Making Love and Having Sex

There is a difference between making love and having sex. The later is associated with power; it involves acting, a performance, or a show; it denotes something external to one’s self where the verb ‘to have’ as used in the phrase ‘to have sex’ denotes possession, and therefore taking. To have is to possess and to possess means there is the possibility of losing what one has. To have sex means to participate in an action that is merely a function of one’s physical body where love and passion are on the periphery, somewhere on the outside looking in. It means simply fulfilling an urge, or a craving.

Making love is instead associated with a state of being; it involves sharing and giving; being open and being vulnerable. To make means to be involved, means to share, means to express; to make means to create (not necessarily life) where any act of creation is associated with what any two people put into it; the creation and the creators are one; participating and surrendering to something universal. To make love means to treat love, not as something outside of one’s self but as something that one is, something that flows from being completely accepting of and open to who one is. In making love there is no fear since one cannot loose what one is; fear and love are antithetical.

Age is Just a Number

“Age is just a number” is often said by people older in age to make the point that, though they may be old, this does not prevent them from being able to learn, try, and experience new things. However, this same phrase is never used by older people in reference to younger people or even children in order to make the point that, despite being very young and inexperienced when it comes to “life,” young people can and often do posses great wisdom, often greater than those who have lived longer. With age can come experience, new worlds can be discovered, and new ideas given birth, but only to those open minded enough to welcome change. One forgets that with age, it is just as possible for a person to have become more fixed in their prejudices and beliefs, from past experiences. Age is just a number, but we often do not acknowledge or accept in full, the totality of the phrase’s meaning.

Sick and Healthy

When person become sick, he or she makes a concentrated effort to do everything conducive to getting better, to revitalizing one’s health: one drinks plenty of fluids, has little caffeine, eats fresh fruits and fresh vegetables, has soup, takes plenty of rest, quits smoking, and stops drinking; and heals quickly and feels better because of it. Then, once this same person is cured, he or she goes back to all those old habits and rituals of consumption: drinking lots of caffeine, drinking little water, eating cheap and over processed food, takes in a lot artificial sugars, consumes alcohol, and smokes cigarettes – it’s as if the being healthy gives one a license to treat one’s body badly; to do all those things one knows is not conducive to being healthy.

To Want the Truth

Most people assume they want to know the truth about various matters. A person claims, “I want the truth.” But such a person never thinks to first desire the ability or willingness to handle what the truth may turn out to be. There is no point in hearing the truth if one is not willing to accept it no matter what it may turn out to be. One can ask one’s self how willing he or she is to accept whatever truth comes to light, and then perhaps, truth, far from being something unknown, instead turns out to be something one has been unwilling to accept.

Never a Broken Stick

By some kind of miracle I have never broken a stick while drumming. I can’t help but consider, “Why?” Perhaps I play soft since I generally play alone; there is rarely a need to play hard when there are no other instruments to play over. Let me consider how I play:

I like to hold the sticks with touch, that ability to sense the object without grasping it too hard. I don’t cling to it, but instead make it an extension of my body.

When I hit drums I consider what the drum can do and not just what I can do through striking it; I let the drum sing. When hitting the symbols, I never follow through completely.

The word is “finesse.” But I just don’t try to play with finesse; I try to be it; I try to exist in it.

Sequels

There are those experiences one has that are so profound and enjoyable that one tries to relive, recapture, and re-experience them. One tries to do just that, but comes to a realization that the attempt didn’t measure up, that it wasn’t the same, and that something was missing. One realizes that what they were trying to relive is a ghost; a past experience with particular circumstances that cannot be recreated.

Much of life involves such futility; trying to relive moments that have moved on, amassing new experiences that are not allowed to be as they are, and living for past moments and memories that can never be experienced in quite the same way again.