Tuesday, August 3, 2010

China School Killings

I am going to bed and hate reading these articles. One more, read my previous posts about school killings in China. I do not wish to discuss; but, see the pattern.

Writer's Block

Sorry all, I have writers block. I just didn't see any news stories worthy of writing about today. The thing to do when you want to be a writer is write anyways. We shall see what comes of it.

I think I shall talk about blogging. I wonder about those who don't know me and read this, what must they think. Then there are those who know me; but, may have been unaware of what my opinions and thoughts are.

No, I will talk about blogging. I saw a name. I received an e-mail from a social network that I never go on, it had a name. I knew the name, it was the sister of the woman I loved before I met the ex-wife. It made me pause. We meet so many people in our lives, some for a time and some for a lifetime. Never can tell which when you meet them, never can tell what the relationship will become.

Relationships are mutual or slavery. A mutual relationship has to be allowed to develop over time. Both parties decide on how much they will give and take. How much of yourself you will let the other person know and how much of themselves they will show you. The more intimate, the more each shows.

Blogging, if to be intimate, must be truthful. Not absolute truth, we all continue to learn about ourselves, your truth at the moment. I have written things and changed my mind later; but, when I wrote it, it was my truth. When we meet people in person for the first time we are more guarded then when we blog.

When I meet someone I don't usually start by telling them I have Herpes. Yet, people who read the blog and do not know me personally know that I do. Writing must be personal or it is very boring.

Being guarded when we first meet someone is not about hiding things, it is about establishing trust. Trust should be the start of all intimate relationships. People will have sex with people they do not know at all, for them it is neither intimate nor a relationship. It is sex.

A relationship develops over time so that the parties can gain trust and establish context for each other. If I tell you one opinion that I have and you do not understand the context it is easy to misunderstand the deeper meaning. We can very intimate with certain people in some ways and not in others.

I have a very dear friend. She and I went through our divorces at the same time. I love her very much and we are very intimate; but, never romantic. We chose not to be that way because it just didn't feel right and we liked our intimacy. Our intimacy was in openness regarding everything. She knows things about me that others do not and vice versa.

Our attitudes about relationships really define our attitude about ourselves and how much value we place on others. This brings us to privacy. Privacy is about freedom and relationship. If I invade your privacy, I deny you the freedom of choice and create an oppressive relationship, one of advantage rather than trust.

We dislike our government invading our privacy because it means that we cannot trust them and that they are not honoring our relationship. Spies are disliked because they do not respect privacy. When you are at war, you expect your privacy to not be honored by the people you are bombing. When you are developing a relationship, you expect your privacy to be honored. When you are truly in love, their is no privacy and everything is exposed because the trust has developed and you wish to share all.

In business I have often heard to say that I trust nobody. I am not that way socially. In business people must represent their businesses interests. This requires that they keep somethings private. Everyone, outside of my organization, knows quite well that I will protect my organization. I put it right up front, few doubt it and those who test it never doubt it again. At the same time, I have been blessed that those I do business with know that I will do the right thing.

Because of my beliefs in relationship, I have managed to develop healthy business relationships. Business partners are probably more open with me than others they deal with. I honor that and respect it. The best business relationships are where each party recognizes the others interests and respects them even when they conflict. When they conflict, it is a matter of openly dealing with one another.

Let us say that you have a company that sells widgets and I buy widgets. My business changes and I no longer need widgets, you would understand if I stopped buying them. If you needed to raise your price on the widgets, I should also understand. As long as both are open and truthful, resolution can usually be found and even if you cannot work together, the door is always open to working together in the future.

The same is true of personal relationships; but, only to a degree. In both instances we still have to meet our contractual obligations unless released by the other party or incapacitation. When we unilaterally violate our agreements, we lessen ourselves. We diminish our capacity for meaningful relationships. Spies never have healthy personal relationships because they must lie to their partners.

We need to learn to develop healthy relationships. We can only trust some people so far, they are meant to have a limited relationship with us. This is not always a bad things, people have different interests. The question is not whether or not we can be completely intimate with everyone, everyone is not ready at the same time. It is a question of having as much intimacy as possible with everyone, the degree depends on both sides ability to be honest. The weakest link approach to relationship.

If you do not trust women (or for women, if you do not trust men), how can you have a meaningful relationship? If you are just out for yourself, how can your business partners trust you? How much are you really trusted, do you know? I have had enemies and even my ex ask me for help, how about you? How trusted are you?

If your even your friends do not trust you, you should check yourself. Look at things the proper way, not from your perspective. If you lie, it is because you think people trust you and you are willing to violate that trust, what will the result be when they discover you have lied? They will not trust you anymore, you are destroying relationship rather than building it. When you tell the truth and it is inconvenient, you are building relationship. Relationships of intimacy are built around telling the tough stuff.

Well, that seems to be all I have. At least I wrote.