This is not going to make a lot of sense to some of you...

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This is the end...

No, really, it's the end.

What I mean to say is that you are at the end, not the beginning. You're reading the last post of the blog, not the first. The end.

Look down to the right where it says "Blog Archive" and click on the year 2010. The first three posts of the blog will appear. Start there. With the lowest one on the list.

I know it's a pain in the ass, and I don't think you lose too much by reading last to first, but there it is. This is the way Blogger is set up.

So, welcome and enjoy!

Bear-

Now the time has come to say goodbye to all our company...

If you didn't get the reference in the title, don't worry. It just means you're not old. ;0)

The situation is this: my life has spun around nearly 180 degrees in the last 8 months or so. My surgery, the situation with my FC, and simply gathering enough resources to live on have taken all of my time and effort.

My goals are to be able, one day, to walk unassisted again. Just to get a little better every day. I also wish to be able to gain some form of employment to be able to financially take care of my FC who is now totally permanently disabled (if I am not determined to be disabled myself - that is still up in the air although I am determine to work again). Doing so will ease the burden on my slave whisper, who is tasked at her age with taking care of two invalids. Finally, I wish to try an stay positive and focused despite enough reasons to be depressed. ;0)

All that said means that I am not going to spend any more energy into keeping this blog up to date. I will allow it to remain here, and leave the gmail account open, should anyone need to reference it or contact me. I will probably lose my internet access at some point soon (food before phosphors) but I will make an effort to check the email when I can get to a computer that will allow me. That won't be often, however.

I'd certainly not planned on this being the way my life would turn out.

However, there is this:

At my age, and with my situation, you spend a little time thinking about death. With that, you go over your choices in life and wonder just what impact, if any, your life has made on this world.

On February 22nd, 1996 I co-founded a little IRC chat channel on the internet that began a process that has heavily impacted hundreds if not thousands of lives. For good or ill is immaterial, as one of the hard lessons I learned is that there is nothing that I could have done to make people behave responsibly.

But there it is. As small and insignificant as it may well be in the big picture, I rest now knowing that my work, my joy and my passion in things Gorean have made a difference in some lives and will live on for at least little while longer through some of you.

Probably longer than I will. ;0)

Keep the faith, raise your standards and walk proudly as Gorean men and women in this society.

To all my friends from then and now; it was a sincere pleasure knowing you.

I wish you well.

Bear-

My Theme Song

What?

You don't have a theme song? Every Gorean needs a theme song!

Like any good piece of music, you can read a lot of things into the lyrics. I was tickled to see how much of this actually *did* seem to fit my life and what many perceive as my public personae. ;0)

This is my good friend Lyle Lovett (and should we ever meet one day I am sure he would agree with me about our retroactive friendship) singing my theme song.

Enjoy.

A funny thing happened on the way to the rest of my life...

I'll bet you all thought I was dead.

Didn't you?

C'mon, admit it. I promise my feelings won't be hurt.

Much. ;0)

There were times, to be sure, that I thought I might be a bit better off on the other side of the mirror. If nothing else so that it would just not hurt so goddamn much anymore. Then, my friends the chemicals would whisper to me, and I would get so tired and everything would fade to grey.

I hate drugs. Always have. I won't even take an aspirin if I can help it. What I had in the hospital and what I had at home, were certainly not aspirin. I lost weeks of time, honestly, in a stupor. I left most of you in mid-July, and here it is the first part of November. To this day I cannot function painlessly without the chemicals, but they are of the most benign and of the least dosage that I can tolerate.

Obviously, things did not go completely as planned with my surgery, and due to this I am getting used to some new physical limitations in my life.

Big deal. I'll manage.

I live.

That's enough.

I am not yet to the point where I can spend much time at the keyboard, and I suspect that it will still be quite a while before I can get to the point where I can turn up at my old haunts.

But I wanted you all to know I live, and that I appreciated all of the kind things that were sent to me in my gmail here. I will be checking it semi-regular, so if anyone needs to speak to me or wants to chat or compare the chemicals and their effects, I can be found there. ;0)

I wish the best to all of you reading, and I hope to return here to post more as soon as I am able.

Bear-

And now a message from our sponsor...

Happy Friday everyone,

This blog post is going to be a bit different than others here.

A few of you know that over the last year or so, I have been struggling with spinal problems related to a back injury. I fully expected to have surgery to help correct these issues in a month or two. I met with my neurosurgeon yesterday and the decision has been made to move the surgery up to this coming week.

What this means is that for several weeks, I will be unable to update the blog. If all goes well, while it will be several months before I can get my strength back, I should be able to get back to some normal activity before then. The surgery is not overly dangerous, and I am optimistic, but the chance for something bad happening is always there.

So, this will be the last update for a while. If the blog never gets updated again, then remember me fondly. ;0)

Many thanks to all of you who have read the blog, commented and complained, and who have encouraged me to continue to openly explore what it is to live Gorean in this society.

I look forward to being back with you all soon.

Bear-

Please, don't feed the monkeys

(Preface 2011: Interaction on the internet is a challenge, at times. The thought that one is anonymous (which is truly not the case) allows some to behave irresponsibly. This essay, written back around 2000, addresses the issue and is just as relative today as it was then.)


Hello again,

I wrote this essay back in July, at a time when a few people who should have known better (look who is talking!) were spending time trying to debate and discuss with some who had created forums for the specific purpose of luring them in and flinging shit on them. These people, all banned from the few popular Gorean boards for their activities, deperately and transparently wanted to agitate some of us so that we would go there and the ensuing ruckus would give them them the attention denied them after they failed and/or they were rejected by the community at large.

It was easy to see the one thing that brought these twisted and sad individuals pleasure was our attention, therefore I denied them mine - although they flung shit far and wide to attract it. ;0)

Others who were standing hip-deep in the monkey cage had perhaps not thought through what was happening, and this is my essay to them, to let them know why feeding the monkeys is a fruitless endeavor.

Enjoy! ;0)

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If you feed them, they become excited and agitated. If you give them attention, they will accept it and demand more and more of it from you. If you speak with them, they will simply screech louder, throw more excrement, and try to piss further in order to splash some of their bile onto you. They seek to keep you there, talking, since being a monkey is really not a very interesting thing in and of itself. It does not mean anything, it does not stand for anything. It does not seek to accomplish anything. It is a defensive mindset simply fueled by frustration, guilt and fear.

When you trek to their cages and respond to them, you simply give them what they want - attention. You lend, through your name and time, a measure of attention and perhaps even credence, if you are not careful, to what they are trying to do. In any case, you never can accomplish the purpose you seek to achieve. You often run the risk, through frustration, of becoming a monkey yourself.

In short; You lose. 

Honest, open debate and disagreement is a good thing. I have spent many years online, in a Gorean context doing so in various venues. So have many of you. A lot of it has been constructive, if rancorous and even bitter at times. Together, we have learned much, about ourselves and about living Gorean in this society. The number of adults seriously and honestly seeking to live this way has grown, due in large part to the words we share in public.

But at some point, in some places, you look down at your wet shoes and realize that some of them are just monkeys, and that their delight is not in the verbiage, the argument, the search for understanding or compromise, but rather their delight is in their ability to piss all over you and what you are, doing so openly and/or discreetly, and still keep you coming back for more.

We are unlike any other Gorean forum on the net. We do not have monkeys here. We stopped feeding them and sent them on their way. You watched it happen, from day one. 

Think about that.

Those people then have created cages of their own making, where they screech and scream and whine and cry, waving their arms frantically at you and calling you by name to try to get you to come close enough so that they can simply wet your shoes and smile.

"Gor is a fantasy!", they whine.

"You are all Nazis!", they scream.

"Collar me and prove me wrong!", they beg.

"You are all misogynists!", they bleat.

The ironic thing is, we have seen this same thing all before. Many, many monkeys have come before them, doing the exact same things, for the exact same reasons. Those monkeys are all gone now. They disappeared once the food source dried up. They disappeared, once people stopped feeding them.

It is no fun for them, it seems, to be playing in shit when no one else is interested in, or cares about, being their target. ;0)

At some point, folks, if your shoes are soaked, it ceases to be their fault.

At some point, the credibility you lend them by paying attention to them starts to detract from the very thing you argue for, because they are not there to find answers, only fling shit and get as much of it on you as possible.

At some point, my friends, you have to wise up and stop making yourselves such easy, willing and accessible targets, for no worthwhile gain. ;0)

And at some point, you have to decide to stop playing thier endless, hate-filled, psychotic games. What do you do? You just go out and live Gorean and let your life amongst your peers provide the best example that there can be. ;0)

I wish you all well this sunny, wonderful Saturday afternoon. 

Bear-