QUICK NOTE

Reading various stray articles from googling "neurochemistry" with "self-discipline", it occurred to me that (so far as I've read here) self-discipline is seen here as REFRAINING from sexual excitement or pursuit. This is striking to me, for in my own case, the lack of self-discipline is most obvious in the lack of pursuit - whether of females or of money or of success. For me, the critical value of self-discipline would lie in TRYING - FOCUSING on mundane tasks, ACTIVATING self-arousal with regard to work, and STAYING at it. Again, Diversity in beings.

Re the previous post - "Lunae Dies..."

Now the antidote for those male-female preoccupations is to imagine the soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, how hot, hot, hot they will be in their "clothing" and gear, how tired, aching, fearful, hard-hearted, and aching they must be as they strain to keep up, stay sane.

Lunae Dies, Veneris Vehementia

Returning to work this Monday, ill-rested, nodding off before the "profit center contribution" screen (my work pc), the morning shot, I give up and go out for lunch. The avalanche ensues.

I mean, of course, the flood, the cascade and chaotic cavalcade, of beautiful women. How, at age 56, can I still be astonished at the numbers, beauty and particulars of women on the street? A few is more than enough, but here are hundreds and hundreds, most all possessed of this or that sort of fatal charm.

This is silly; a female is a person, a living thing, a biological sample, with both species marks and unique flaws and endowments; that is all. And the supposed 'beauty' that I respond to is, after all, a complex of traits within me, part natural impulse, part learned values, part longing for adventure. Seen from that angle, there is, in effect, no beauty, only impulses and responses to visual stimuli. In other words, I should be able to change the subject and ignore the presence of the females.

A large part of the mystery is the fact of visual & physical proximity combined with near-total social removal or distance and my own fierce social alienation. That is to say, they are "all up in my face" presence-wise, but I am socially mute & valueless, and each and all of them are in a hurry to avoid needy males.

Nor should I even appear to be a needy male since I AM married to a decent and attractive girl. But, of course, I am - little has changed, really, over the years regarding my regard for female form.

As I said above, I should be able to shift my viewpoint & ignore the vital, curvaceous, liquid presence of the females. Ah, "Should", yes, yes. Despite my perturbation and over-stimulation, despite the sad one-sided ineptness & frustration, at heart I still desire the delusion of desire, the wanting, the impulsive unrepressed ache - despite its absurd futility.

I get so exercised over this! But that is life - a thousand promises, a thousand angers, a thousand fears. Out of that we have to carve a life.