So by now we have all seen/read or heard people talking about Tiger’s apology. At first I wasnt even going to tune in, but I did. But I’m just wondering why in the hell he needed to apologize to US? Us being the public. His infidelity didnt harm us, it harmed his wife and family. The only apology that needs to be said is directed towards his wife. Why do we even care? Well..because the media bombarded us with this story ever since it broke. I ran across an article that said “On the 84th day Tiger finally spoke,” seriously? We were counting the days?!? It’s really not that serious people.
Im assuming his PR reps may have pushed him to deliver a public apology, but I really dont think it was necessary. True, he messed up. Infidelity is NEVER a good thing….but the issues that arise from his “transgressions” should have been kept between him and his wife. What is he apologizing to us for??? I wish him the best and there is no doubt in my mind that Tiger will be just fine. And as we all know Tiger is NOT the first athlete/public figure to cheat. He did what he did…what’s done is done! There is no need for the media to still shine a bright ass light on him and his life. We dont need body language experts to analyze him, we dont need all that. Let the man move on!
One person that needs to move on is Veronica Siwik-Daniels, the porn star aka Joslyn James, that Tiger had an affair with. She CLAIMS she was preggers twice by Tiger..but boo boo how can we prove that now?? Anway, I was watching Tiger on FOX and right after he was done speaking, they switched to Veronica and her attorney, Gloria Allred, who reacted to Tiger’s apology. I couldnt help but laugh my ass off at this woman. Why? Well for one Veronica feels that she deserves a face to face apology from Tiger….not gonna happen. Two, she is broken-hearted because Tiger lied to her about being the only one (aside from his wife), she quit her job as a porn star (she claims Tiger didnt want her to have sex with other men, on film or otherwise), she went into hiding and had no income. She feels as though she doesnt deserve all this…all this meaning…the hurt and pain that Tiger caused. Ummm Im sorry but I dont feel sorry for her. For one….you’re a porn star….Im sure you wont have any problem receiving income quickly…you’re a PORN STAR…you can get more work. She made it seem like she quit a Fortune 500 company….*rolls eyes*….You were/are an adult entertainer! And why the hell does Tiger owe you an apology? These groupies kill me! You voluntarily became a sideline ho, you knew EXACTLY what you were getting into. That man does NOT owe you an apology. You WILLINGLY put yourself in the position that you’re in. Girl stop!
Yeah yeah Tiger spoke out….and Veronica needs to have a seat!
But the real question: Where’s Tiger’s golf clubs? Get back in the game!
21
Respecting Oneself Is Far From Narcissism
0 Comments | Posted by Geo. E. Burks in Blog, Penman Lounge
I say to no one in general nor directly, I love myself; then a thought occurred, “Am I boasting?”
So, I asked another, “Hey, Am I boasting when I proclaimed “I love myself?”
He looked at me as to sized me up and ask me, “what you think?”
I answered, “that why I asking you. Am I boasting was my immediate thought after the statement?” He look around the cafe we was in and excuse himself, then joined a table with an attracive female sitting alone with no other words then “excuse me,” while pointing at her.
I was sure at that time for certainty that that question shouldn’t be asked again. I then given a quick thought about the statement and then felt a little happiness physically swelling within me.
I then loudly said in that public place, “I love myself!”
After that it didn’t matter what others nor I would conceived of the statement. The statement was one of those nice feeling emotion, which is a life of one’s own.
That old concern as defintive verb.
Hasnt lost any luster in any era by an occur.
Power politics within pérsonalized compromises.
An empty courage in the realistic eyes.
A signalized threat as our natural sorceries
Most religious are spurn for this nature’s inconvience.
Yet some does realized their own vanity under this mortality’s summarized.
With all gains are valueless to everyone’s priceless life with you live, you die.
Written by George Eddie Burks Of St. Micheal’s Church Post 201, Chicago, Illinois.
A man fallen from the edge of humanity. A speck in the food chain that’s too small to feed the smallest of mice or the petites of birds. A man left in mere nothingness, but surrounded by everything.
The mail man smiles and gives him a nod as he stuffs his box with more unplayable bills. The interest rates seem to eat at any payment he tries to make and the late charges are the venom that kills hope, kills progress. Sometimes he wonders how he got in this financial debt. How he found himself in this lake of bills and low credit scores. He thinks back on the purchases. The swipe of the card and that mental plan he made to pay it off. The self accountant, rounding up his expected pay stubs in his head and determining the pay off date.
The plan seemed solid until another swipe and another swipe made the plan a little more complicated but still manageable. The whisper of no interest for eighteen months brought in another fiasco. His home became false stated with all these lavish gifts.
He thinks deeper and catches the repetition. He has seen this before, practically all his life he lived in false wealth. An illusion his mother started as far as he could remember. He watched her, infatuated with her material things. Always living lavish ignoring the telephone as it rang off the hook with the bill collectors calls.
A home full of items she truly did not need. Four TV’s, three lap tops, enough gym equipment to open a Bally’s, DVD players, CD players, mp3 players, video game systems. Things she never used but always claimed she needed. The telephone continued to ring. Not becoming silenced until the nine o’clock dead line. He use to look at her, pay check to pay check, that was a life he was going to avoid, a life he looked down on. But many years later, as he sits on the porch of a house in foreclosure, watching as the repo men remove that 52″ inch TV. He takes a deep breath, and suddenly the phone rings.
It happened again. This time with Ray. Second Uncle to die. Second Uncle to kill himself. Gordie first. Now Ray. I knew it was about him when my mom called me. I knew what she was going to say. And I knew how he had done it. A loner who hanged himself. Didn’t come to pick up his mail for days on end. He was a spy in Germany. Climbed over the wall in the dark wearing black from head to toe. Started in the air force. Only had one love. Linda Miller in Missouri. He bought me perfume once. And when we were in Rome he put me up in my very own hotel room. He was the closest thing to a rich Uncle I ever had. He was Ray. The cranky bastard. Lovable, tender, shy, scared of people. Things I wish I could write to him now. That pa finished his book. That I want to study in Italy with Brett. That things were going to be okay. But he died. Brett says don’t feel guilty. You had no control over this. Brett played chess with him. He was supposed to come to Seattle for Halloween, but I went to NYC instead. We left him a message on his birthday. A message with all our voices chiming in. Happy Birthday. We love you Uncle Ray.
Pa came home after identifying his older brother and took off all his clothes. He arrived with no bag, I think he was on meth. He grabbed a plastic garbage bag and shoved all his clothes inside. “Where is your bag pa?” No answer. Just a slammed door in my face. Ma says, “he’s not doing well. Not sad, just says I smell bad.” We all went to bed and I dreamed Meghan put me on the phone with a retard, unable to understand that I had to wake up at two a.m. and didn’t want to swap suicide stories. God Ray, look what a mess you’ve made. I knew dad was alive because he kept rattling pill bottles from the medicine chest. Then later it was his snore that kept me believing he was alive. But what if he isn’t.
Today I found this story below while randomly foraging the internet. It’s rare to see a divorce story where the man did nothing wrong (to my knowledge) and loses both financially and emotionally. Did he neglect his wife to start a business if they both agreed it was the right move in the long run? I think he got robbed? let me know what you think!!
[ Story below by Alex ]
My wife and I were married for 20yrs before we divorced. During the last 5 of those 20yrs I had started a business and it boomed. Needless to say, to facilitate the tremendous growth I’d experience I had to work a lot and she felt neglected. At the end, I had to sell my business and gave half to my wife (after Obama took his share), or about $6M. In a year’s span, my children went off to college, lost my wfie, lost the business I’d worked so hard to build and am alone.
I know, I should get in line.
I just went to parent teacher conferences. No relation to the child discussed, just along for the ride due to a wide open schedule. And I heard a lot of things about a few kids. “Has done well, just needs to participate more,” “you have nothing to worry about, your child does everything perfectly,” and “he consistently arrives 3 minutes late.” Yes, she’s been counting. I couldn’t help but wonder what the point was. I never saw the point while in school, and now I especially don’t see it. When have I ever used anything that I learned in physics? Or geometry? Technical drawing? Really? I haven’t. Someone has, but I haven’t had the pleasure yet. I don’t knock any particular subject. I just dislike curriculum as a whole. Everything that I’ve needed, I mean really needed to know, I’ve learned on my own, or have been taught through the world.
I never learned about death. I never learned how to tell if someone was lying to you. I never learned that love is always conditional with most people you meet. I never learned that most of the love you show most people probably is too. And that people do die before their time, but they don’t really, because we don’t really know what time it is. Those lessons hit hard. Harder than a textbook.
But the third Matrix movie did help me understand that nothing can exist without its opposite. Clubs showed me that most people drink to escape, and made me look at what we we’re running from. 2 years of college showed me that it isn’t for everyone, but there’s a small amount of avenues for those who don’t fit the mold. Kids have shown me that everything is possible, until the world beats the imagination out of you. People who test my nerves have taught me a lot about my limitations, and more about myself. An illegal substance has taught me that we’re all just different cut-outs of the same fabric. Can you guess which one?
Now, that was through a pipe. I don’t know how you put those lessons into a classroom, or how you teach guidelines for truly unique experiences, but there’s no room for wonder. Everybody knows that not everyone is the same. So why do we have the same criteria for the masses? Who are you to judge me, mold me, place me in a box? There isn’t room for spontaneity or for life to occur in those boxes. As a person who never really fit, I don’t think there’s room for all personalities to excel. Not everybody sits comfortably at desks.
“Why does he need to participate?” I wonder that as I overhear a teacher telling a kid what he’s missing to be her ideal student. “What if he doesn’t care?” Because… I don’t blame him. I never got an A for helping to diffuse a situation, or an F for letting her off the hook when she used fake tears to disarm me when I was mad. Those things – reading people and situations, harnessing courage through your fears, standing up against authority when it needs to be done – aren’t graded. Aren’t given praise. But they are so advanced, that those lessons are passed grad school. They lie somewhere in a moment that won’t be looked at on standardized testing. Where is that kid’s gold star for not caring, and for not wasting time on things that aren’t important to him? That’s a lesson that I still haven’t been able to grasp fully. Ahead of the curve, he is.
I don’t like school. I don’t like what it promotes: A whole lot of sameness. I hate that it leaves out the differences. And parent teacher conferences are like the nail in the coffin. R.I.P. to personalities. And I don’t know how to fix that; just consider me a complainer.
From my days as an after school teacher, I know there’s not much I personally can teach. But I can offer this: Kids, duck and dodge the laws of the curriculum. And most importantly, no matter how many other people are facing the other way, don’t ever think twice about running towards what you want. Real life comes out of every one of those steps.
Some people are scared of ages. The ones you pick up are more of a burden, it would seem. Like it didn’t mean anything. I don’t doubt that. Especially when you’re reading symbols. The story is yours to create – No, not always. To tell – Maybe, if you wish. To remember. To personify – Yes. But experienced knees are such a hassle.
Some people look at ages as building blocks. Concrete, not the philosopher’s stone. Like that point will be the point. There, all things stop, settle. Come together. Perfectly. Not journeying there, but getting there. The point.
Life: Means to that End
But some people look at ages as ages. Who were you, really? It matters, in an encapsulated way. Someone said that our selves regenerate every 7 years. It feels faster now… So since birth, we’ve lived many lives, many lies and many truths. And there is much to take from all of them. Not definitions of self. Experiences of. Through a whole bunch of eyes.
But the key is, to only be there. Not seeing age as a burden, or a block. Not anything to run to or from. See it as a stage. Try to be aware of every word and most movements and it becomes something instead of. Something instead of another nothing. We get too concerned with how far away from it we are. This is it. And why would you want it any other way?
Carpe Diem
“I’ll steal you.” that’s what I told her. Her eyes looked at me with sort of a intrigue. Her lips smiled and I knew she was flattered. “ You’ll steal me?” she repeated, dimples penetrating her cheeks harder now as her eyes sunk into more of a seductive tone.
“Sure… you don’t have any security tags on you, right.” her voice exploded in laughter, breaking the silence of the bookstore. “ No I don’t.” she said under chuckles. “But I do have a husband that may put up a fight.” her laughter continued as I joined in with a grin.
This woman who only stood five feet off the ground, made me sore stories above that. In fact I haven’t touched the ground since I met her, and every time we were together the earth seem to move a little further from my feet. A beautiful woman of Asian descent, her shanghai accent still attached to each word she spoke, enhancing her wonder and inflaming my interest.
The laughter continued, as she slid her pale fingers along her forehead, removing the long black hair from her face. “ Do you like cookbook?” she asked. Pointing down to the one in her hand. “Like you, I like anything that has to do with food.” she smiled at me again and I smiled back.
Time had not seem to touch this woman in twenty years, although she was older than me, it could not be seen in her features. She would joke at times about how old she was, and how beautiful she use to be, but to me she was perfection, with a smile that out weighed gold. “ Big cook book, many foods for you.” the words left my mouth with a horrible Chinese accent. She looked at me and laughed, returning her eyes back to the book her face took a more serious tone. “This book no good… you get to fat.” the look on her face was priceless as usual and I blurt out laughing. This woman could change on the drop of a dime. From serious to funny to intrigued, her mind set truly marveled me. She would be talking about a topic, stop and then jump into another. Things she liked, things she disliked, things she loved, but in the time I knew her she never lacked a smile nor a laugh. My eyes scanned along the wooden shelves following the titles until stopping atop a diet cook book. I reached out and grabbed it.
“ Would you like this more?” her face held suspicion as I handed her the book. Eye’s pointed, she read along the title. “ Oh, this one is better.” her face held the same expression as she flipped along the pages, until finally stopping at something of interest.
“ Oh look.” her eyes expanded as she gasped out in joy. “ Shanghai veggie roll, sound good, right?” she flipped the book around and showed me the page, pointing to the enlarged picture of the dish. Her closed ended questions where a everyday occurrence, and I loved the way she got when I disagreed. “ What do you mean you don’t like?” she would become so animated, disapproving your disapproval. “ What’s in it?” I asked has I moved closer to her, the creak in the wooden floor boards applauding my advancement. “Spinach, cheese, onion, pepper..” she continued to read on but her words where lost to me. She smelled good and I became lost in the scent. A fruit concoction that tinkled the senses, just like a commercial would promise. “ Did you wash your hair?” I asked her, my words cutting off her aloud reading. “ Smell’s good right?” fluffing her hair with her hand, she looked at me and smiled.
In times like these I felt astray. My mind was conscious of our friend relationship but my heart beat for more, it raced with hopes of a conclusion. Either this woman could see my desires and maybe meet them with her own, or my heart would stop this foolery and reside to its normal state of nothingness. A simple thing, being no more than the tool it was designed to be, pumping blood along the body and supplying life to its inhabitants. A familiar existence for this four-chambered device.
Love had found it’s way to me twice before. Once during my high school years and returning again after college, but only for a brief stay. It was no stranger, but it was a companion who pursued different forms every time it entered your life. From the constant thought of the person, to the shear over enjoyment you had around them, to the way your heart yearned for them, love was a sickness with extreme symptoms.
Mental and physical affects reside from its infection, each person experiencing different exposure, but the final over bearing of the heart was inevitable.
I stood there, lost in here beauty once again. I relieved a sigh, unenthusiastic of the events next to come. My knees went limp as she touched me, and I prayed for this to be a crush and nothing more… Time will only tell if those prayers will be answered.
Rushing into action, you fail.
Trying to grasp things, you lose them.
Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe.
Therefore the Master takes action by letting things take their course.
Lao Tzu
This is what we are referring to when talking about a breath-centered yoga practice. Often a yoga instructor’s cadence becomes, “inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale…” until it becomes ambient sound and our ears habituate as we no longer pay attention. And at any given point you will hear the instruction: “coordinate the movement with the breath.”
Yadi yadi. Yada yada.
It’s plenty easy for your mind to convince you and your body to do a lot of things. The converse is true too– you may convince yourself that you have no control and you are possessed by your body by addiction or greed or whatever other deadly sin you might think up. These two things are true (and not just because I’m trying to promote the concept of non-duality either).
Try this: cat/cow vinyasa
inhale, cow
exhale, cat
Fair enough. Now breathe normally. Let the cow happen as the breath comes. As though the transition is in fact a function of the breathing mechanism. It is.
We are being breathed. The atmospheric pressure outside of the lungs and the pressure within the lungs is what causes the diaphragm to move up and down. Respiration is an autonomic function. You do it while you sleep.
And cat comes because you exhale. Bring your mind into your breath. The song is the breath and your movement is the dance. Freedom within choreography. Moving and breathing in a yoga practice is a celebration of being alive and capable–
bringing your mind into your experience
and being there
with yourself
the whole time
to witness,
to act,
and give thanks
just for that.
Now, try this:cat/cow vinyasa
(do this simultaneously)
inhale=cow
exhale = cat
(let the postures and transitions become synonymous with the word “breathe”)
The movement is fluid and the breath is like a river…always flowing…. Sometimes it settles
as in a lake
and the breath suspends
and the mind stops.
If we try to force our bodies to do things without first giving ourselves space to breathe, we will never be able to live in a place of ease and stability. If we fight against the currents around us, we end up defeating ourselves. If we try to hold on to all of our possessions, they will possess us. If we strain, we restrain. If we take shortcuts, we don’t understand where we are.
Practicing restraint in yoga is not about denial, it is about transformation. There is no need to bottle up. To be frozen in our emotion. Become a Master by moving with the energies that nourish you. Support yourself without gripping. Trust yourself. Use self-authority by receiving guidance from all that you are and can be. Pain and pleasure follow the same rules of nature–they each will come and go. Inhale. Exhale. Birth. Death. And the spaces in between. Before and after. Let’s take more time and find more space and live a little now and then.
