21 Convention Last Year

Anthony 'Dream' Johnson wants me to let you know that the videos from last year's presentation are up for free:

http://www.the21convention.com/2011/03/10/jason-savage-t21c-2010/

Also I would like to note that my presentation last year reflects some ideas from an ebook that I read by "Sixty Years of Challenge." Massive respect to him.

7 Erotic Stations

1. Flirtation
2. Suggestion
3. Arousal
4. Seduction
5. Rapture
6. Satiety
7. Afterglow

1. Flirtation

"We can see all the elements of timing, not only rhythm but also a talent for both comedy and fashion, at work in flirtation. This is an art that relies far more on good timing that one would suppose."

2. Suggestion

"Your dreams become almost real as you swear you can taste icy strawberries crushed in your mouth, and is it because you eyes are brimming with a child's tears of delight that everything around you seems to shimmer?"

3. Arousal

"Now, as she stands in front of him, he can read the whole story in her posture, the lusty greed she has for everything in life, the indomitable energy, even the inflated estimation she has of herself that moves her toward the edge of derangement. Is it at this moment that he begins to see the future? He is perhaps startled for an instant at her directness, when she takes him by the hand, leading him toward the bed. But just as he is startled, his body responds in another way too...."

4. Seduction

"If the interest she focuses on him has an immediate effect, it is because she is not feigning fascination. She is rather, from long habit, studying him closely, with the same intense intelligence she has always turned toward life."

5. Rapture

"In her intense presence, he feels himself dissolving until, entering her mood entirely, he abandons himself to each ensuing moment of bliss."

6. Satiety

"What a sense of satisfaction he feels now as slowly she lays her lovely robe over the bedpost.... But it is not just the mechanics of what she does that has always impressed him. He has all he has longed for now, even what he never quite understood before that he wanted. It is not just that she had made him happy. He is laughing to find himself lighter than air. And she has given him a deeper pleasure too; as if reaching into the center of who he is, she has mined the gold that was deep inside."

7. Afterglow

"The reverie comes later. Perhaps he has left her sleeping so that he can walk home through the park in the cool morning. Or perhaps a few years have passed. Either way, the shadows under the trees are fresh with memory."

--Susan Griffin, The Book of the Courtesans

Transformation vs Change

In the realm of personal development, you'll hear two words pretty often: change and transformation. I want to make sure you understand the difference between the two. It's not that complicated but it's sure worth distinguishing the two.

Whenever you hear the word "change", one way you can understand it is this: it refers to changing your behavior or the way you feel. It means that you alter your actions or your reactions to them.

Transformation, on the other hand, means something much more profound. When you transform, you expand your dimensions to become more of yourself. I know this probably makes no sense at all. See if you can understand it easily with these two metaphors.

Think of a square. Let's CHANGE that square. It become a rectangle. It might also become a triangle. It might also become a circle. Or even an oval. Now take the same square. This time, let's TRANSFORM that square. It becomes a cube. It becomes more of itself.

You'll also find a great example of transformation in plants. Imagine an acorn. Through its evolution, an acorn becomes a little shoot, then develops a trunk, then grows branches and leaves until it's a full-blown oak tree that in turn produces even more acorns.

Throughout the whole process, the essence of the acorn is the same as that of the shoot, the trunk, the branches, the leaves and the offspring acorns. That is to say, the acorn becomes more of itself. It transforms.

When you change, you might stop smoking. Or change your eating. Your behavior changes.

When you transform, you actually expand. And with this expansion, several patterns of behavior and feelings will as well. You become more of yourself.

--Stever Bauer

Sexual Revolution?

Some stuff on my mind:

1. Thanks for Coming: One Young Woman's Quest for an Orgasm by Mara Altman.

2. Caroline Myss: Revolution, Involution, Narcissism, and Evolution

3. The current roco triple feature:

No Strings Attached

Just Go with It

Hall Pass

4. The hype over Ashley Madison.

5. Affair: How to Have Your Cake and Eat It by H. Cameron. Barnes

6. Lust in Translation: Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee by Pamela Druckerman

7. I didn't realize David Barash has written so many books...

8. A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s by Stephanie Coontz

9. Thy Neighbor's Wife by Gay Talese

10. Erotic Wars: What Happened to the Sexual Revolution? by Lillian B. Rubin

Choice vs Compulsion

There is a certain flavor to a codependent relationship that might be described as 'driven' or 'intense.' There is a compulsive nature to it. The members are tied to each other almost as with an invisible rope. The slightest move in one causes a reaction in the other. The positions are rigid. Every word or thought is guarded, weighed against the other's imagined response.

How different is the chosenness of an interdependent relationship! The desire is there but not the intense need. Love, whether for a spouse, a child, a parent, or a friend, is a matter of choice. Should the choreography require, the skaters can more about with beauty and originality. Each can stretch and grow without tilting or damaging the relationship.

Robert Hemfelt, Love is a Choice

Savage postscript:

Pick-up is dominated by the compulsion of the lower three chakras, seduction involves the choice associated with the 4th through 6th chakras. I assert that all relationships (even one-night stands) that result from the intention of pick-up are codependent. Like attracts like.

Here are some traits of codependents:

1. A codependent has low self-esteem. (PUAs are notorious for lacking self-esteem and attempt to develop self-confidence -- the shadow to 3rd chakra self-esteem.)

2. A codependent is certain that his happiness depends on others. (Look at the PUA's incessant pursuit of social/sexual value.)

3. A codependent worries about things he can't change and may well try to change them. (Look at the PUA's obsession with image, identity, personality, value, and status.)

4. A codependent's life is punctuated by extremes (Look at how PUAs cycle from sexual addiction to sexual anorexia and/or social addiction to social anorexia).

5. A codependent is constantly looking for the something that is missing or lacking in life. (A PUA is defined by his sense of lack, limitation, frustration, separation, scarcity, fear, worry, doubt, anger, and attachment.)

Intention vs Desire

There is a distinct difference between your desire and your intention. If you desire to return home to Kansas, you are attached to the outcome. Intention, on the other hand, is desire without any attachment to the outcome. You intend to return to Kansas, but you are no longer obsessed with the idea. Every twist and turn of your journey through Oz is no longer critical to your ultimate goal. You no longer feel the need to force solutions. By letting go of your desire and by participating with detached involvement, you open yourself up to infinite possibilities...

Joey Green, The Zen of Oz

Character vs Personality

The word character is from the Old French caractere and means "imprint on the soul." The etymology of personality suggests veneer and is connected with the Latin word persona, which was a mask worn by actors. Character is revealed when our masks are removed.

It's easy to tell if you are living from character or personality: If things aren't going your way, personality pouts while character remains unruffled and learns from the experience. When you are not in psychologically or emotionally safe territory, personality panics. Character, on the other hand, rides the vicissitudes of life with even-mindedness. Personality endeavors to extract happiness from its experiences, whereas character realizes that happiness is an inherent quality of being.

Your personality has been forged by the values of the external world beginning with parental fantasies about who you are and who you were raised to become, your education, your religions, your companions, all to assure your ego's survival and protection from getting hurt. Ego is an artifact that is used to fit in, to hang out in the status quo, an agreement with mediocrity that allows you to move and groove in the world without causing too much disturbance or being too much of an irritation.

Eventually, such an existence become sterile, claustrophobic, painful. The way out is to learn how to ultimately tell the difference between your ego personality that is seeking to survive and avoid being hurt and your character that seeks to confidently deliver your talents, gifts, and skills. Remember, the ego seeks to protect the temporary personality by projecting unresolved issues such as a sense of separation from the whole, lack, and scarcity.

Michael Bernard Beckwith, Spiritual Liberation