White Magic of Christianity: Confession

When blending their religion with psychology, they either become heretical or enlightened.  You can be the judge of which is the case here as we look at what Attachment Theory and Spiritual Formation  may illuminate about Confession. 

A basic yearning of man is to genuinely love and be loved, implying knowing another intimately and being known intimately.  Often, shame makes us divide Loving and Knowing, forcing us to choose between being "loved" superficially for the self we project, or being shunned for being deeply known - we chose between being loved or being known, for shame drives us away from believing we can be both.   Attachment Theory adds a bit by noting that most coping mechanisms/addictions are ways we medicate our lack of secure attachment to others.   We medicate the shame, which then causes more shame, leading to more isolation and less connection.  Whether food, shopping, work, porn, alcohol or exercise, we can make any of them our coping candy we turn to when dealing with difficult feelings. 

Since shame often follows something we consider sinful action, a common practice for removing the shame in our lives is to get an accountability partner to help us stop sinning.  This seems to be the Protestant version of Catholic Confession:  we share what we did wrong with another person who then often gives advice on how to not sin again, or else prescribes a punishment so that we may somehow become right with God again.  Is this what St. Paul meant in his writings about confession?  I think it misses the mark in a few areas. 

Repentance

Metanoia is the Greek from which we get Repentance in the Bible, and it more accurately means "Afterthought" than "turn a 180".  The Hebrew words which are translated to Repent contain either a feeling of sorrow or a return to something prior.  In fact, God Himself "repented" in a few Old Testament cases, yet we wouldn't go so far to say He sinned then, upon grieving, did a 180 to sin no more.  It seems Repentance is more about being able to reflect honestly about what we did and the impacts, and then, if the natural response is to feel grief, so be it.   If we simply decide "That wasn't healthy, I'm going to be more deliberate about  avoiding that in the future", then that could be repentance too - it need not be emotionally dramatic.  

Silence is the sound of Love

Listening

To help nurture such Repentance, it helps to have someone we can talk to who will Love and Accept us for who we are.  Counselors who follow an Attachment model (and other models) often make for such a person who will, for the most part, just listen.  They don't kick us out of their office for something we're ashamed of, but, because they're a paid professional, they may not genuinely love us either.  A friend who is partnered with to provide such an ear may better love us, but may also judge us if the terms of our partnership is more about being Accountability Partners.   We'll get checked-in on by them and asked how we're doing with all the candy we like to eat, and if we admit to eating candy, we may get some harsh words.....or perhaps encouraging words.   A  friend skilled in Active Listening might ask more questions about how we were feeling leading up to the candy binge, and what events caused those feelings.  Such a friend is, in my view, practicing the white magic of Christianity: Listening well, thanking you for sharing honestly, then being quiet.  No condemnation, no advice, no prescription, just listening well.  

Confession

When St James, Paul and John urge Christians to confess to one another, they seem to wrap their words about confession with being forgiven and prayed for, not condemned or corrected.  It seems to follow Christ's model of listening to the Women at the Well, or forgiving the woman caught in adultery and ending with the words "Go and sin no more." - simple listening, forgiving and encouraging.    Perhaps a Christian's call to regular Confession is less about reliving the sin we're ashamed of, but more about talking it through with someone who will genuinely listen actively so that we may be known, and who can and will still love us afterwards.  If we offer this ear and heart to those around us, what kind of world would it make?  We'd be meeting the deepest yearning of our brothers and sisters.  And how would it transform us to have friends like this in our lives?  We'd feel connected, safe and secure in such relationships.   In such a state, we'd be less driven to cope since there would be less pain to medicate.  Simply being known and loved is what transforms us into saints - not strict adherence to a moral code. 

Connection brings Protection

Behavior vs Character

Whether secular or religious, Recovery Groups like AA often encourage members to track their feelings and then call someone when they're tempted to lose their sobriety.   This might be a good way to modify behavior, but how likely is one to actually make this phone call?  I'm feeling stressed or depressed, and want to eat candy, I'm not going to call someone who will:

1. Talk me off the ledge from doing what I know will make me feel so good
2. Chastise me for being weak and wanting candy in the first place (take my dignity)
3. Meddle in my life to help reduce access to candy (take my agency)

Instead, I'm going to do the thing I know will feel good, then maybe "repent" later.  But, what if the nature and motive of the phone were more like Confession?  The "HALT" acronym is common in recovery circles: We're likely to relapse if we get to Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired.  Loneliness in particular is a symptom of isolation, and shame isolates us.  What if the phone call was merely to practice Self Care as we nurture our relationships, thereby reducing our sense of Loneliness, and thereby reducing our sense of need to cope/medicate with candy?  If the motive of a phone call was more about our redefined Confession, we may find ourselves on a trend away from coping/sinning.  

One who wants to sin but sets up enough guardrails not to may establish good behavior, but will have to live the torment of temptation and unmet need.   However, one who nurtures his relationships with those who can actively listen, and thereby know and love him may find that his needs are being met, and that the temptation to sin becomes very weak.  This second person will likely end up with Good Behavior as the fruit of Good Character, and enjoy life more than the first who, with clever planning and strict rule following, steals his own freedom for the wax "fruit" or Behavior alone.  If this is true, then Good Character and Self Care go together - Loving our Neighbor as our own Selves becomes more a call to love ourselves as though we were someone we were responsible for caring for - watching the four HALT gauges as we go about our day, then feeding ourself, putting in timeouts when we need space from others, and down for naps when we're tired.  And lastly, deliberately connect with others in something akin to classic Confession and Accountability, but in a way where we are not just known, but also loved.  

Death and Taxes

Dead Men Sell No Sales

It's easy to forget, when discussing politics with those we disagree, that all sides are looking out for what they think is ultimately the greater good.  Even the right-wing anarcho-capitalist sees that maximal freedom governed only by the free market will ultimately benefit everyone in the economy, though we quickly caricaturize his position as being self serving.   In some cases, it's only the veil of the position which aims to serve the greater good, such as bailing out a failed car company to ensure competition (as opposed to easing entry to the market for new car companies) or restricting emission requirements to keep clean air for all (ignoring that it acts as a barrier to entry for new car companies, including alternative fuel ones).   Either way, both sides of an argument deserve and ear, and even a college try at finding a win-win outcome for both.

Enter: Inheritance

Wealth earned by owners of a company may often go back into something productive, like their current company or a new one.  Such reinvestment of wealth is rather palatable especially if we felt that crony capitalism wasn't in the mix by using such wealth to make laws securing a monopoly.   However, wealth passed down between generations means wealth received by someone who didn't earn it and someone who may not already have entrepreneurial momentum to use a sudden cash influx for something productive.  The emphasis on productive use of money here is because a product necessarily helps its society.  If people didn't want what was produced, the producer would go out of business.  Apple must not pay "it's fair share" of tax to benefit society: it has already done so by easing communication and providing greater use of our cell phones.

Thus, it is inheritance which allows the rich to become evil rich - the heirs to have the power associated with health without the contribution to society often required for wealth.  Such wealth tends to corrupt, so what if inheritance couldn't be passed down?   "It's my money to do as I please!" says the libertarian, and I agree, but dead men have little will, or at least powerless wills.  But let's appease the libertarian side by decreeing that all money one makes during his lifetime is tax free - it is 100% his to do with as he pleases, but once he dies, it becomes communal, or rather, state money.  

The same would go for anything owned by the dead person

• His business would become state business to be sold by shares as investments for others and eventually become publicly owned, or possibly privately owned again if one buys all shares.  
• His home goes on the market to be sold and revenue gone to the state.  The same for any personal items.  
• To be kind to offspring, they will have first chance to buy things from the estate sale in case something was of sentimental value to him. 

This 100% tax rate for dying should, then, appeal to the progressive who wants to keep the evil rich at bay and provide for the state who must take a dollar from one taxpayer before giving it to another. And what taxpayer is happier to pay than a dead one!  Let's appease the progressive a bit further and say that all citizens get a monthly stipend.  This stipend serves as the sum of all welfare offerings, though is offered even to the rich, lest we fail to be fair.  In doing so, we reduce the waste of a middleman.  Everyone has a livable income, even if it requires moving to an area he can afford, and more importantly, all of the offspring for whom a rich may may want to provide by leaving an inheritance will now be taken care of anyways, so he need not worry about the new 100% tax on his death.

In such a world, those who want to live in a fancier place are still able to work and earn above their basic free money income.  Or, if they want to be an artist, they need not starve entirely.  What is prevented are dynasties, but opportunities are still hailed in a free market free of taxes.

Loopholes

Other currencies

Where this breaks down is that not every country would likely use the same tax system, so one could simply convert his dollars to pesos, then die, leaving nothing for uncle Sam to take as its due tax, yet leave instructions for his offspring to retrieve the pesos and sell back for dollars, effectively leaving an inheritance.  

Pre-death gifts

What if the deed to a man's house was quitclaimed to his son with the man on his deathbed?  It wouldn't be an inheritance so much as a gift, and without taxes, how can we insure the gummit gets its "fair share"?    Perhaps there could be a limitation on gifts: with all people already taken care of by the free stipend, there's no need for large giving, so perhaps giving is prohibited - a deed to an expensive item like a house or car can only be sold, not given.

Avoiding market value

The loophole now becomes selling something at less than market value to his offspring.  Perhaps the same man above sells his home to his son for $1.   It wasn't a gift, per se, but it sure smelled like one!  Thus, the no-giving rule would have to have a market-value boundary attached to it.  

Final thoughts

The rules put on giving would need enforcement, as would any similar rules on taking money out of the country to exchange for items of value in another land outside our own.  Such enforcement would have to invade privacy while traveling, as the government would be looking for money which doesn't belong to it (so what business does it have snooping through my luggage?).   Such enforcement would also promote a black market - or some bartered off-grid market - for small items of value which aren't tracked by the government to be handed off to others upon death, bypassing the giving rules.  

Also, money does nobody any good unless it's spent, so even in a system where a son gets all his dad's money, he will eventually spend it, even if on caviar and butlers.   He may even invest it to create a cashflow to ensure a lifetime of caviar and butlers, but the point is, his money is going back into the economy because he is consuming services and goods produced by others.  Others still benefit from the spoiled rich kid in some way.

Lastly, when it comes to caring for our offspring, leaving a legacy, and looking out for the poor, such acts are acts of love (or perhaps ego or vanity, but still human acts nonetheless).  Thus, they should be performed by humans capable of love.  A government is not a human - it cannot perform an act of love.  It is, however, made of humans, and elected by even more humans - all of whom are to love their neighbor as themselves.   While seemingly oversimplified and perhaps insufficient to take care of all in need, the only fully-ethical way to do this is to leave it in the hands of individual humans.  

Modular Reliance

Us moderns rely on fellow humans to provide what we cannot do so efficiently in two main categories:

1. Government - to protect us, distribute wealth, and plan/regulate large groups for mutual benefit
2. Utilities - semi-private companies, protected from competition while capped on profits so they may provide services which we now rely on heavily for a minimal cost

Neither of these groups follow their roles perfectly.   I'll shoot from hip to say they're 50% efficient at performing their tasks.  This post proposes a way to bring civilization closer to 100% effectiveness with how government serves and spends, and how utilities make technological progress while keeping costs low.  Essentially, this post is about efficiency of public utility  and political systems.

The Problem of Non-Scalabilty

Both political and public utility systems suffer from an inability to scale well.  In general, both systems have established boundaries of service based on space rather than population and perform their service to that space in a hub/spoke model.   To scale well, new  hubs would be need as previous hubs become overloaded, but in our world, there are no new cities being made or water companies added to existing cities.   Mayors water companies simply serve a larger number.  In doing so, the individuals of a population progressively lose their voice (and corresponding sense of importance), while taking on apathy - the big government/companies will deal with it, whatever "it" is.  

Political Representation

Taking California as an example, we may redraw district lines from time to time, but new districts are not made.  New counties are not made.  New cities are not made (with the exception of unincorporated areas becoming cities).  In general, as population grows, representation does not.  In a town of 2,000, I can likely speak directly to the mayor.  In my home town of 10,000, the mayor lived across the street and down one house.  One feels his voice is heard by the decision makers who he is trusting to keep his home safe, useful and affordable.  As populations double, the size of their government may double, but primarily in administrative ways which does not increase voice.  Even if I have a representative in my suburb, he simply reports to the mayor, and the mayor still makes the decisions at his level of government.  In a way, my voice is only heard by an in-between, pushing a voice which contributed to mayoral decisions one tier further from me.  

The point to notice here is that decisions made at a particular tier of government stay the same even if the layers of representation grow.  This always puts the individuals further from the decision maker.   Our reliance on the mayor stays the same as his realm of decisions stays the same, but our distance from him grows along with population.

Utility Centralization

I consider the following to be utilities:

1. Electricity/natural gas
2. Water
3. Sewer
4. Trash collection
5. Gasoline/diesel
6. Internet service
7. Phone service

The first few are regulated - they have caps on their profitability and competition.  The bottom ones have standards of service to live up to, but are uncapped in profits.  

Regulated utilities fail to offer low prices because their profit caps depend on their costs, which they are free to take on more of.  Waste enough money and their costs go up, and those costs are past to the consumer.  In the case of housing outside the service area of a regulated utility, many enjoy a co-op utility company.  In the case of San Diego, those outside SDG&E's service area pay about half for their energy per kWh.  Half.  

A reason we fail to change the system is because we throw good money after bad - we've already invested soooo much into the current system, that it would be ridiculous to lay new power cables just to introduce free market alternatives.   

False.

The Germans have deregulated power companies (and transportation companies).  Yet they all use the same wires (and roads) as before.   How?  Because I can subscribe to Green Power Inc who only uses solar and wind to make it's power, and they pump as many kWh into the existing lines as they have subscribers.  Or, I can pay Coal For Less Power who will burn fossil fuels and pump the appropriate amount of power into the grid as their customers pay for.  

Even so, there is a scaling problem: power plants (and water plants, and disposal yards) are often very large, and then have to transmit or transport their service great distances.   The spokes are very long on their hubs.  I believe this is why the small co-op company can survive on half the sales price.  So many people rely on the one plant, that failure is not an option.  It becomes over regulated - we demand 99.999% up time, and now as more lines/pipes/trucks are added to its inventory, they become exponentially more expensive:  company growth means more regulation to raise the cost of expanding to more customers (and existing customers)

Modularity as a Solution

Imagine a world where your voice was always heard and where utilities bound to populations instead of regions - allowing free market to keep solutions improving and actually implemented.  May I start this conversation by pitching 5 as the magic number:  Each tier of our reliance on a service, whether political or a utility, scales with powers of 5.   With a world population of 7 billion, that makes 14 tiers (5^14 = 7^10) across which to spread the decisions to make. 

A family is roughly of size 5.  It can figure out its own terms of government (perhaps a monarchy or oligarchy, which may change to a democracy as children age).  There shall be a pool of decisions which will always be made at this level:  what to eat, what to wear inside the house, what sports to play, which schools to enroll into. 

Gather 5 families to get 25 people - the next level of government.  Perhaps they can decide things like how to decorate their houses, keep their yards, or even place speed bumps in front of their houses to protect their kids.  

The next level up is 125, then 625.  To make number easy, and to give meaningful names to the groups, I suggest:

1. Families of ~5
2. Neighbors of ~25
3. Hamlets of ~100
4. Villages of ~600
5. Towns of ~3000
6. Townships of ~15k
7. Boroughs of ~80k
8. Cities of ~390k
9. Metropolises of ~2M
10. Counties of ~10M
11. States of ~50M
12. Countries of ~240M
13. Unions of ~12B
14. World of ~6B

Scaling

Let's assume that it makes sense for Townships to have their own garbage disposal service, Boroughs to have their own power plants, and Cities to have their own water companies.  Perhaps metropolises have their own rail ways, counties have their own highways and so on.  

Each neighboring unit of the same tier can easily interface resources to account for backup (ie neighboring Boroughs could have a power junction to share power if one plant were to go out).  However, the main principle is to make each utility and level of political decision making match a population size, and not a geographical region.  As a City doubles in size, it will much earlier have Hamlets which have doubled, thus creating new Hamlets, and on to new Villages, Towns etc.  During that process of the sub-groups splitting first, new utility companies will have come into existence along with new government components to offload services/works of the group which getting large enough to split.  

As populations don't exist in perfect powers of 5, a splitting rule could be that once a group (say, a Village) grows to double its original size (ie contains 10 Hamlets instead of 5), then the Village will split into two, each with 3 Hamlets.  This scheme is important as it allows simple majority voting to happen with an odd number of sub-groups.

Voting and Representation

Voting is an individuals primary power to express his political voice.  To maintain a constant "volume" of one's voice, the size of group he impacts must stay the same.  This implies that as populations grow, groups quantities must also grow.  

All decisions of a particular tier of government will be made by a simple majority of sub-groups.  For example, the group of Neighbors will make decisions by one vote coming from each member Family.  Each Family will have a representative take their collective vote (perhaps done by democracy at the Family level, or perhaps by trusting their representative to vote on their behalf) to the Neighbors and if a simple majority (minimum 3 votes) are for a motion to pass, then it passes.  

Note that in this scheme, a "simple majority" ends up meaning 60% or 3/5 majority.   Note that the level at which voting starts may be different that the level at which a decision being voting on is made.  This is much like our electoral college:  We vote at individual levels, but the decision is made at the electoral college level.   In this modular model of government, a given group can chose to defer it's voting voice to the next level larger.  For example, a Borough may be deciding to change their power plant from coal to geothermal.  To approve, they need 3/5 of the Townships to agree.  This particular Borough makes power plant decisions with votes happening at the Family level (not quite as granular as an Individual, but not as distanced from Individuals as Towns).   As each Family casts their votes, the Neighbors collectively a single vote on to the Hamlet according to the majority vote at the Neighbor tier.  Similarly, the Hamlets gather votes from all 5 Neighbor groups, and pass on a single vote to the town based on a "simple" 3/5 majority.  This happens all the way up to the Borough who then only has 5 votes to collect and tally.  

As all decisions pass with a 3/5 majority, the majority is more clear than a true simple majority of 50% + 1.   In this way, decisions are more clear, and gripes on splitting hairs are minimized.  Note too that even as a population expands, a voter will always have the same strength of voting voice in power plant decisions.

If a particular group wishes to defer it's voting up a level, then there will need to have been a representative at the upper level.  For example, each Neighbor group must have a representative to vote on behalf of all its Families for such matters the Families have chosen to defer.  Similarly, if all Neighbors in a Hamlet chose to defer decisions upwards, then the Hamlet must have a representative to vote on behalf of all the Neighbors.  Such decisions of deferment should be able to be modified at any regular meeting.  To prevent a given tier from efficiently re-claiming its voting rights, the deferment power shall be limited to only go up a single level.  For example, Families may defer their Power Plant voting rights up to the Neighbors, but the Neighbors cannot further defer that voting right up to a Hamlet - for if a Family wanted to initiate reclaiming the right to vote on Power Plants, he would have to rally 3/5 of not only Families in his Neighbor group, but now also Families in 3/5 of the other Neighbors making up his Hamlet.  This exponentially increases the amount of work one has to do to regain his voice once he's deferred it.  The 1-level deferment rule keeps the work required to defer a vote equal to the work required to re-claim a voting right.

Traveler in Training

Here's a post to help all you casual Amtrakkers out there. I"ll keep it up to date as I extend my Am-treks beyond the Oceanside-Fresno loop, but I've discovered a few gems worth sharing.

First off, for fellow San Diegans going north to visit, you'll find that there are no rail north of LA.  Instead, you get  bus (also now with wifi, just like the trains!).  You'll be forced to detrain in LA at Unions station which has it's own fair share of eateries.  Often this is a short stop since the time from OSD to LAX (as the station is overloadedly called) is pretty predictable, unnecessitating a long layov   However, your second layover in BFD (yes, Bakersfield is a BFD) may have a pleasant hour to kill depending on LA traffic.   Lastly, you'll land in HNF or FNO depending on how dairy you're feeling.

The Gems

BFD...

...has a 5-10 mins walk from the station to Mi Peru - a Peruvian restaurant with an unusual (and good!) beer selection (author feigning pure sobriety after a St. Sabastian Dark).  They offer food to go (waited ~15 mins for my order) - good time to try a craft Mexicali brew, like Day of the Dead.  Even the teetotaler will find Mi Peru an unexpected pleasantry on their journey north, especially with the prize train station alternative is vending-machine tuna and crackers.

The shortest path is also the most scenic:

1. If looking at the train tracks, follow them to the right - that's West (so look for the setting sun if traveling at dusk.
2. You'll approach cross through a cul de sacish piece of parking lot as you approach a bridge (which crosses something like Ave Q).  On the right side jut before crossing, you'll find a staircase that goes down to a foot path under the bridge along the Q
3. Follow said path along pretty waterway.  As it T's into California, J-walk across to the small building with busy signage.  Upon closer inspection, you will find you have arrived.
4. Eat, drink and be merry, for you now have 30 mins to catch your train. 

HNF...

...Smells like burning sulfur.  In the hot summer, you may mistake your living state, but this is normalcy for us country types.  Get off your derrière and take the dairy dare to eat at Superior Dairy.  If you're the liverwurst, they got you covered.  If not, don't tell me it's a texture thing: just acknowledge that your Germanic grandma introduced you to the delicacy at too young an age to appreciate it and thereby ruined you.  Our foremothers failed to gently ween us from the Frankfurtish gateway meat into less-muscle-centric meats, and now we all scoff at gizzards.   So sad.  Even if you lack the liverlust, Superior has an SOS sundae that will blow your mind (and freeze your brain). 

FNO...

...should have kept the more comical initials of its airport brethren: FAT.  With too few puns to introduce this paragraph: Shepherd's Inn.  It's across the street from the station and use to house local shepherds in the ~25 rooms there.  The rooms are no longer for rent, but the restaurant and Scotch-filled bar are very (enjoyably) available.  The main waitress is from Texas, so if you want a conversation about some biggish city surrounded by farm land that isn't Fresno, I guess you have an option.  

Oh ya, and it's Basque, which means you can pay $2 more for "Basque Style" food which means you get like 5-7 courses all served in a row.   Funny how "American style" isn't the gluttonous one.  

Bon Appétrak!

To Love and/or Respect

Every blue moon there's a union of secular and church wisdom.   

Most hot "practical"  topics between the camps today have to do with relationship: marriage between those who have the gay and divorce between those who don't.  Creation, abortion and Sunday's off have been simmering on the back burner for years as Lovin' has boiled up front ever since Prop (H)8.

Here I want to scope an idea to the heteros.  

Mainly, I think there are differences between the genders that go beyond what's between the legs and perhaps even beyond what's between the ears (ie gendered souls).  From here we find some Biblical insight which makes its way into many marriage vows: to love and respect.  This started with a simply verse in the Bible telling husbands to love their wives and wives to respect their husbands.  We don't get much more insight from the text other than that the implications were gender specific.  

Dr. Eggerichs expounds in a book on marriage advice.  The concept is that women desire to be loved more than they desire respected, and men desire to be respected more than they desire to be loved.  Similarly, women find it easier to love than to respect (love the unrespectable, such as the inept child) , while men find it easier to respect than to love (respect the unlovable, such as the a-hole boss).  He goes on to note that as one gender isn't getting what they need (she's not feeling loved, he's not feeling respected) then couple enters a downward spiral.  He withdraws love, she feels hurt and withdraws respect, so he withdraws even more love.  The solution is to fake-it-till-you-make it: men, show love even if you'r not feeling it, and will make her feel more fulfilled and jumpstart her showing respect back.  A hazard Eggerichs points out is that because of each gender's strength in either loving or respecting, then doing the opposite will take conscious work (ie it's hard for women to be respectful to a man, especially if they feel like he's messing up or not being respectable.)

While this notion gets flamed for painting women as weaker or men as dominating since "respect" is often interchanged with "submit", or people get bent because really both genders desire both love and respect, my conversations with trusted women seem to unveil some truth to this difference of love and respect in the genders.  And recently, I realized an overlap with secular wisdom when it comes to romancing a woman.  Here's the twist I'm putting on it: Assuming Eggerichs' idea is true, what if it implies that a woman will tolerate reduced respect if she is feeling more loved in the process, and that a man will tolerate a reduced amount of love if it is framed in additional respect.  I might even say that each could thrive better if they gave up on receiving the "minority" action.  The woman who follows in the dance with full submission often finds it the better dance.  The man often wins with "happy wife, happy life".  Similarly, a woman who's into 50 shades of naughty time often finds that the apparent sacrifice of respect and being taken in an act of love resonates more deeply than receiving compliments about her accomplishments.  And a man who is told "I think it's amazing how hard you can work at your job for the family and still have time to help around the house" suddenly becomes a Marvel hero even though the value expressed was largely utilitarian, as opposed to "I think you're so handsome" or "I just love you so much".

Playah say what?

Kiss the girl.  Afraid you'll scare her off?  Maybe you will.  Who cares.  Even if she feels you moved too fast, didn't respect her boundaries, has a boyfriend, thinks you just want her for the physical, whatever - be a man.  And then you will feel better about yourself for growing a pair.  And strangely she will probably like you a lot more too. Why?  Because after the rape-kiss, she feels loved.  She feels so desirable because you just transcended common sense, social norms your own fears and even her sense of respect because you love her so much.

The hesitant uncertain awkwardness can be kind of cute, but the man who risks offending his love interest in order to show that love is most definitely hot.  Many good marriages have been made with men who delayed and were tentative, but my point is that many men who were very sure of what they wanted and in some way "took" it - those men highlighted this Christian love/respect complement in a very Secular way.  Or maybe it's simply True rather than Christian or Secular...

The key here is that love trumped respect and it ended up being for the better.  The point is not to rush for rushing's sake, but for the man to realize it's okay to override the will of his love if it's for their good (especially when it's just for her own good) if it means she'll know how much he loves her.  I've seen several times where boundaries have were established by the woman in a relationship, and the relationship fell apart because the man didn't bulldoze them down.  Things became stagnant and she left feeling unloved because he chose to respect her boundaries, usually physical boundaries.  Respect doesn't buy as much for women as it does men.  I know my claim here won't cause many women to stop trying to sell respect as something they want (for it is something they want), but to be loved (even when it trumps respect) is more better.

To be fair, there's a case to be made for wives overriding their husband's wills.  After all, that's a big reason why married men live longer.  She makes him go to the hospital, she forces him to eat better, and she provides a reason for him to take fewer risks.  There's a whole lingerie list of why lovin' makes both sexes live longer, but there's more...

Bird/plane/husband

Not being a woman, I don't know the full impact of feeling exceptionally loved may have on a woman, but I imagine it's similar to what it feels like to be highly admired as a man.  I admit to wanting to feel loved, but I know that respect and admiration have a strengthening effect which being loved does not (being loved, for me, has more of a healing effect).  This strengthening effect makes a man 10 times stronger and more amazing (women: read this as "more willing to serve and help around the house", or take a PAX class - it will change you and your man forever).  This goes beyond the cute girl inspiring the tired runner to open up his stride.  Something about a woman's simple admiration, in public or private, builds a man up in a way that no other affirmation can.  It stirs something deep - something I'd argue is in the masculine spirit itself.  It makes him willing and able to rise to any challenge, especially for her.

The key here is that respect shown in a way that is almost separate from love has a way of building a man up even though such "loveless" respect may feel disappointing to a woman.  If we can ignore how over-the-top and chauvinistic this sounds: If she sees him as a god, he will become a god (this matches a dying tradition where an Indian wife aspires to see her husband as a god).  If we look closely here, the woman is the one with the power to make a man powerful, and she does this without a showering love or a needy love or showing how desirable her man is, but rather simply admiring and respecting him.

Barn Studio/Tiny House

All tiny house posts moved to my Shed Up! blog.  See the original post here.

Tiny House Fundraiser Sale

All tiny house posts moved to my new Shed Up! blog.  See original post here.