Wants Needs and Love

To be perfectly honest, I enjoy the general daily routine of my life. I am not financially levelled out (when I was young, I lived amongst the kind of people who could have considered themselves to be at the top of their game - I grew up in Palm Beach, Fla. ) - nor am I emotionally or physically levelled - I could be stronger, wiser, more stable. I could certain have more cash. This may change on May 23.

But I have discovered that I have wants, and needs and that I would love to be loved. The very feeling of the possibility of love sends shockwaves through me.

I have recently discovered in myself that in love I am afraid to lose - a controlling sort of behavior happens when I realize I might not be in full control. I find that I want to rig the game.

It is not appropriate for me to pretend that I can use the same kind of techniques I have developed as an activist - to succeed in my personal life. A woman wants and deserves to be heard. Oddly, despite the allegation that I am not sensitive - I am fairly good at listening. And I tend to remember well what is said. But the concept that I would have to challenge her or test what she says or otherwise attempt to encircle her thought with mine - is deeply flawed.

I suppose women, to me, are different - than they would be to another person. I was raised by a single mother. My mother was responsible for alot of things gathered in my character that I would have modelled from elsewhere. My father was somewhat distant - in medical school, and usually away. I learned to grow up without him. Later in life, I chose for my brother and I to live with him - and for that I am glad. But my mother was the single force in my life that guided me most - and I think, as a result - I sort of need a forceful woman in my life - a marriage of two dominants , if you will.

I am in many ways like my father - I tend to be a sort of bulldog when it comes to a solvable problem. One time someone walked up to me at tee-off and told me my father had stayed with someone for 12 hours after he had performed open heart on them. Just sat by the persons bed. It was the starter's wife. And the surgery succeeded. I felt proud - and at the same time, I think understood why my father did what he did. Tonight I'm going to login to a system in the middle of the night and fix it. I won't let it go until everything is working right. I tend to hold onto things that work in my life. I tend to have alot of faith in other people.

The experience with my ex wife shattered me. I could never understand why she didn't want to get well. I hope wherever she is, she is doing what needs to be done to survive. I couldn't see my children watch her die.

I suppose we all learn to love based on how we were ourselves loved when we are young. Its wild how - a small chimpanzee will die if he or she is not loved as they grow up. I guess I expect that a part of that experience and feeling can be up in my conscious mind. But when I feel it coming there- like a warm feeling - it scares me. My lonely life right now helps me to stay focussed and to be perfectly honest I am afraid it will disappear. I am afraid of falling in love. I am afraid of being in love. But the woman that I love would be the woman who could not only take care of herself, and her children - but laugh and smile and take a little risk every now and then. And I think that, for me, that is a need.

Being emotionally secure and safe isn't always the best way to deal with things. But even worse is the idea that you've got everything under control - that there is a name for everything, a classification. It is why , ultimately - psychology must always at its best practice contain at least one of its axes along 'art' and the other 'science'. It is a fallacy that human beings can know each other, or themselves - completely. The best we can hope for is humility, integrity, charity, temperance, fortitude, prudence and strength.

And Burning Man.