Dashing towards the end of the cave, you find that it is no longer dark, that it is as if you’re venturing through a sunny green field, the bright yellow sun radiating above, the sound of movement surrounding you. Before you know, you are no longer in the cave, and you are not surrounded by the sunlight, but from the light emanating from your creation. The energy from the light sends you forth into another dark cave, but this time, with far more light and a much more confident stride than before.

Our current paranoia-driven overprotection and over-management of our future generations is setting them up for a life of failure and disappointment. This trend has worsened with each generation leading up to ours, as we’ve moved further away from blue collar manual labor, where we stretch our will to its limits and act out of self-preservation, and into white collar office buildings and cookie-cutter suburban homes, where we barricade ourselves in giant boxes of wood and brick and glass, sheltering and protecting ourselves from reality. Confined to these living, breathing coffins, we become increasingly paranoid, neurotic, anxious, and depressed. We mask these problems with pills, pills that the manufacturers don’t know the full gamut of their effects, good or bad, pills that our ancestors probably never needed and probably never wished for.

Unlike our ancestors, we don’t know what it’s like to push ourselves to our limits, to come close to death, to fully experience life. The closest we ever come in this manufactured world is when we drink ourselves into oblivion, when our hearts are broken seemingly beyond repair, when we wake up on the bathroom floor the morning after mixing alcohol and pills in the quest to feel something. We try to get a taste of life by running away from it.

Our willingness to barricade ourselves into this plastic-wrapped world of paranoia is driven by one of the greatest of all fears: death. When we, at the same time, are terrified by the unknown, how could we possibly be afraid of the one thing that we know is certain? There is one explanation that I believe to be true, and that is, those who fear death are only afraid because they have not yet lived. The difference between those who are driven by self-preservation and those driven by fear of death is that the former act to protect the life they already posses, and the latter act to delay the inevitable in order to find a life worth preserving. The tragedy is, those who run away in fear run into a darkness more aphotic than death, where they will never find the life they were looking for.

I think one’s sexuality is defined not only by what they desire sexually, but what they desire emotionally. Both desires pass a threshold of, let’s say, “neutrality” before they reach a level in which your sexuality is defined by them. For example, a straight man can love his friend, just as a gay man can love his straight male friend, but neither of those emotions pass the threshold where they would romantically be involved.

The physical aspect of sexuality is much trickier, because all humans can be sexually stimulated by a wide range of physical pleasures. For example, if you blindfold half of a room full of people of both genders and all sexualities and have the non-blindfolded people stimulate the blindfolded, chances are the gender or sexuality of either party, being unknown, will not make a difference in the level of stimulation the blindfolded receives.

Now, it’s the psychological factor that makes a huge impact, and I believe this largely comes from society. While I believe biology has a GREAT impact in ones sexuality (I never woke up one day and decided, I’m going to find women sexually attractive), it would be a lie to say that society/environment has little or nothing to do with it. In short, I think society’s anti-gay attitude is more of a self-preservation thing than anything else, with no real valid argument. It’s pretty much, “I don’t want these people coming in and taking over my territory. I don’t want these ‘abnormal, inferior’ people to be my equal.” See also: the history of blacks in America.

The impact society has on sexuality is as clear as day. Ask any older gay man about growing up and waiting forever to come out. These days, kids are coming out in droves in their teens. Why? Because it’s far more accepted, far “safer,” much more in the spotlight, talked about all the time, etc. etc. It’s becoming a norm. There’s no doubt in my mind that gay marriage will be legal one day. Homophobia will always remain, just as racism will. It’s the “us versus them” mentality that is as old as civilization.

With all that, if you were to remove the blindfolds mid-session in my previous experiment, those “mismatched” couples, depending on their comfort with their own sexuality and how much they buy in to society’s propaganda (and this comes from both gay and straight society), they may react negative (anger, guilt, aggression, fear, doubt, questioning, etc.), or think, “Meh, it’s just sex.” That’s really all there is to it. A straight man performing homosexual acts with another man cannot turn him gay, because when all is said and done, he has no desire to pursue a romantic relationship with that person. Can a straight guy do this (have sex with another guy)? Absolutely. Can a gay man have sex with a woman? Absolutely. The necessary parts are in place. Now, the question is, is the desire, will, and motivation (beyond simple curiosity and just getting your rocks off) there? The answer is driven by one’s sexuality.

Privation, which leads to desire, which leads to suffering (anxiety, depression, inferiority, etc.), is woven directly into a capitalist society. It is from this desire that business thrives. If you’re not happy with the way your current life is going, someone stands to benefit from it: drug companies, cosmetic companies, alcohol companies, you name it. There’s always something more to fill the void. You can always improve your life if you have the money to do it.

What does that mean, then? Are those in poverty doomed to a life of suffering? Hardly. True happiness lies within the self, the present self, the self which we currently perceive as lacking. This idea, this internal spiritual wealth, is the archenemy of a capitalist society. If you’re happy with what you have or with who you are, what does big business have to gain?

The popularity of medications for anxiety and depression is a sure sign that something is wrong, something larger than what is most readily apparent. This suffering is woven into our culture. We are brought up to believe that, in a broad sense, things can or will get better. The desire for something–anything–supports this belief. How many different toys, gadgets, or articles of clothing were meant to complete you?

Accepting the idea that life will only be as good as it is right now is one key to liberation. If you’re a pessimist, this very thought strikes terror deep within your heart. Obviously, only a pessimist will fine pain in this idea, because that means the future will be filled with suffering. I will remind my fellow pessimists that suffering comes from desire, and desire is wanting something outside of the present moment. Accepting that life will only be as good as it currently is forces us to make the present moment worth experiencing. Fully enjoying the present moment will bring forth a bright future, because when the future becomes present, it will be worth experiencing.

Accepting our limitations is also liberating, yet this is not the easiest thing for consumers to do. In our American consumer society, we are always looking outside of ourselves for satisfaction. We are envious of the beautiful, rich celebrities. But we are envious of them for the wrong reasons. What we should admire about them is the fact that they focused on their own potential to get them to where they are today; they accepted their limitations and used their own abilities to their greatest extent. What big business and the media (who makes money from selling advertisements) wants you to admire is their material wealth, but what we should really admire them for is their own internal wealth of knowledge, self-acceptance, and perserverance. Our capabilities are limited, but our capacity for that which we are capable of becomes limitless when we fully realize these capabilities.

We are all capable of at least one ability, the ability to break free. It’s not something that can be made, bought, or sold. It’s something that already exists, and it exists within each one of us. If we take the time to put down our magazines, remote controls, and various other technological gadgets, we can find that inner peace. It is critical, in this convoluted train wreck of a world we live in, that we peel away all the unnecessary layers of desire that we have placed upon ourselves and dig up the light that we have been conditioned to bury. And, if I may be more hokey than I have already been, we need to learn how to say “no” to the outside world and “yes” to our inner selves. We have the power to redefine the American way, if only we could become a large mass of focused individuals who have fully realized our own inner ability.

And yes, I got all this from five minutes on the can.

In my latest execution, I opted for the phone—yes, the phone. Before being sentenced to death by the American Dating Association, I shall present my defense. I don’t handle public outburst very well. If I were confronted with a situation in which I was attempting to maintain a composed façade while the poor girl openly weeps over a half eaten sandwich at Denny’s, I’d be most likely to crack under pressure, toss my wallet onto the table, and get the hell out of Dodge. Would it be that much better if I put it off until we’re in the car after dinner? Sure, it’s no matter that I just spent the last forty-five minutes smiling and lying through our last supper. I would have some leverage, though; I did pay the entire bill, plus tip!

Maybe I’m just desensitized to the various methods of breaking up. My famed two and a half year run was ended via a letter. A letter—typed! It wasn’t as bad as it sounds; she did hand it to me. In retrospect, it was actually a rather thoughtful gesture. It afforded me the ability and freedom to fall apart on my own time, in my own way, in the privacy of my own—well, our own—home. Falling apart involved me calmly and collectively leaving the room, calling my sister, and telling her, without tears, that we broke up. I never was much of a crier.

I guess that’s why I opted for the phone this time around. You have the freedom to go to pieces in your own way, without having to worry about an entire restaurant gawking, without having to drive home nearly blinded by the tears; you’re in a place where you always feel comfortable. Sure, it’s a copout and one is considered a coward for using the phone, but look at what you’re dealing with. You’re not going to get a positive response no matter which way you cut it. You may as well give the other person the courtesy to bury their face in a pillow and cry their eyes out. There’s also a good chance that there’s some ice cream in the freezer, too.

Breaking up with somebody is your last chance to prove that you really are just a cold, selfish prick. It’s very liberating to be able to openly acknowledge all those little things that you couldn’t stand and kept quiet for so long. The airing of grievances is so uplifting that you almost have a newfound respect for this person. You realize that maybe, just maybe, they’re not so bad after all. This notion is quickly dismissed the moment you speak with your ex for the first time post-breakup, and you are instantly reminded why you pulled the trigger in the first place.

Every relationship and termination thereof leaves a lasting impression whether we like it or not. There’s always a song or a movie or a simple phrase that takes us back to happier times: the brief engagements that felt right at the time, and the long lasting relationships that we never thought would end. The ones that mean everything until one day they are suddenly gone. They leave behind mental complexes, shattered trust and shattered hearts, and depressing, forlorn journal entries. These are the relationships that we spend our whole lives trying to get back. We search all corners of the earth and do our damnedest to find them, one breakup at a time.

We are so simple, and our greatest flaw is ultimately our lack of imagination. To think that putting metal detectors in school after Columbine “prevented” school shootings is a failure to realize that these murderers walked into their school armed and prepared to commit the atrocities which they did. A metal detector would have provided no deterrence to their ultimate goal.

We have to look at the big time line of the world. How often have subway bombings occurred? School shootings? Planes used as missles aimed at large buildings? These are sporadic, isolated instances. If it were happening on a daily basis, then there might be cause for concern. We need to focus less on patchwork legislation and more on fixing the underlying problems.

Believing that increased ability for law enforcement to tap our phone lines and collect our data would also assume that law enforcement has the ability to predict the future and find the needle in the haystack. This data would provide nothing more than an after-the-fact “we should have seen this coming…the evidence was staring us right in the face” reaction. It’s very easy to put the puzzle together once you’ve seen the end result, once you know what you’re looking for.

Had all of these post-9/11 laws been in place, could 9/11 have been prevented? Look at what we had. Some of the hijackers had been flagged by the FBI. On August 6, 2001, the CIA presented a report aptly titled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.” In the end, when there’s a will, there’s a way, and these laws in place do nothing more than destroy the very rights in which this country was founded on.

(As a side note, I just watched a documentary, “punk: attitude,” on IFC, and I felt inspired)

I work at a national retailer which will remain nameless for obvious reasons. A customer of mine was making a sizeable purchase for which he was paying with his check card. He noted that he may have a per day point of sale limit, which I am used to regularly handling (my own credit union has a $500 per day limit). The only way to prove this was to go through the sale and hopefully be approved. The purchase was split into two separate transactions for other reason, and the first transaction went through no problem. It seemed like smooth sailing…

Second transaction comes up declined. OK, no big deal, there’s always an option of signing up for a store card. No such luck. Being Sunday, we felt there were no other options because he did not have his checkbook with him. I noted that a lot of banks, especially ones with a large operation such as his, offer 24/7 phone service. Luckily, his did. With one quick phone call to the bank to request a limit increase, we should be alright and he will be able to go home happy with his new purchase, right?

Wrong again. Due to my ineffective manner of delivering the point, let me reiterate. He called the bank to request a limit increase to allow him to spend his money that he had in his account, and they denied his request. Let me run that by you again…they would not let him spend money which he had in his account. Access denied.

If you’re not shocked, appalled, concerned, troubled, worried, fearful, curious, and/or affected in any way by this, stop reading, because the point is lost in you. Look at the big picture…as we slip closer and closer into a cashless society, the fact that this is even possible at this point in the game is frightening. Sit and think of some extreme cases of abuse of such ability…something that seems totally far fetched and unrealistic, something that you may have read in an George Orwell book. Now read back my story and think about how far fetched it may have seemed fifty–hell, even ten years ago.

Remember, we are being lead by people who shit hundred dollar bills. Whether Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, whatever, we’re being lead by people who no longer appreciate the value of a dollar, who don’t understand what money means to the average person. The fact that it’s even legal for banks to do this, to deny one the right to spend money they’ve rightfully earned, is completely twisted.

The icing on the cake is that he was an employee of our federal government. The kick in the balls is that, after splitting the payments across different cards with the second transaction (and thus after being denied by his bank), he got a phone call on his cell phone from his bank’s fraud protection service to make sure it was him using his card…ouch.

I openly welcome any logical explaination of such ability banks possess. I’d rather not come off as a clueless jerk venting about a baseless argument.