On the edge of the abyss.
I woke up this morning planning on finishing up my Social
Security posts. I have a nice neat quick package on how to pull together the
concept of the welfare aspect of the preamble and fix our useless bureaucratic
way we are going about trying to solve real problems. I am going to come back
to it again.
I got up ate breakfast etc and starting reading the news
first. Oops. This sent my brain sideways
after reading a couple of different articles and I am still debating internally
if I want to say which articles slapped me upside the head.
The issue is one that is hard to discuss. If you read my
blog regularly you know I can get on a semi high horse and be a bit moralistic.
Or I will say go look at yourself in the mirror and think about it. Well today
I have to tell myself to look in the mirror and am still struggling with it.
Yet the insanity is crawling up the spine and will not rest until I at least
make the attempt to rectify what I read, what people were commenting, and just
what does it all mean.
And even though I can get up on that high horse, I do try to
temper myself because none of us really know any absolute truths. And in some
ways trying to at least learn what they might be is one we way we, as humans,
evolve.
And I hate moral absolutes, does as much damage as having no
morals. Well maybe not that bad, but it ain’t good. Think about it, there seems to be some moral
high ground or utopian moral society that everyone should grow up, go to college,
get a job and after a year find someone to marry with both of you being
virgins. Oh yeah and live happily ever after. And if you have ever been 16
years old, you tend to think of this as being a bunch of crap. And as I have
also mentioned in previous posts, there is no utopian society and that goes at
any level. Yet having no moral compass or set of values leaves us in a vacuum
that honestly does destroy us at many levels of society and us as people.
People do not want to talk about this topic and if you have
gotten this far I commend your bravery or at least your curiosity. At some
point though what do we do to define ourselves?
Catholics are told when they go to confession to do an
examination of conscience. And Catholics are given all sorts of literature and
instruction as to what that means. Try
it sometime, like most of us you will probably find it very difficult,
impossible, or phooey. Yet we fail to examine ourselves in any light with our
relationships, our interactions with society, a value system, our family, and
whatever else you might indulge. If I
say, you must go to church and become right with God. It turns people off. Or
you will get up and say exactly how a person is to get right with God. Both
ways fail you.
So where am I going with this. The two articles were about
sex. Sex in the news and yep there were thousands of little posts to those
stories. And the gambit was run, everywhere from the moral extremes to people
saying sexual repression needs to be eliminated and we should all just leave
each other alone and everyone has the right to do what they want.
Well…….. let’s
take the practical immediate problem with doing what we want. Both in moral and
the secular world we tend to have some agreement that doing harm to another
person is wrong. Defining that harm in our sexual relationships becomes real
tricky or some people tend to think it is. Is it okay to view pornography, or
is it okay to view some types of pornography, should a 16 year be allowed to
date a 26 year old, when does the age difference become pedophilia, where is
the intent, how much sex is healthy and how much is promiscuity, and what is
acceptable behavior just among a normal married couple? And when do we as a society jump in and say
enough is enough?
Yet we do nothing/very little about even the horrible
aspects of these questions. Why isn’t the sex slave trade more of an issue than
the immigration question? This is significantly worse. The level of harm being
done to people sold into slavery and especially for sex purposes is one of the
worst crimes against humanity there is and it never makes the news nor our
politicians to do lists. Why are we afraid to tackle something that if
presented the problem most rational people would agree this needs to stop?
Or pedophilia? Or even child abuse? The harm to young
children is unimaginable, yet we assign the task to agencies that are under-funded
or given no clear mandates or public power to truly fight the problem. We make a headline every now and then catching
some ring of child pornography, but large scale public commitment to fight
something most people say is horrible is very lacking. Who are we afraid? And
for both, there are serious issues that need to be addressed. Is this mental
illness? Is this just a pervert? Is this a deviation from the human norm? Can
anyone actually answer these questions and yet we need to know so we can
actually combat the problem and hopefully end these horrors.
If we cannot muster up the public will to fight the worse of
our atrocities how are we to define what is a normal relationship? This is a
problem. What is a healthy relationship? I am betting most people cannot truly
answer the question. And this is not your fault. We, as society, just do not
try. Some people hide behind a moralistic truth, but that fails because we, as
humans, are given hormones and a brain that can go in an awful direction in a
heartbeat. Is this a free will argument? In some ways, yes. That is a different
argument for now though. The real
concern is we just do not teach healthy relationships. You can read volumes of
literature on the subject and do you have an answer. No. The experts all have
their theories.
You gotta love the word “theory”.
Some you can mesh around and come up with a working
definition of a healthy relationship, but something we instill in our young
generation after generation is not happening. And somehow we need to begin this
process. And as you are guessing how can you begin without a starting point? I
say that without an immediate answer, but I think most of us agree there are
some parameters that apply.
Example, does a 16 year old girl need an IUD? (calm down
this is an example)
First of all, if she feels she is going to be having sex
enough to need an IUD does anyone take the time just to talk about the
physiological abuse her body is going to go through. Having a ton of sex may
sound like fun, but it takes a toll on your body. And I am not talking about
the physical disease problem, I am just talking about the abuse of the body.
And why does she feel she needs to protect herself from getting pregnant. Is
this because of one relationship? Or what? And the same does apply for males,
you cannot have excessive sex without something being amiss.
Forget the moral aspect. Folks when children are exploring
this much sex there are some underlying issues that need to be addressed. It is
not healthy for children to be abusing their bodies without being fully mature
emotionally and mentally. Heck it is not good for adults. The need to satisfy
oneself with excessive sexual relationships means other aspects of your psyche are
wanting. We can’t say, oh you are
inhibiting his or her free expression because you feel it is wrong for this
person to explore their sexuality. The difference is knowing when some young
person may have made a mistake and letting their hormones take over (and we all
have and it will continue generation to generation so I do not want to sound
like a hypocrite, but it is so easy) versus what is this child doing and what
are the expectations of a person. We fail our children when we do not define
for them what are healthy relationships and helping children when they are
substituting sex or drugs or whatever for the lack of a healthy relationship in
their lives.
So is this what it is all about? Maybe, we need to learn how
to define what is a healthy relationship amongst us all so we can learn to
discuss when a child may need help or when an adult may need help. The stories
both dealt with young people making poor decisions about relationships and
unfortunately it appeared in both stories and in the comments by the thousands
that no one seemed to address what was causing the problem. Sex sounds
wonderful, and it is, yet it can become a horror when misapplied and we have to
accept that truth also. This is more about helping children become healthy
adults but since the stories were bad relationship or bad encounters with tons
of sexual interaction I jumped too much on that part of the topic. I hope though you see both points, that we do
not need to define ourselves by sex or some type of fairy tale aspect of sexual
freedom or social acceptance because of a “liberal” view of sex and it isn’t
just something that is okay in all its components and second to truly enjoy
each other we have to have a healthy mature relationship with an understanding
that our relationships are defined by who we are and what we do; not by an
inherent need in our DNA that is necessary for survival. And there is the flip
side, its true enjoyment can be wonderful for us in our relationships.
Remember Crosby Stills and Nash… Teach your children Why is this so hard?
And I apologize for this being all over the map. I fought
against writing about this topic all morning and so by the time I did the right
thing and stepped up to the keyboard I had battered this around in my head so
much I couldn’t recreate all the thoughts that fired off in those synapses
inside my head.
So love your family, hug your children if you have any, and
remember to love yourself first for this will make loving someone else so much
better.
I do promise to finally tie a bow around Social Security
with two more posts, one to address the welfare aspect and one to inspire us to
proceed with tackling the problem.
Our world folks, it is wonderful when we make it wonderful.
Or days like today that were made for us, wonderful warm spring day with a
chance of rain here in North Texas
And if you believe in miracles… GO MAVS
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