Husband Swap: Is Pleasure a One-Way Street?
Yes, I've watched Wife Swap. I'm not proud, but, I love watching people get real... and that is so hard to do around here. I live around a lot of smart people, and their polish reflects it. These folks can spend hours talking about their expensive vacations, high-paying jobs, all the activities they buy for their kids...who the fuck cares? The interesting stuff is below and if they're in touch with it, which I often doubt (how sad is that?), they sure know how to keep it under gloss. When I was in HS, I was a huge jock, cheerleader, gymnast, went to huge parties of 500 kids every weekend...in the summer, every night. It was similar to here, big, superficial. But, before I was lured into the jock popularity scene, which, believe me, was fun, I hung out with the "field rats", so-called because we would meet in the field at night, get high & get real as only High Schoolers can. We would have "bullshit sessions" which were anything but. We would sit around and tell each other exactly what we thought of each other, and I mean really. We pulled no punches. It was brutal, but real. Reality does have the less pretty emotions and I guess that's why folks avoid it. But again, there is a cost. Now I see it more clearly with all these adults around me who wouldn't know a genuine feeling or an original thought if it bit them. They can't really talk to each other, and, after doing that long enough, they can't even talk to themselves in an authentic way. But, again, I digress.
For those of you uninitiated with this particular slice of life, the show is not nearly as sexual as one would think, from the title. Usually they swap wives. They take two radically disparate families and, you got it, swap the wives. They spend the first week trying to acclimate. You watch the neat freak in some pigsty trying to cope, or some fundamentalist dealing with devil-worshippers...the permutations are endless, and to be honest, I've only watched the show twice, but I can only imagine what they can come up with. The next week the new wife sets the rules and now the rest of the family tries to adjust. The adults may try to bend but the kids, who have probably been advised by their lawyers that, as minors, they can void contracts, say no fuckin way! My daughter and I usually laugh our asses off at that point. Speaking of points, I am on my way to making one here.
The last show traded hubbies. One had a beard down to what should have been his waist and one of the biggest Harleys I've ever seen. He put the wife in leathers, got her slingin drinks at the biker bar and took her out into the Rockies on that bike....she loved it! He took the kids, who had never seen TV or tasted candy, to an amusement park, and you can only imagine the joy on these kids' faces. It was at this point I explained to my daughter that we were able to keep candy and commercial TV away from her older brother till he was three, but she was tainted as an infant cause she did have an older brother. I made some effort, as an idealistic first-time mom, to insulate my son, but couldn't keep it up long.
The other guy was some squirrelly little tight ass control freak who justified it by his high minded ideals of saving the planet. I've met lots like him, though the justification varies. His new family despised him, though they did enjoy the party he made them throw. Apparently, they were not part of their own community beforehand, and they did appreciate his very real contribution there. So, now do you understand my original question? Is pleasure a one-way street? It's very easy to go from an aesthetic lifestyle to a more pleasant one. It's very, very hard to go the other way. Maybe this is why some people don't go down the street at all, they're afraid there's no way back. OK, it's time to discuss the marshmallow test. I've been meaning to do it.
They put a five year old in a room alone with a marshmallow. They tell the kid, if you don't eat the marshmallow... when I get back, you'll get another. Some kids are able to sit and look at that yummy marshmallow, in that boring empty room, and wait for the tester to come back with that second treat. What they found is that the kids who could do it, did remarkably well in life compared to the treat tasters. This is a classic psychological experiment because it was so accurately predictive of adult "success" at a young age. The factor is obvious. It's all about deferred gratification. Those who can defer gratification tend to do very well in school and the workplace. Why? They are able to grind along, working their brains out for a pay-off way far in their future. That is what it takes to "succeed" in this world. Now, you just know what my next question is. What is the cost? What if the success never feels as good as the pleasure would have, because you spent a lifetime denying your true needs in order to get that huge payout at the end? Yes, we all need money to survive, but is the money enough to compensate for what has been lost? And what if you don't even know what has been lost? Is that better? Maybe it is. Maybe those little girls would have had a happier childhood if biker man never gave them that cotton candy. Now, when stiff ass dad comes back, they're gonna miss the fun and joy. What does God want from us? Denial or indulgence? Definitely some indulgence. God put marijuana, which grows like a weed, on the earth for us to enjoy and expand our consciousness. Sugar is sweet, grows out of the ground, in cane, everyone loves it. Sex feels great..or should...god gave us bodies with feelings we can enjoy. Was this all to trap us, as the Christian twist on Adam and Eve would have us believe? Well, a lot of people seem to think so, and they usually have little songs and sayings to convince us. On the other wife-swap I saw, the
Christian-"right" mom told the new dad he should chew up a Snickers bar, get snot all over it, show it to his teenage daughter and tell her this is what she will be if she has sex before marriage. Squirrel guy made the new family sing some little Yoga song (Yoga is great, the song definitely was not). They have their tools, God has his. It's called nature, connection, joy.
We are meant to have joy. Not in an irresponsible, selfish way. But, if we cannot enjoy the bodies god gave us, the wonderful things all around us... then gratification has been deferred too long, and no amount of money can bring back those years of self-denial that have been lost. I gave up good sex for some 16 years, and, it actually did make me cry, real tears, when I thought of it, even though those 16 years held great happiness and accomplishment. We all make trade-offs. Just be aware of what you're trading off.
I guess I should try to answer my own question here. I don't know about one-way street, I think it's more like a river and when you try to fight your natural inclination toward fulfillment & joy, it feels like swimming upstream. And when you are fulfilling yourself, and you can still make money doing this, you are in the flow, swimming downstream, going with it, not standing there as life flows by. This is what Taoism and Zen emphasize. I know people who stood at the corner of that one-way street all their lives and died there. They saw others in the street, or river,or whatever, and stood by in judgement, never venturing in. Why? Because of the sin there? Fear? Ignorance? I see others now on the way to that end-up. Me? I'm in there, I'll wave happily as I go by, and wish all could be in there too. I don't see why everyone can't be, it's so much more fun that way. So, let the funky adventure begin. Jump in, the water's warm.
Now, here's the postscript topper on these shows. Apparently, there are two of them and one is suing the other for copyright infringement. You know, I want a copyright on reality. If anyone uses it, they will have to pay up. I'll be richer than Gates. It's all about who can own the lingua franca...right?
For those of you uninitiated with this particular slice of life, the show is not nearly as sexual as one would think, from the title. Usually they swap wives. They take two radically disparate families and, you got it, swap the wives. They spend the first week trying to acclimate. You watch the neat freak in some pigsty trying to cope, or some fundamentalist dealing with devil-worshippers...the permutations are endless, and to be honest, I've only watched the show twice, but I can only imagine what they can come up with. The next week the new wife sets the rules and now the rest of the family tries to adjust. The adults may try to bend but the kids, who have probably been advised by their lawyers that, as minors, they can void contracts, say no fuckin way! My daughter and I usually laugh our asses off at that point. Speaking of points, I am on my way to making one here.
The last show traded hubbies. One had a beard down to what should have been his waist and one of the biggest Harleys I've ever seen. He put the wife in leathers, got her slingin drinks at the biker bar and took her out into the Rockies on that bike....she loved it! He took the kids, who had never seen TV or tasted candy, to an amusement park, and you can only imagine the joy on these kids' faces. It was at this point I explained to my daughter that we were able to keep candy and commercial TV away from her older brother till he was three, but she was tainted as an infant cause she did have an older brother. I made some effort, as an idealistic first-time mom, to insulate my son, but couldn't keep it up long.
The other guy was some squirrelly little tight ass control freak who justified it by his high minded ideals of saving the planet. I've met lots like him, though the justification varies. His new family despised him, though they did enjoy the party he made them throw. Apparently, they were not part of their own community beforehand, and they did appreciate his very real contribution there. So, now do you understand my original question? Is pleasure a one-way street? It's very easy to go from an aesthetic lifestyle to a more pleasant one. It's very, very hard to go the other way. Maybe this is why some people don't go down the street at all, they're afraid there's no way back. OK, it's time to discuss the marshmallow test. I've been meaning to do it.
They put a five year old in a room alone with a marshmallow. They tell the kid, if you don't eat the marshmallow... when I get back, you'll get another. Some kids are able to sit and look at that yummy marshmallow, in that boring empty room, and wait for the tester to come back with that second treat. What they found is that the kids who could do it, did remarkably well in life compared to the treat tasters. This is a classic psychological experiment because it was so accurately predictive of adult "success" at a young age. The factor is obvious. It's all about deferred gratification. Those who can defer gratification tend to do very well in school and the workplace. Why? They are able to grind along, working their brains out for a pay-off way far in their future. That is what it takes to "succeed" in this world. Now, you just know what my next question is. What is the cost? What if the success never feels as good as the pleasure would have, because you spent a lifetime denying your true needs in order to get that huge payout at the end? Yes, we all need money to survive, but is the money enough to compensate for what has been lost? And what if you don't even know what has been lost? Is that better? Maybe it is. Maybe those little girls would have had a happier childhood if biker man never gave them that cotton candy. Now, when stiff ass dad comes back, they're gonna miss the fun and joy. What does God want from us? Denial or indulgence? Definitely some indulgence. God put marijuana, which grows like a weed, on the earth for us to enjoy and expand our consciousness. Sugar is sweet, grows out of the ground, in cane, everyone loves it. Sex feels great..or should...god gave us bodies with feelings we can enjoy. Was this all to trap us, as the Christian twist on Adam and Eve would have us believe? Well, a lot of people seem to think so, and they usually have little songs and sayings to convince us. On the other wife-swap I saw, the
Christian-"right" mom told the new dad he should chew up a Snickers bar, get snot all over it, show it to his teenage daughter and tell her this is what she will be if she has sex before marriage. Squirrel guy made the new family sing some little Yoga song (Yoga is great, the song definitely was not). They have their tools, God has his. It's called nature, connection, joy.
We are meant to have joy. Not in an irresponsible, selfish way. But, if we cannot enjoy the bodies god gave us, the wonderful things all around us... then gratification has been deferred too long, and no amount of money can bring back those years of self-denial that have been lost. I gave up good sex for some 16 years, and, it actually did make me cry, real tears, when I thought of it, even though those 16 years held great happiness and accomplishment. We all make trade-offs. Just be aware of what you're trading off.
I guess I should try to answer my own question here. I don't know about one-way street, I think it's more like a river and when you try to fight your natural inclination toward fulfillment & joy, it feels like swimming upstream. And when you are fulfilling yourself, and you can still make money doing this, you are in the flow, swimming downstream, going with it, not standing there as life flows by. This is what Taoism and Zen emphasize. I know people who stood at the corner of that one-way street all their lives and died there. They saw others in the street, or river,or whatever, and stood by in judgement, never venturing in. Why? Because of the sin there? Fear? Ignorance? I see others now on the way to that end-up. Me? I'm in there, I'll wave happily as I go by, and wish all could be in there too. I don't see why everyone can't be, it's so much more fun that way. So, let the funky adventure begin. Jump in, the water's warm.
Now, here's the postscript topper on these shows. Apparently, there are two of them and one is suing the other for copyright infringement. You know, I want a copyright on reality. If anyone uses it, they will have to pay up. I'll be richer than Gates. It's all about who can own the lingua franca...right?
posted by Intervision at 7:05 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home