port, harbour or gate.
2
She moves gracefully as the morning's mist.
Her beauty dazzles even the blind.
Her fair touch turns mere man immortal.
She looks, and her eyes penetrate to the soul.
No fairer heart shall walk this earth,
Nor brighter beauty be shown throughout the heavens
Mortal words do her no justice,
She melts hearts of stone.
She is life,
She is love,
She is... you.
3
Every night my spirit soars high
Into the shimmering, celestial night sky
Gliding past other spirits looking for love
Who anxiously gaze down from above
Searching frantically for the guiding light
That seeks them in the lonely night
I drift over the hills and valleys
Through the dark streets and alleys
Past the destitute and forlorn
Who silently await the grace of dawn
Hoping that it brings them happiness
And rescues them from this loneliness
From the distant astral plains
That are illuminated by comets' manes
I hear you calling out my name
As I instinctively do the same
I see your love's glowing aura
Looking prettier than any flora
As our two souls gently collide
I feel your warmth deep inside
Penetrating every atom of existence
Whilst my spirit offers no resistance
Until our two loving souls unite
Glowing like the moon, Oh, so bright
While we dance amongst the stars
Under the shadows of Venus and Mars
All our worries seem so far away
As we enjoy our nocturnal play
Hoping the sun will never rise
To end our romance in the skies
Just like Orpheus and Eurydice
Journeying across the savage sea
With love being their only guide
As they drift perilously with the tide
Hoping they will safely return
To once again let their passions burn
Our love will always keep us together
And it will certainly last forever
The oppressive tyranny of time and distance
Shall never make a difference
Provided we stay in each other's heart
No force will ever keep us apart
If I were a ship and you the captain,
I'd set our course sure and true.
and if I were the captain and you my mate,
I'd love you forever at each port, harbour or gate.
2
She moves gracefully as the morning's mist.
Her beauty dazzles even the blind.
Her fair touch turns mere man immortal.
She looks, and her eyes penetrate to the soul.
No fairer heart shall walk this earth,
Nor brighter beauty be shown throughout the heavens
Mortal words do her no justice,
She melts hearts of stone.
She is life,
She is love,
She is... you.
3
Every night my spirit soars high
Into the shimmering, celestial night sky
Gliding past other spirits looking for love
Who anxiously gaze down from above
Searching frantically for the guiding light
That seeks them in the lonely night
I drift over the hills and valleys
Through the dark streets and alleys
Past the destitute and forlorn
Who silently await the grace of dawn
Hoping that it brings them happiness
And rescues them from this loneliness
From the distant astral plains
That are illuminated by comets' manes
I hear you calling out my name
As I instinctively do the same
I see your love's glowing aura
Looking prettier than any flora
As our two souls gently collide
I feel your warmth deep inside
Penetrating every atom of existence
Whilst my spirit offers no resistance
Until our two loving souls unite
Glowing like the moon, Oh, so bright
While we dance amongst the stars
Under the shadows of Venus and Mars
All our worries seem so far away
As we enjoy our nocturnal play
Hoping the sun will never rise
To end our romance in the skies
Just like Orpheus and Eurydice
Journeying across the savage sea
With love being their only guide
As they drift perilously with the tide
Hoping they will safely return
To once again let their passions burn
Our love will always keep us together
And it will certainly last forever
The oppressive tyranny of time and distance
Shall never make a difference
Provided we stay in each other's heart
No force will ever keep us apart
Sunday, June 1, 2014
LOVE/JOURNAL: I REMEMBER HOW BEING IN A GOOD RELATIONSHIP WAS LIKE
I remembered how being a good relationship was like.
- When you and your partner are in a quality relationship that is bound to last, the ridiculous pet names that you call each other won’t seem the least bit embarrassing. Calling each other “bae” or “boo” can sound horrifying until it’s actually happening with the the right person. At that point, those names can take over and calling each other by your standard nicknames or *gasp your full names will seem awkward.
-What really shows a strong relationship is when the two of you start doing things that you haven’t explored too deeply before. I’m not really talking about dates, which are definitely an important part of relationships, but about ongoing activities. If you can handle it, reading the same book at the same time can actually be a lot of fun. Books may not be for you, so watching a seriously terrible Netflix comedy together may be your style (we like Trailer Park Boys a lot).
-The first time with someone new can be the best sex you’ve ever had in your life. The way their skin feels against yours, that little thing they do…you were surprised at first but it really brought you some place you’ve never been. This is fairly common – most people get a thrill from doing new things. Your first time with someone should only be a starting point Getting kinky is great option, provided that you’re being safe and consensual as you should always be. I
-Instead of being sad when that special person is away, you are looking forward to what it will be like when they return. Time apart gives each of you time to think about what you appreciate in the other person and time to let dissipate anything that gets under your skin. When you’re falling asleep in bed alone and you’re longing for their scent, you know what’s truly important.This isn’t to say that you don’t miss them terribly, but it’s more of an appreciative sort of ache.
-Couples that don’t have any contrasting characteristics are scary and cult-like. There’s no way you both have the same favorite movie, song, and favorite color.
-Let be honest here – love is something that takes time. Love-at-first-sight is an infatuation; an appreciation for another person. Love is about trust and a mutual understanding of values.The sign to look for is that when “I love you” is said, there is some obvious feeling behind it even if it is only a text message. Saying those words out of habit and not out of feeling is a bad thing to start doing
-Your happiness is just as valid as theirs, and you recognize that. Sure, you’d really like to go to that football game you’ve been waiting for three months to go to but their mother’s 60th birthday is today and you’re going to leave at halftime because it’s the right thing to do. The best part is, you’re not even upset about it. This applies in the bedroom too. Yeah, you’ve never considered putting that in there but it’s not going to cause damage, you’re not morally opposed to it, and it doesn’t frighten you so why not? Pleasing your partner makes you just as happy as it makes them.
- When you and your partner are in a quality relationship that is bound to last, the ridiculous pet names that you call each other won’t seem the least bit embarrassing. Calling each other “bae” or “boo” can sound horrifying until it’s actually happening with the the right person. At that point, those names can take over and calling each other by your standard nicknames or *gasp your full names will seem awkward.
-What really shows a strong relationship is when the two of you start doing things that you haven’t explored too deeply before. I’m not really talking about dates, which are definitely an important part of relationships, but about ongoing activities. If you can handle it, reading the same book at the same time can actually be a lot of fun. Books may not be for you, so watching a seriously terrible Netflix comedy together may be your style (we like Trailer Park Boys a lot).
-The first time with someone new can be the best sex you’ve ever had in your life. The way their skin feels against yours, that little thing they do…you were surprised at first but it really brought you some place you’ve never been. This is fairly common – most people get a thrill from doing new things. Your first time with someone should only be a starting point Getting kinky is great option, provided that you’re being safe and consensual as you should always be. I
-Instead of being sad when that special person is away, you are looking forward to what it will be like when they return. Time apart gives each of you time to think about what you appreciate in the other person and time to let dissipate anything that gets under your skin. When you’re falling asleep in bed alone and you’re longing for their scent, you know what’s truly important.This isn’t to say that you don’t miss them terribly, but it’s more of an appreciative sort of ache.
-Couples that don’t have any contrasting characteristics are scary and cult-like. There’s no way you both have the same favorite movie, song, and favorite color.
-Let be honest here – love is something that takes time. Love-at-first-sight is an infatuation; an appreciation for another person. Love is about trust and a mutual understanding of values.The sign to look for is that when “I love you” is said, there is some obvious feeling behind it even if it is only a text message. Saying those words out of habit and not out of feeling is a bad thing to start doing
-Your happiness is just as valid as theirs, and you recognize that. Sure, you’d really like to go to that football game you’ve been waiting for three months to go to but their mother’s 60th birthday is today and you’re going to leave at halftime because it’s the right thing to do. The best part is, you’re not even upset about it. This applies in the bedroom too. Yeah, you’ve never considered putting that in there but it’s not going to cause damage, you’re not morally opposed to it, and it doesn’t frighten you so why not? Pleasing your partner makes you just as happy as it makes them.
SPIRITUAL: YOUR BASIC NEEDS ARE NOT BEING MET
Have you ever had moments in which you asked yourself “Why am I unhappy?”
Me too.
But I can tell you why you are unhappy.
And I don’t don’t even know you. I’ve never seen you. I’ve never spoken to you.
So then how? No, I’m not psychic or anything like that. And neither am I trying to fob you over with some ridiculous claim that I know everything about everything,
The truth is there are probably several apparent reasons why you feel unhappy. Things which are specific and individual to you. The conditions of your life, your relationships, your finances, or whatever. I don’t know anything about any of that.
The thing is these conditions are what you see and experience on the surface. Below the surface there are psychological forces at work in your life, unconsciously pulling you this way and that. And these forces are universal for all humans. When you learn about, and understand these psychological tendencies you can develop practical strategies to change the conditions in your life that are perpetuating your unhappiness.
Unhappiness arises as the result of not being aligned with your authentic self.
As the intelligent, responsible, and thoughtful person I’m sure you are, you have some sense of values. You know what’s important to you. You have standards. You know what kind of person you aspire to be, even if that’s just in a vague sense. These ideals, or qualities represent your values.
The problem is that what we ideally want to say, do, or be is frequently not what we end up saying, doing, or being.
And it is there that unhappiness starts to creep in. Deep-rooted, and subtle, this sense of dissatisfaction niggles away at us on an unconscious or semiconscious level. That nagging feeling of discontentment harasses us, and shows up in the negative conditions of our life that we mostly create for ourselves.
You will often know intuitively when you are living your life out of sync with your authentic self. You may try to ignore it but that sense of being out of alignment with who and what you aspire to be bubbles away just beneath the surface.
So why do we often end up doing things that go against our higher ideals?
Because, as humans, we have needs.
And needs are, by definition, near impossible to resist.
They are stronger than values or ideals. Whilst it requires a conscious decision to act in accordance with your values, your needs will unconsciously and involuntary drive you towards certain ways of behaving.
According to Human Needs Psychology there are six basic needs which are universal, and always manifest in varying proportions.
Your Six Human Needs
1. Certainty. The need for security, stability, and reliability.
2. Variety. The need for change, stimulation, and challenge.
3. Significance. The need to feel acknowledged, recognized, and valued.
4. Love and Connection. The need to love and to feel loved, and to feel connection with others.
5. Growth. The need to grow, improve and develop, both in character and in spirit.
6. Contribution. The need to give, to help others, and to make a difference.
These basic needs will often be hidden behind the appearance of some other motive.
For example, an unfaithful spouse may feel the need to be understood, or to be satisfied sexually. But a closer look would reveal that this person needs to feel more love and connection, or perhaps to be acknowledged (significance), or even simply wants more interest and excitement in their life (variety).
Your needs ultimately drive your behaviour, with or without the consent of your better judgement.
It is when your needs take you down paths that go against your ideals that you are setting yourself up for an unhappy life. In the case of the unfaithful spouse, trying to meet their needs in that way goes against their values (at least by the standards of most normal people!), and is destructive. That path will only lead towards more unhappiness.
While this example may be a little extreme, the same principle can be seen in just about any aspect of your life, small or big.
So if our needs are unconsciously directing us, what hope is there for taking control of our life?
Don’t worry, there is hope for you! All you have to do is “trick” your needs, by creating the conditions in your life to meet those needs in a more positive way.
Once you understand which are your most important needs, and how they are manifesting in the different areas of your life, you can take action to fulfil them in a way which is not destructive. You can think of activities and strategies to meet those needs that are in line with your higher ideals. When you are satisfying those most important needs you will no longer end up doing things against your values. That will make you feel good about yourself inside, and you will then be able to create the conditions for happiness.
This may not necessarily be easy. In the case of the unfaithful spouse it would require finding out how to get more love and connection from their partner, or to be more valued by them, or even to find ways to add more variety to their relationship.
But, as I’m sure you’ll agree, the result would be more than worth the effort… a happy and fulfilling relationship without cause for infidelity.
Accepting and giving permission to your needs is a basic part of being human.
Me too.
But I can tell you why you are unhappy.
And I don’t don’t even know you. I’ve never seen you. I’ve never spoken to you.
So then how? No, I’m not psychic or anything like that. And neither am I trying to fob you over with some ridiculous claim that I know everything about everything,
The truth is there are probably several apparent reasons why you feel unhappy. Things which are specific and individual to you. The conditions of your life, your relationships, your finances, or whatever. I don’t know anything about any of that.
The thing is these conditions are what you see and experience on the surface. Below the surface there are psychological forces at work in your life, unconsciously pulling you this way and that. And these forces are universal for all humans. When you learn about, and understand these psychological tendencies you can develop practical strategies to change the conditions in your life that are perpetuating your unhappiness.
Unhappiness arises as the result of not being aligned with your authentic self.
As the intelligent, responsible, and thoughtful person I’m sure you are, you have some sense of values. You know what’s important to you. You have standards. You know what kind of person you aspire to be, even if that’s just in a vague sense. These ideals, or qualities represent your values.
The problem is that what we ideally want to say, do, or be is frequently not what we end up saying, doing, or being.
And it is there that unhappiness starts to creep in. Deep-rooted, and subtle, this sense of dissatisfaction niggles away at us on an unconscious or semiconscious level. That nagging feeling of discontentment harasses us, and shows up in the negative conditions of our life that we mostly create for ourselves.
You will often know intuitively when you are living your life out of sync with your authentic self. You may try to ignore it but that sense of being out of alignment with who and what you aspire to be bubbles away just beneath the surface.
So why do we often end up doing things that go against our higher ideals?
Because, as humans, we have needs.
And needs are, by definition, near impossible to resist.
They are stronger than values or ideals. Whilst it requires a conscious decision to act in accordance with your values, your needs will unconsciously and involuntary drive you towards certain ways of behaving.
According to Human Needs Psychology there are six basic needs which are universal, and always manifest in varying proportions.
Your Six Human Needs
1. Certainty. The need for security, stability, and reliability.
2. Variety. The need for change, stimulation, and challenge.
3. Significance. The need to feel acknowledged, recognized, and valued.
4. Love and Connection. The need to love and to feel loved, and to feel connection with others.
5. Growth. The need to grow, improve and develop, both in character and in spirit.
6. Contribution. The need to give, to help others, and to make a difference.
These basic needs will often be hidden behind the appearance of some other motive.
For example, an unfaithful spouse may feel the need to be understood, or to be satisfied sexually. But a closer look would reveal that this person needs to feel more love and connection, or perhaps to be acknowledged (significance), or even simply wants more interest and excitement in their life (variety).
Your needs ultimately drive your behaviour, with or without the consent of your better judgement.
It is when your needs take you down paths that go against your ideals that you are setting yourself up for an unhappy life. In the case of the unfaithful spouse, trying to meet their needs in that way goes against their values (at least by the standards of most normal people!), and is destructive. That path will only lead towards more unhappiness.
While this example may be a little extreme, the same principle can be seen in just about any aspect of your life, small or big.
So if our needs are unconsciously directing us, what hope is there for taking control of our life?
Don’t worry, there is hope for you! All you have to do is “trick” your needs, by creating the conditions in your life to meet those needs in a more positive way.
Once you understand which are your most important needs, and how they are manifesting in the different areas of your life, you can take action to fulfil them in a way which is not destructive. You can think of activities and strategies to meet those needs that are in line with your higher ideals. When you are satisfying those most important needs you will no longer end up doing things against your values. That will make you feel good about yourself inside, and you will then be able to create the conditions for happiness.
This may not necessarily be easy. In the case of the unfaithful spouse it would require finding out how to get more love and connection from their partner, or to be more valued by them, or even to find ways to add more variety to their relationship.
But, as I’m sure you’ll agree, the result would be more than worth the effort… a happy and fulfilling relationship without cause for infidelity.
Accepting and giving permission to your needs is a basic part of being human.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
THOUGHTS: WHY STAR WARS WENT DOWNHILL AFTER THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.
Gary Kurtz was George Lucas' partner in making the first two Star Wars films, but they had a huge falling-out after Empire Strikes Back. Now, for the first time, he's explained what went wrong with Star Wars.
When Kurtz and Lucas split, Mark Hamill reportedly said it was like "Mom and Dad getting a divorce." The two men had crafted the Star Wars universe together, with Kurtz serving as producer and second-unit director. In an enlightening — but depressing — interview in the L.A. Times, Kurtz explains what he thinks went south after the second Star Wars movie. In particular, he felt like Lucas started putting the toys ahead of storytelling:
I could see where things were headed. The toy business began to drive the [Lucasfilm] empire. It's a shame. They make three times as much on toys as they do on films. It's natural to make decisions that protect the toy business but that's not the best thing for making quality films.... The emphasis on the toys, it's like the cart driving the horse. If it wasn't for that the films would be done for their own merits. The creative team wouldn't be looking over their shoulder all the time.
Expand
Kurtz also explains how Return Of The Jedi would have ended originally, in the outline that Lucas and he had come up with before Lucas decided to change everything to make it more of an upbeat toy-selling vehicle. Luke and Leia would have rescued Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt, but then Han would have died halfway through the film, during a raid on an Imperial base. (This is something that Harrison Ford has mentioned before as well.) The film would have ended with the rebel forces in tatters, Leia struggling with her new duties as queen, and Luke walking off into the sunset alone, like Clint Eastwood at the end of a spaghetti Western. It would have been a more nuanced, muted ending to the saga, instead of the Ewoks dancing in the forest like a "teddy-bear luau." (Apparently that genius phrase is the work of the L.A. Times' Geoff Boucher.)
The whole interview with Kurtz is well worth reading, including his demolishing the myth that Star Wars was always intended to be a multi-film saga. He explains that he and Lucas originally wanted to do a Flash Gordon movie, but couldn't get the rights free and clear. So they decided to do an original Flash Gordon-esque movie, and Lucas cooked up this mythology based on Flash Gordon, Seven Samurai, Arthurian legend and other stuff. They'd planned to do just one Star Wars movie, then go work on Apocalypse Now with Francis Ford Coppola, followed by a dark comedy in the vein of M.A.S.H. But the studio clamored for more Star Wars films, and Lucas ended up spending all his time on the series.
Star Wars' producer Gary Kurtz speaks out
The man who left the franchise after 'The Empire Strikes Back' talks about why he split with George Lucas.
August 12, 2010|By Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times
"Star Wars" was born a long time ago, but not all that far, far away. In 1972, filmmakers George Lucas and Gary Kurtz were toiling on "American Graffiti" in their San Rafael office when they began daydreaming about a throwback sci-fi adventure that channeled the old "Flash Gordon" serials as opposed to the bleak "message" movies that had taken over the genre.
"We had no idea what we were starting," says Kurtz, who was the producer of the first two "Star Wars" films and also a second-unit director. "That simple concept changed Hollywood in a way...."
There was a bittersweet tinge to Kurtz's voice and it's no surprise. This year is the 30th anniversary of "The Empire Strikes Back," the "Star Wars" sequel that many fans consider the pinnacle moment in a franchise that has pulled in $16 billion in box office and merchandising. But 1980 was also the year that Kurtz and Lucas realized the Jedi universe wasn't big enough for the both of them.
"I could see where things were headed," Kurtz said. "The toy business began to drive the [Lucasfilm] empire. It's a shame. They make three times as much on toys as they do on films. It's natural to make decisions that protect the toy business but that's not the best thing for making quality films."
He added: "The first film and 'Empire' were about story and character but I could see that George's priorities were changing."
This weekend, Kurtz steps back into the "Star Wars" world as a special guest at Star Wars Celebration V, a massive Orlando convention organized by Lucasfilm and expected to draw thousands of fans who will come to buy collectibles, attend panels, get cast-member autographs or even visit the event's themed tattoo parlor or wedding chapel.
Kurtz's presence speaks to his vital role in the franchise's history -- he is, for instance, the one who came up with the title for "The Empire Strikes Back" -- but the Lucasfilm leadership is already fretting about the Jedi expatriate's appearance. They may have good reason; during a recent visit to Los Angeles the filmmaker, who just turned 70, showed a willingness to speak out against the priorities of an old partner.
"The emphasis on the toys, it's like the cart driving the horse," Kurtz said. "If it wasn't for that the films would be done for their own merits. The creative team wouldn't be looking over their shoulder all the time."
No fan of conflict, Kurtz has remained relatively quiet through the years but over coffee on a sunny Southern California afternoon he spoke at length about his lightsaber days.
Like many fans, Kurtz was too invested in the "Star Wars" universe to skip the second trilogy: 1999's "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace," 2002's "Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones" and 2005's "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith." (Lucas retitled the three original movies as "Star Wars -- Episode IV: A New Hope," "Star Wars -- Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back" and "Star Wars -- Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.") But as he sat in the dark with the follow-up "Star Wars" films, he squirmed in his seat.
"I don't like the idea of prequels, they make the filmmakers back in to material they've already covered and it boxes in the story," Kurtz said. "I think they did a pretty good job with them although I have to admit I never liked Hayden Christensen in the role of Anakin Skywalker. I just wished the stories had been stronger and that the dialogue had been stronger. It gets meek. I'm not sure the characters ever felt real like they did in 'Empire.' "
A spokesperson for George Lucas said he was unavailable to comment for this story.
The comments by Kurtz -- who characterizes his relationship with Lucas as "professional" -- speak to a churning pop-culture debate about the enduring legacy of Lucas and the trajectory of his still-unfolding "Star Wars" mythology. The first trilogy of films ended in 1983 with "Return of the Jedi" and the second trilogy brought a whole new generation into the universe but also left many original fans feeling sour or disengaged.
A seventh feature film, an animated movie called "The Clone Wars," was released in 2008, which, along with video games and toys, speaks to a young 21st century constituency that may be only vaguely aware of the 1977 film.
The same passion pulling fans to Orlando also stokes the debate about Lucas and his creation. Alexandre Philippe is the director of "The People vs. George Lucas," a documentary that just had its West Coast premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival. He says that Kurtz has become a figure of integrity to the fans who believe that Lucas has followed the wrong path.
Philippe said the departure of Kurtz was a major moment in "Star Wars" history and deeply unsettling to all involved. "The cast and crew were crushed when George and Gary went their separate ways," said Philippe, who added that Mark Hamill, who portrayed Luke Skywalker, later explained it in broken-family terminology. "He said it was like mom and dad getting a divorce. They were both equally loved and respected on the set."
For Kurtz, the popular notion that "Star Wars" was always planned as a multi-film epic is laughable. He says that he and Lucas, both USC film school grads who met through mutual friend Francis Ford Coppola in the late 1960s, first sought to do a simple adaptation of "Flash Gordon," the comic-strip hero who had been featured in movie serials that both filmmakers found charming.
"We tried to buy the rights to 'Flash Gordon' from King Features but the deal would have been prohibitive," Kurtz said. "They wanted too much money, too much control, so starting over and creating from scratch was the answer."
Lucas came up with a sprawling treatment that pulled on "Flash Gordon," Arthurian legend, "The Seven Samurai" and other influences. The document would have required a five-hour film but there was a middle portion that could be carved out as a stand-alone movie. Kurtz championed the project in pitch meetings with studios and worked intensely on casting, scouting locations and finding a way to create a believable alien universe on a tight budget.
"Star Wars" opened with a title sequence that announced it as "Episode IV" as a winking nod to the old serials, not to announce a film franchise underway, Kurtz said.
"Our plan was to do 'Star Wars' and then make 'Apocalypse Now' and do a black comedy in the vein of 'MASH,' " Kurtz said. "Fox insisted on a sequel or maybe two [to 'Star Wars']. Francis [Ford Coppola] … eventually got tired of waiting and did it on his own, of course."
The team of Lucas and Kurtz would not hold together during their own journey through the jungles of collaborative filmmaking. Kurtz chooses his words carefully on the topic of their split. After the release of "Empire" (which was shaped by material left over from that first Lucas treatment), talk turned to a third film and after a decade and a half the partners could no longer find a middle ground.
"We had an outline and George changed everything in it, "Kurtz said. "Instead of bittersweet and poignant he wanted a euphoric ending with everybody happy. The original idea was that they would recover [the kidnapped] Han Solo in the early part of story and that he would then die in the middle part of the film in a raid on an Imperial base. George then decided he didn't want any of the principals killed. By that time there were really big toy sales and that was a reason."
The discussed ending of the film that Kurtz favored presented the rebel forces in tatters, Leia grappling with her new duties as queen and Luke walking off alone "like Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti westerns," as Kurtz put it.
Kurtz said that ending would have been a more emotionally nuanced finale to an epic adventure than the forest celebration of the Ewoks that essentially ended the trilogy with a teddy-bear luau.
He was especially disdainful of the Lucas idea of a second Death Star, which he felt would be too derivative of the 1977 film. "So we agreed that I should probably leave."
Kurtz went straight over to "The Dark Crystal," a three-year project with old friend Jim Henson, whom Kurtz had brought in on the creation of Yoda for "Empire."
After that he shifted into a lower gear as far as his career and, relocating to England, turned to British television productions. He's now working on a ramping feature-film project called "Panzer 88" that he says will begin filming as early as this fall and will feature visual effects by Weta, the same New Zealand outfit that populated Middle-earth in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.
The producer said that huge films hold little allure for him now and that he is more interested in smaller, more nimble productions that put an emphasis on "human stories." That might speak to his alienation from the Jedi universe, but when he talks about Lucas and their shared history the stories are still tinted by nostalgia, admiration and affection.
On casting the 1977 film: "We had a lot of people, hundreds, that we saw. It was quick and dirty. You talk to each person, jot down a note or two. Are they a score of 'five' or higher? Do they deserve a callback? On those lists were a lot of interesting people -- John Travolta, Sly Stallone -- who were great but just not right. I went to New York to do an interview with Jodi Foster, for instance, but she was just too young for Leia. A lot of it comes down to luck and timing."
On Harrison Ford, who became a Hollywood icon after "Star Wars" but keeps the fervent fandom at arm's length: "He's always been somewhat cynical, since the beginning of his career, about everything. In a way he tried not to take notoriety or the fans too seriously. Movies are movies and real life is his ranch" in Wyoming.
On the moment he knew that "Star Wars" was becoming a pop-culture sensation: "On opening day I was on the East Coast and I did the morning-show circuit -- 'Good Morning America' and 'Today' …in the afternoon I did a radio call-in show in Washington and this guy, this caller, was really enthusiastic and talking about the movie in really deep detail. I said, 'You know a lot abut the film.' He said, 'Yeah, yeah, I've seen it four times already.' And that was opening day. I knew something was happening."
Kurtz isn't sure what to expect in Orlando but he says that "Empire" may be the shining moment of his career, the confluence of commercial and artistic success. His work as a second-unit director and his hands-on efforts with the visual effects make him especially proud.
"I took a master class with Billy Wilder once and he said that in the first act of a story you put your character up in a tree and the second act you set the tree on fire and then in the third you get him down," Kurtz said. " 'Empire' was the tree on fire. The first movie was like a comic book, a fantasy, but 'Empire' felt darker and more compelling. It's the one, for me, where everything went right. And it was my goodbye to a big part of my life."
When Kurtz and Lucas split, Mark Hamill reportedly said it was like "Mom and Dad getting a divorce." The two men had crafted the Star Wars universe together, with Kurtz serving as producer and second-unit director. In an enlightening — but depressing — interview in the L.A. Times, Kurtz explains what he thinks went south after the second Star Wars movie. In particular, he felt like Lucas started putting the toys ahead of storytelling:
I could see where things were headed. The toy business began to drive the [Lucasfilm] empire. It's a shame. They make three times as much on toys as they do on films. It's natural to make decisions that protect the toy business but that's not the best thing for making quality films.... The emphasis on the toys, it's like the cart driving the horse. If it wasn't for that the films would be done for their own merits. The creative team wouldn't be looking over their shoulder all the time.
Expand
Kurtz also explains how Return Of The Jedi would have ended originally, in the outline that Lucas and he had come up with before Lucas decided to change everything to make it more of an upbeat toy-selling vehicle. Luke and Leia would have rescued Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt, but then Han would have died halfway through the film, during a raid on an Imperial base. (This is something that Harrison Ford has mentioned before as well.) The film would have ended with the rebel forces in tatters, Leia struggling with her new duties as queen, and Luke walking off into the sunset alone, like Clint Eastwood at the end of a spaghetti Western. It would have been a more nuanced, muted ending to the saga, instead of the Ewoks dancing in the forest like a "teddy-bear luau." (Apparently that genius phrase is the work of the L.A. Times' Geoff Boucher.)
The whole interview with Kurtz is well worth reading, including his demolishing the myth that Star Wars was always intended to be a multi-film saga. He explains that he and Lucas originally wanted to do a Flash Gordon movie, but couldn't get the rights free and clear. So they decided to do an original Flash Gordon-esque movie, and Lucas cooked up this mythology based on Flash Gordon, Seven Samurai, Arthurian legend and other stuff. They'd planned to do just one Star Wars movie, then go work on Apocalypse Now with Francis Ford Coppola, followed by a dark comedy in the vein of M.A.S.H. But the studio clamored for more Star Wars films, and Lucas ended up spending all his time on the series.
Star Wars' producer Gary Kurtz speaks out
The man who left the franchise after 'The Empire Strikes Back' talks about why he split with George Lucas.
August 12, 2010|By Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times
"Star Wars" was born a long time ago, but not all that far, far away. In 1972, filmmakers George Lucas and Gary Kurtz were toiling on "American Graffiti" in their San Rafael office when they began daydreaming about a throwback sci-fi adventure that channeled the old "Flash Gordon" serials as opposed to the bleak "message" movies that had taken over the genre.
"We had no idea what we were starting," says Kurtz, who was the producer of the first two "Star Wars" films and also a second-unit director. "That simple concept changed Hollywood in a way...."
There was a bittersweet tinge to Kurtz's voice and it's no surprise. This year is the 30th anniversary of "The Empire Strikes Back," the "Star Wars" sequel that many fans consider the pinnacle moment in a franchise that has pulled in $16 billion in box office and merchandising. But 1980 was also the year that Kurtz and Lucas realized the Jedi universe wasn't big enough for the both of them.
"I could see where things were headed," Kurtz said. "The toy business began to drive the [Lucasfilm] empire. It's a shame. They make three times as much on toys as they do on films. It's natural to make decisions that protect the toy business but that's not the best thing for making quality films."
He added: "The first film and 'Empire' were about story and character but I could see that George's priorities were changing."
This weekend, Kurtz steps back into the "Star Wars" world as a special guest at Star Wars Celebration V, a massive Orlando convention organized by Lucasfilm and expected to draw thousands of fans who will come to buy collectibles, attend panels, get cast-member autographs or even visit the event's themed tattoo parlor or wedding chapel.
Kurtz's presence speaks to his vital role in the franchise's history -- he is, for instance, the one who came up with the title for "The Empire Strikes Back" -- but the Lucasfilm leadership is already fretting about the Jedi expatriate's appearance. They may have good reason; during a recent visit to Los Angeles the filmmaker, who just turned 70, showed a willingness to speak out against the priorities of an old partner.
"The emphasis on the toys, it's like the cart driving the horse," Kurtz said. "If it wasn't for that the films would be done for their own merits. The creative team wouldn't be looking over their shoulder all the time."
No fan of conflict, Kurtz has remained relatively quiet through the years but over coffee on a sunny Southern California afternoon he spoke at length about his lightsaber days.
Like many fans, Kurtz was too invested in the "Star Wars" universe to skip the second trilogy: 1999's "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace," 2002's "Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones" and 2005's "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith." (Lucas retitled the three original movies as "Star Wars -- Episode IV: A New Hope," "Star Wars -- Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back" and "Star Wars -- Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.") But as he sat in the dark with the follow-up "Star Wars" films, he squirmed in his seat.
"I don't like the idea of prequels, they make the filmmakers back in to material they've already covered and it boxes in the story," Kurtz said. "I think they did a pretty good job with them although I have to admit I never liked Hayden Christensen in the role of Anakin Skywalker. I just wished the stories had been stronger and that the dialogue had been stronger. It gets meek. I'm not sure the characters ever felt real like they did in 'Empire.' "
A spokesperson for George Lucas said he was unavailable to comment for this story.
The comments by Kurtz -- who characterizes his relationship with Lucas as "professional" -- speak to a churning pop-culture debate about the enduring legacy of Lucas and the trajectory of his still-unfolding "Star Wars" mythology. The first trilogy of films ended in 1983 with "Return of the Jedi" and the second trilogy brought a whole new generation into the universe but also left many original fans feeling sour or disengaged.
A seventh feature film, an animated movie called "The Clone Wars," was released in 2008, which, along with video games and toys, speaks to a young 21st century constituency that may be only vaguely aware of the 1977 film.
The same passion pulling fans to Orlando also stokes the debate about Lucas and his creation. Alexandre Philippe is the director of "The People vs. George Lucas," a documentary that just had its West Coast premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival. He says that Kurtz has become a figure of integrity to the fans who believe that Lucas has followed the wrong path.
Philippe said the departure of Kurtz was a major moment in "Star Wars" history and deeply unsettling to all involved. "The cast and crew were crushed when George and Gary went their separate ways," said Philippe, who added that Mark Hamill, who portrayed Luke Skywalker, later explained it in broken-family terminology. "He said it was like mom and dad getting a divorce. They were both equally loved and respected on the set."
For Kurtz, the popular notion that "Star Wars" was always planned as a multi-film epic is laughable. He says that he and Lucas, both USC film school grads who met through mutual friend Francis Ford Coppola in the late 1960s, first sought to do a simple adaptation of "Flash Gordon," the comic-strip hero who had been featured in movie serials that both filmmakers found charming.
"We tried to buy the rights to 'Flash Gordon' from King Features but the deal would have been prohibitive," Kurtz said. "They wanted too much money, too much control, so starting over and creating from scratch was the answer."
Lucas came up with a sprawling treatment that pulled on "Flash Gordon," Arthurian legend, "The Seven Samurai" and other influences. The document would have required a five-hour film but there was a middle portion that could be carved out as a stand-alone movie. Kurtz championed the project in pitch meetings with studios and worked intensely on casting, scouting locations and finding a way to create a believable alien universe on a tight budget.
"Star Wars" opened with a title sequence that announced it as "Episode IV" as a winking nod to the old serials, not to announce a film franchise underway, Kurtz said.
"Our plan was to do 'Star Wars' and then make 'Apocalypse Now' and do a black comedy in the vein of 'MASH,' " Kurtz said. "Fox insisted on a sequel or maybe two [to 'Star Wars']. Francis [Ford Coppola] … eventually got tired of waiting and did it on his own, of course."
The team of Lucas and Kurtz would not hold together during their own journey through the jungles of collaborative filmmaking. Kurtz chooses his words carefully on the topic of their split. After the release of "Empire" (which was shaped by material left over from that first Lucas treatment), talk turned to a third film and after a decade and a half the partners could no longer find a middle ground.
"We had an outline and George changed everything in it, "Kurtz said. "Instead of bittersweet and poignant he wanted a euphoric ending with everybody happy. The original idea was that they would recover [the kidnapped] Han Solo in the early part of story and that he would then die in the middle part of the film in a raid on an Imperial base. George then decided he didn't want any of the principals killed. By that time there were really big toy sales and that was a reason."
The discussed ending of the film that Kurtz favored presented the rebel forces in tatters, Leia grappling with her new duties as queen and Luke walking off alone "like Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti westerns," as Kurtz put it.
Kurtz said that ending would have been a more emotionally nuanced finale to an epic adventure than the forest celebration of the Ewoks that essentially ended the trilogy with a teddy-bear luau.
He was especially disdainful of the Lucas idea of a second Death Star, which he felt would be too derivative of the 1977 film. "So we agreed that I should probably leave."
Kurtz went straight over to "The Dark Crystal," a three-year project with old friend Jim Henson, whom Kurtz had brought in on the creation of Yoda for "Empire."
After that he shifted into a lower gear as far as his career and, relocating to England, turned to British television productions. He's now working on a ramping feature-film project called "Panzer 88" that he says will begin filming as early as this fall and will feature visual effects by Weta, the same New Zealand outfit that populated Middle-earth in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.
The producer said that huge films hold little allure for him now and that he is more interested in smaller, more nimble productions that put an emphasis on "human stories." That might speak to his alienation from the Jedi universe, but when he talks about Lucas and their shared history the stories are still tinted by nostalgia, admiration and affection.
On casting the 1977 film: "We had a lot of people, hundreds, that we saw. It was quick and dirty. You talk to each person, jot down a note or two. Are they a score of 'five' or higher? Do they deserve a callback? On those lists were a lot of interesting people -- John Travolta, Sly Stallone -- who were great but just not right. I went to New York to do an interview with Jodi Foster, for instance, but she was just too young for Leia. A lot of it comes down to luck and timing."
On Harrison Ford, who became a Hollywood icon after "Star Wars" but keeps the fervent fandom at arm's length: "He's always been somewhat cynical, since the beginning of his career, about everything. In a way he tried not to take notoriety or the fans too seriously. Movies are movies and real life is his ranch" in Wyoming.
On the moment he knew that "Star Wars" was becoming a pop-culture sensation: "On opening day I was on the East Coast and I did the morning-show circuit -- 'Good Morning America' and 'Today' …in the afternoon I did a radio call-in show in Washington and this guy, this caller, was really enthusiastic and talking about the movie in really deep detail. I said, 'You know a lot abut the film.' He said, 'Yeah, yeah, I've seen it four times already.' And that was opening day. I knew something was happening."
Kurtz isn't sure what to expect in Orlando but he says that "Empire" may be the shining moment of his career, the confluence of commercial and artistic success. His work as a second-unit director and his hands-on efforts with the visual effects make him especially proud.
"I took a master class with Billy Wilder once and he said that in the first act of a story you put your character up in a tree and the second act you set the tree on fire and then in the third you get him down," Kurtz said. " 'Empire' was the tree on fire. The first movie was like a comic book, a fantasy, but 'Empire' felt darker and more compelling. It's the one, for me, where everything went right. And it was my goodbye to a big part of my life."
THOUGHTS/ SPIRITUAL: FREE WILL
Identity: who am I?
Every year 98% of the atoms of my body are replaced: how can I claim to be still the same person that I was last year, or, worse, ten years ago? What is (where lies) my identity? What is "my" relationship to the metabolism of my body?
Derek Parfit once proposed a thought problem: what happens to a person who is destroyed by a scanner in London and rebuilt cell by cell in New York by a replicator that has received infinitely detailed information from the scanner about the state of each single cell, including all of the person's memories? Is the person still the same person? Or did the person die in London? What makes a person such a person: bodily or psychological continuity? If a person's matter is replaced cell by cell with equivalent cells is the person still the same person? If a person's psychological state (memory, beliefs, emotions and everything) is replaced with an equivalent psychological state is the person still the same person? The question eventually asks what is "a life": is it a continuum of bodily states, whereby one grows from a child to an adult, or is it a continuum of psychological states? Or both? Or none?
The most obvious paradox is: how can reality be still the same as we grow up? Do two completely different brains see the same image when they are presented with the same object? If the brains are different, then the pattern of neural excitement created by seeing that object will be completely different in the two brains. How can two completely different brains yield the same image in the two brains? The logical conclusion is "no, the tree I see is not the tree you see, we just happen to refer to it the same way so it is not important what exactly we see when we look at it". But then how can we see the same image yesterday, today and tomorrow? Our brain changes all the time. Between my brain of when I was five years old and my brain of today there is probably nothing in common: every single cell has changed, connections have changed, the physical shape of the brain has changed. The same object causes a different pattern in my brain today than it did in my brain forty years ago. Those are two different brains, made of different cells, organized in different ways: the two patterns are physically different. Nonetheless, it appears to me that my toys still look the same. But they shouldn't: since my brain changed, and the pattern they generate has changed, what I see today should be a different image than the one I saw as a five-year old. How is it that I see the same thing even if I have a different brain?
This thought experiment almost seem to prove that "I" am not in my brain, that there is something external to the brain that does not change over time, that the brain simply performs computations of the image but the ultimate "feeling" of that image is due to a "soul" that is external to the brain and does not depend on cells or connections.
On the other hand, it is easy to see that what we see is not really what we think we see.
We have to keep in mind that when we recognize something as something, we rarely see/feel/hear/touch again exactly the same thing we already saw/felt/heard/touched before. I recognize somebody's face, but that face cannot possibly be exactly the same image I saw last time: beard may have grown, a pimple may have appeared, hair may have been trimmed, a tan may have darkened the skin, or, quite simply, that face may be at a different angle (looking up, looking down, turned half way). I recognize a song, but the truth is that the same song never "sounds" the same: louder, softer, different speakers, static, different echo in the room, different position of my era with respect to the speakers. I recognize that today the temperature is "cold", but if we measured the temperature to the tenth decimal digit it is unlikely that we would get the exact same number that I got the previous time I felt the same cold. What we "recognize" is obviously not a physical quantity: a image, a sound, a temperature never repeat themselves. What is it then that we recognize when we recognize a face, a song or a temperature? Broadly speaking, it is a concept.
We build concepts of our sensory experience, we store those concepts for future use, and we matched the stored concepts with any new concept. When we do this comparison, we try to find similarity and identity. If the two concepts are similar enough, we assume that they are identical, that they are the same thing. If they are not similar enough, but they are more similar than the average, then we can probably establish that they belong to a common super-concept (they are both faces, but not the same face; they are both songs, but not the same song; and so forth). We have a vast array of concepts which are organized in a hierarchy with many levels of generalization (your face to face of you and siblings to faces of that kind to face to ... to body part to ...). A sensory experience is somehow translated into a concept and that concept is matched with existing concepts and eventually located at some level of a hierarchy of concepts. If it is close enough to an existing concept of that hierarchy at that level, it is recognized as the same concept. Whatever the specific mechanism, it is obvious that what we recognize is not a physical quantity (distribution of colors, sound wave or temperature) but a concept, that somehow we build and compare with previously manufactured concepts.
Add to these considerations the fact that experience molds the brain: I am not only my genome, I am also the world around me. And I change all the time according to what is happening in the world. "I am" what the world is doing.
Identity is probably a concept. I have built over the years a concept of myself. My physical substance changes all the time, but, as long as it still matches my concept of myself, I still recognize it as myself.
The importance of being warm
When speculating about consciousness, identity and free will, it is important not to forget what bodies are and how they work.
Among the many bizarre features of living organisms, one is often overlooked: each living organism can live only within a very narrow range of temperature. Temperature is one of the most crucial survival factors.
Temperature also happens to be an important source of "identity": water and ice are made of the same atoms, it's the temperature that determines whether you are water or you are ice.
It's the temperature that determines whether your body is dead or alive, and it's the temperature that determines whether you are lying and shivering in bed or are playing soccer outside. Our identity does change with the temperature of our body (from no identity to "regular" identity to delirious identity).
Most of what our body does has nothing to do with writing poems or making scientific discoveries: it is about maintaining a stable temperature.
Free Will
Some scientists (and Albert Einstein with them) have argued that consciousness must be fabricated by reality, that what we feel is simply an unavoidable consequence of the state of the universe, that we are simply machines programmed by the rest of the universe.
Other scientists believe the opposite, that consciousness fabricates reality, that we have the power to alter the course of the events. They believe in free will.
Do we think or are we thought?
The question, while popular, is misleading. The question is, in a sense, already an answer: the moment we separate the "I" and the body, we have subscribed to dualism, to the view that spirit and matter are separate and spirit can control matter.
A free will grounded in matter is not easy to picture because we tend to believe in an "I" external to our body that controls our body.
But, in a materialist scenario, the "I" is supposed to be only the expression of brain processes. If that is the case, then "free will" is not about the "I" making a decision: the "I" will simply reflect that decision. What makes the decision is the brain process.
This does not mean that free will can't exist. It just needs to be redefined: can a brain process occur that is not completely caused by other physical processes?
In a materialist scenario, free will does not require consciousness: consciousness is an aspect of the brain process that "thinks". The question is whether that brain process has free will.
If consciousness is indeed due to a physical process, if consciousness is ultimately material, does this preclude free will? For centuries we have considered free will an exclusive property of the soul, mainly because 1. we deemed the soul to be made of spirit and not matter, and 2. nothing in Physics allows for free will of matter.
If we now recognize that consciousness is a property of matter(possibly one that occurs only in some special form and configuration of matter, but nonetheless ultimately matter), the second statement must be examined carefully because the possibility of free will depends on its truth: if motion of matter is controlled only by deterministic laws, then free will is an illusion; if matter has a degree of control over its own motion, then free will is a fact.
The question is not whether we have free will, but whether the laws of our universe (i.e., Physics) allow for free will.
Purpose
Why do living things do what they do?
The purposiveness of living organisms is simply a consequence of evolution by natural selection. Living organisms have a fundamental goal, survival, and have inherited a repertory of behaviors to achieve that goal. But the concept of "survival" can be better qualified as self-regulation.
The 19th-century French psychologist Claude Bernard "discovered" the self-regulating nature of living organisms. Bernard realized that each living organism is a system built to maintain a constant internal state in the face of changing external conditions. The regulation of this "milieu interieur" is life itself, because it is this stable state that gives the organism its independence from the environment, its identity. This is the dividing line that separates animate and inanimate matter: inanimate matter obeys Newton's laws of cause and effect, animate matter tends to maintain its state no matter what external forces are applied. Unlike objects, whose state is changed when a force is applied, the state of a living organism is not changed by an external force. The living organism, as long as it is alive, maintains its state constant.
The "purposeful" behavior of a living organism is the reaction to environmental forces: the organism needs to act in order to continuously restore its state. A body seems to "want", "intend", "desire" to maintain its internal state (either by eating, moving, sleeping, etc), a state that, ultimately, is a combination of chemical content and temperature. Living bodies appear to act purposedly, but they are simply reacting to the environment.
For Bernard "freedom" is independence from the environment. Control of the internal state allows a living organism to live in many different environments. The living organism is "free" in that is not a slave of its environment.
Bernard's idea of self-regulation extended to all living organisms. Humans are not the only ones to have "goals". Animate behavior "is" control of perception.
Will, not necessarily free: a materialistic view of free will
The problem with free will is that it does not fit too well with the scientific theories of the universe that have been developing over the last three centuries. While those theories are fairly accurate in predicting all the natural phenomena we deal with, they don't leave much room for free will. Particles behave the way they behave because of the fundamental laws of nature and because of what the other particles are doing; not because they can decide what to do. Since we are, ultimately, collections of particles, free will is an embarrassment of Physics.
On the other hand, a simple look at the behavior of even a fly seems to prove that free will is indeed a fact and is pervasive. Free will is a fundamental attribute of life. A robot that moved but only repeating a mechanical sequence of steps would not be considered "alive". Life has very much to do with unpredictability of behavior, not just with behavior. Or, better, behavior is behavior inasmuch as it is unpredictable to a degree; otherwise it is simply "motion".
Whether it is indeed "free" or not, "will" (the apparent ability of an ant to decide in which direction to move) appears to be an inherent feature of life, no matter how primitive life is. A theory of life that does not predict free will is not a good theory of life. Somehow, "free" will must be a product of the chemistry of life, at some very elementary level. In other words, obtaining the right chemical mix in the laboratory would not be enough: that mix must also exhibit the symptoms of free will.
The origin of free will, therefore, appears to be life itself.
Free will and randomness
Free will is often associated to randomness: a being has free will if it can perform "random" actions, as opposed to actions rigidly determined by the universal clockwork. In other words, free will can exist only if the laws of nature allow for some random solutions, solutions that can be arbitrarily chosen by our consciousness. If no randomness exists in nature, then every action (including our very conscious thoughts) is predetermined by a formula and free will cannot exist.
In their quest for the source of randomness in human free will, both neurophysiologists like John Eccles and physicists like Roger Penrose have proposed that quantum effects are responsible for creating randomness in the processes of the human brain. Whether chance and free will can be equated (free will is supposed to lead to rational and deterministic decisions, not random ones) and whether Quantum Theory is the only possible source of randomness is debatable.
Since we know that a lot of what goes on in the universe is indeed regulated by strict formulas, the hope for free will should rely not so much in randomness as in "fuzziness". It is unlikely that the laws of nature hide a completely random property; on the other hand, they could be "fuzzy", in that they may prescribe a behavior but with a broad range of possible degrees.
Free will and Physics
Whether we exercise it or not we do have free will: at every point in time we can choose what to do next.
Do animals also have free will? Or are they mechanisms, machines, that move according to formulas?
There is no evidence that at any point in time one can predict the next move of a chicken or an ant. No matter how simple and unconscious animals seem to be, their behavior is still largely unpredictable. You can guess what the chicken will want to do, but you can never be sure, and you can never guess the exact movements. There are infinite paths an ant can follow to go back to the nest and the one it will follow cannot be predicted. At every point of that path the ant can choose where to do next. Two ants will follow two different paths. Each ant seems to have its own personality.
Even the movement of mono-cellular organisms is unpredictable to some extent. No matter how small and simple the organism, a degree of free will seems to be there. Free will seems to be a property of life. What triggers the next move of bacteria, ants and chicken is not just a Newtonian formula. If they are machines, then these machines do not obey classical Physics. There is a degree of freedom that every living organism seems to enjoy. And it doesn't require a sophisticated brain. There is a degree of freedom that just shouldn't be there, if Newton was right.
If these are machines, they are machines that cannot be explained with our Mechanics because at every point in time there are many possible time evolutions and all seem to be possible, and none can be exactly predicted, pretty much like a quantum wave.
There is something missing in our Mechanics to account for free will of the machine.
Free will and choice
As usual, some misconception may arise from vague definitions. Is free will the consciousness of making one action out of so many possible ones, or is free will the ability to select one action out of so many possible ones? Why do we claim that a machine has no free will? Usually, because a machine can solve only the problems that we program it to solve. We, on the other hand, can solve novel problems in unpredictable situations (or, at least, give them a try). And that's because we can make actions that we have never done before and that nobody ever told us to do, whereas a machine can only do what it has been programmed to do.
This narrower definition of free will is interesting because it actually refers to the "architecture" and not really to the awareness or any other special property of human minds. Machines are built to solve specific problems in specific situations, simply because that is what humans are good at: building machines that solve specific problems in specific situations: we humans like to "design" a machine, to write the "specifications", etc. This is not the way nature built us. Nature built us on a different principle and it is no surprise that we behave differently. Since in nature we never know what the next problem and situation will be like, nature built us a "Darwinian" machines: our brains generate all the time a lot of possible actions and then pursue the ones that are "selected" by the environment (the specific problem and situation). Nature built us on a different principle than the one we use to build machines. The main difference between our mind and a machine is their archectures.
The lack of free will in machines is not a limit of machines: it is a limit of our mind. If we built a machine the same way nature builds its cognitive beings, i.e. with the same type of architecture, it would be a rather different machine, capable of generating a huge amount of random behaviors and then picking the one that best matches the current problem and situation. One can even envision a day when machines built with a "Darwinian" architecture (descendants of today's genetic algorithms and neural networks) will "out-free will" us, will exhibit even more free will than we do. After all, most of the times we simply obey orders (we obey publicity when we shop, we obey record labels when we sing a tune, we obey our mother's education all day long), whereas a machine would have no conditioning. And it may be able to generate a lot more alternatives than our brain does. Free will is simply a folk name for the Darwinian architecture of our mind.
The substance of our brain may not be the reason that we have free will and machines do not. It may be possible to build machines that also exhibit free will, even if they are built out of electronic components.
Do we think or are we thought?
Every year 98% of the atoms of my body are replaced: how can I claim to be still the same person that I was last year, or, worse, ten years ago? What is (where lies) my identity? What is "my" relationship to the metabolism of my body?
Derek Parfit once proposed a thought problem: what happens to a person who is destroyed by a scanner in London and rebuilt cell by cell in New York by a replicator that has received infinitely detailed information from the scanner about the state of each single cell, including all of the person's memories? Is the person still the same person? Or did the person die in London? What makes a person such a person: bodily or psychological continuity? If a person's matter is replaced cell by cell with equivalent cells is the person still the same person? If a person's psychological state (memory, beliefs, emotions and everything) is replaced with an equivalent psychological state is the person still the same person? The question eventually asks what is "a life": is it a continuum of bodily states, whereby one grows from a child to an adult, or is it a continuum of psychological states? Or both? Or none?
The most obvious paradox is: how can reality be still the same as we grow up? Do two completely different brains see the same image when they are presented with the same object? If the brains are different, then the pattern of neural excitement created by seeing that object will be completely different in the two brains. How can two completely different brains yield the same image in the two brains? The logical conclusion is "no, the tree I see is not the tree you see, we just happen to refer to it the same way so it is not important what exactly we see when we look at it". But then how can we see the same image yesterday, today and tomorrow? Our brain changes all the time. Between my brain of when I was five years old and my brain of today there is probably nothing in common: every single cell has changed, connections have changed, the physical shape of the brain has changed. The same object causes a different pattern in my brain today than it did in my brain forty years ago. Those are two different brains, made of different cells, organized in different ways: the two patterns are physically different. Nonetheless, it appears to me that my toys still look the same. But they shouldn't: since my brain changed, and the pattern they generate has changed, what I see today should be a different image than the one I saw as a five-year old. How is it that I see the same thing even if I have a different brain?
This thought experiment almost seem to prove that "I" am not in my brain, that there is something external to the brain that does not change over time, that the brain simply performs computations of the image but the ultimate "feeling" of that image is due to a "soul" that is external to the brain and does not depend on cells or connections.
On the other hand, it is easy to see that what we see is not really what we think we see.
We have to keep in mind that when we recognize something as something, we rarely see/feel/hear/touch again exactly the same thing we already saw/felt/heard/touched before. I recognize somebody's face, but that face cannot possibly be exactly the same image I saw last time: beard may have grown, a pimple may have appeared, hair may have been trimmed, a tan may have darkened the skin, or, quite simply, that face may be at a different angle (looking up, looking down, turned half way). I recognize a song, but the truth is that the same song never "sounds" the same: louder, softer, different speakers, static, different echo in the room, different position of my era with respect to the speakers. I recognize that today the temperature is "cold", but if we measured the temperature to the tenth decimal digit it is unlikely that we would get the exact same number that I got the previous time I felt the same cold. What we "recognize" is obviously not a physical quantity: a image, a sound, a temperature never repeat themselves. What is it then that we recognize when we recognize a face, a song or a temperature? Broadly speaking, it is a concept.
We build concepts of our sensory experience, we store those concepts for future use, and we matched the stored concepts with any new concept. When we do this comparison, we try to find similarity and identity. If the two concepts are similar enough, we assume that they are identical, that they are the same thing. If they are not similar enough, but they are more similar than the average, then we can probably establish that they belong to a common super-concept (they are both faces, but not the same face; they are both songs, but not the same song; and so forth). We have a vast array of concepts which are organized in a hierarchy with many levels of generalization (your face to face of you and siblings to faces of that kind to face to ... to body part to ...). A sensory experience is somehow translated into a concept and that concept is matched with existing concepts and eventually located at some level of a hierarchy of concepts. If it is close enough to an existing concept of that hierarchy at that level, it is recognized as the same concept. Whatever the specific mechanism, it is obvious that what we recognize is not a physical quantity (distribution of colors, sound wave or temperature) but a concept, that somehow we build and compare with previously manufactured concepts.
Add to these considerations the fact that experience molds the brain: I am not only my genome, I am also the world around me. And I change all the time according to what is happening in the world. "I am" what the world is doing.
Identity is probably a concept. I have built over the years a concept of myself. My physical substance changes all the time, but, as long as it still matches my concept of myself, I still recognize it as myself.
The importance of being warm
When speculating about consciousness, identity and free will, it is important not to forget what bodies are and how they work.
Among the many bizarre features of living organisms, one is often overlooked: each living organism can live only within a very narrow range of temperature. Temperature is one of the most crucial survival factors.
Temperature also happens to be an important source of "identity": water and ice are made of the same atoms, it's the temperature that determines whether you are water or you are ice.
It's the temperature that determines whether your body is dead or alive, and it's the temperature that determines whether you are lying and shivering in bed or are playing soccer outside. Our identity does change with the temperature of our body (from no identity to "regular" identity to delirious identity).
Most of what our body does has nothing to do with writing poems or making scientific discoveries: it is about maintaining a stable temperature.
Free Will
Some scientists (and Albert Einstein with them) have argued that consciousness must be fabricated by reality, that what we feel is simply an unavoidable consequence of the state of the universe, that we are simply machines programmed by the rest of the universe.
Other scientists believe the opposite, that consciousness fabricates reality, that we have the power to alter the course of the events. They believe in free will.
Do we think or are we thought?
The question, while popular, is misleading. The question is, in a sense, already an answer: the moment we separate the "I" and the body, we have subscribed to dualism, to the view that spirit and matter are separate and spirit can control matter.
A free will grounded in matter is not easy to picture because we tend to believe in an "I" external to our body that controls our body.
But, in a materialist scenario, the "I" is supposed to be only the expression of brain processes. If that is the case, then "free will" is not about the "I" making a decision: the "I" will simply reflect that decision. What makes the decision is the brain process.
This does not mean that free will can't exist. It just needs to be redefined: can a brain process occur that is not completely caused by other physical processes?
In a materialist scenario, free will does not require consciousness: consciousness is an aspect of the brain process that "thinks". The question is whether that brain process has free will.
If consciousness is indeed due to a physical process, if consciousness is ultimately material, does this preclude free will? For centuries we have considered free will an exclusive property of the soul, mainly because 1. we deemed the soul to be made of spirit and not matter, and 2. nothing in Physics allows for free will of matter.
If we now recognize that consciousness is a property of matter(possibly one that occurs only in some special form and configuration of matter, but nonetheless ultimately matter), the second statement must be examined carefully because the possibility of free will depends on its truth: if motion of matter is controlled only by deterministic laws, then free will is an illusion; if matter has a degree of control over its own motion, then free will is a fact.
The question is not whether we have free will, but whether the laws of our universe (i.e., Physics) allow for free will.
Purpose
Why do living things do what they do?
The purposiveness of living organisms is simply a consequence of evolution by natural selection. Living organisms have a fundamental goal, survival, and have inherited a repertory of behaviors to achieve that goal. But the concept of "survival" can be better qualified as self-regulation.
The 19th-century French psychologist Claude Bernard "discovered" the self-regulating nature of living organisms. Bernard realized that each living organism is a system built to maintain a constant internal state in the face of changing external conditions. The regulation of this "milieu interieur" is life itself, because it is this stable state that gives the organism its independence from the environment, its identity. This is the dividing line that separates animate and inanimate matter: inanimate matter obeys Newton's laws of cause and effect, animate matter tends to maintain its state no matter what external forces are applied. Unlike objects, whose state is changed when a force is applied, the state of a living organism is not changed by an external force. The living organism, as long as it is alive, maintains its state constant.
The "purposeful" behavior of a living organism is the reaction to environmental forces: the organism needs to act in order to continuously restore its state. A body seems to "want", "intend", "desire" to maintain its internal state (either by eating, moving, sleeping, etc), a state that, ultimately, is a combination of chemical content and temperature. Living bodies appear to act purposedly, but they are simply reacting to the environment.
For Bernard "freedom" is independence from the environment. Control of the internal state allows a living organism to live in many different environments. The living organism is "free" in that is not a slave of its environment.
Bernard's idea of self-regulation extended to all living organisms. Humans are not the only ones to have "goals". Animate behavior "is" control of perception.
Will, not necessarily free: a materialistic view of free will
The problem with free will is that it does not fit too well with the scientific theories of the universe that have been developing over the last three centuries. While those theories are fairly accurate in predicting all the natural phenomena we deal with, they don't leave much room for free will. Particles behave the way they behave because of the fundamental laws of nature and because of what the other particles are doing; not because they can decide what to do. Since we are, ultimately, collections of particles, free will is an embarrassment of Physics.
On the other hand, a simple look at the behavior of even a fly seems to prove that free will is indeed a fact and is pervasive. Free will is a fundamental attribute of life. A robot that moved but only repeating a mechanical sequence of steps would not be considered "alive". Life has very much to do with unpredictability of behavior, not just with behavior. Or, better, behavior is behavior inasmuch as it is unpredictable to a degree; otherwise it is simply "motion".
Whether it is indeed "free" or not, "will" (the apparent ability of an ant to decide in which direction to move) appears to be an inherent feature of life, no matter how primitive life is. A theory of life that does not predict free will is not a good theory of life. Somehow, "free" will must be a product of the chemistry of life, at some very elementary level. In other words, obtaining the right chemical mix in the laboratory would not be enough: that mix must also exhibit the symptoms of free will.
The origin of free will, therefore, appears to be life itself.
Free will and randomness
Free will is often associated to randomness: a being has free will if it can perform "random" actions, as opposed to actions rigidly determined by the universal clockwork. In other words, free will can exist only if the laws of nature allow for some random solutions, solutions that can be arbitrarily chosen by our consciousness. If no randomness exists in nature, then every action (including our very conscious thoughts) is predetermined by a formula and free will cannot exist.
In their quest for the source of randomness in human free will, both neurophysiologists like John Eccles and physicists like Roger Penrose have proposed that quantum effects are responsible for creating randomness in the processes of the human brain. Whether chance and free will can be equated (free will is supposed to lead to rational and deterministic decisions, not random ones) and whether Quantum Theory is the only possible source of randomness is debatable.
Since we know that a lot of what goes on in the universe is indeed regulated by strict formulas, the hope for free will should rely not so much in randomness as in "fuzziness". It is unlikely that the laws of nature hide a completely random property; on the other hand, they could be "fuzzy", in that they may prescribe a behavior but with a broad range of possible degrees.
Free will and Physics
Whether we exercise it or not we do have free will: at every point in time we can choose what to do next.
Do animals also have free will? Or are they mechanisms, machines, that move according to formulas?
There is no evidence that at any point in time one can predict the next move of a chicken or an ant. No matter how simple and unconscious animals seem to be, their behavior is still largely unpredictable. You can guess what the chicken will want to do, but you can never be sure, and you can never guess the exact movements. There are infinite paths an ant can follow to go back to the nest and the one it will follow cannot be predicted. At every point of that path the ant can choose where to do next. Two ants will follow two different paths. Each ant seems to have its own personality.
Even the movement of mono-cellular organisms is unpredictable to some extent. No matter how small and simple the organism, a degree of free will seems to be there. Free will seems to be a property of life. What triggers the next move of bacteria, ants and chicken is not just a Newtonian formula. If they are machines, then these machines do not obey classical Physics. There is a degree of freedom that every living organism seems to enjoy. And it doesn't require a sophisticated brain. There is a degree of freedom that just shouldn't be there, if Newton was right.
If these are machines, they are machines that cannot be explained with our Mechanics because at every point in time there are many possible time evolutions and all seem to be possible, and none can be exactly predicted, pretty much like a quantum wave.
There is something missing in our Mechanics to account for free will of the machine.
Free will and choice
As usual, some misconception may arise from vague definitions. Is free will the consciousness of making one action out of so many possible ones, or is free will the ability to select one action out of so many possible ones? Why do we claim that a machine has no free will? Usually, because a machine can solve only the problems that we program it to solve. We, on the other hand, can solve novel problems in unpredictable situations (or, at least, give them a try). And that's because we can make actions that we have never done before and that nobody ever told us to do, whereas a machine can only do what it has been programmed to do.
This narrower definition of free will is interesting because it actually refers to the "architecture" and not really to the awareness or any other special property of human minds. Machines are built to solve specific problems in specific situations, simply because that is what humans are good at: building machines that solve specific problems in specific situations: we humans like to "design" a machine, to write the "specifications", etc. This is not the way nature built us. Nature built us on a different principle and it is no surprise that we behave differently. Since in nature we never know what the next problem and situation will be like, nature built us a "Darwinian" machines: our brains generate all the time a lot of possible actions and then pursue the ones that are "selected" by the environment (the specific problem and situation). Nature built us on a different principle than the one we use to build machines. The main difference between our mind and a machine is their archectures.
The lack of free will in machines is not a limit of machines: it is a limit of our mind. If we built a machine the same way nature builds its cognitive beings, i.e. with the same type of architecture, it would be a rather different machine, capable of generating a huge amount of random behaviors and then picking the one that best matches the current problem and situation. One can even envision a day when machines built with a "Darwinian" architecture (descendants of today's genetic algorithms and neural networks) will "out-free will" us, will exhibit even more free will than we do. After all, most of the times we simply obey orders (we obey publicity when we shop, we obey record labels when we sing a tune, we obey our mother's education all day long), whereas a machine would have no conditioning. And it may be able to generate a lot more alternatives than our brain does. Free will is simply a folk name for the Darwinian architecture of our mind.
The substance of our brain may not be the reason that we have free will and machines do not. It may be possible to build machines that also exhibit free will, even if they are built out of electronic components.
Do we think or are we thought?
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