July 14, 2013 I Love Persian Jews Luke Ford No sacred cows.

I Love Persian Jews

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Luke Ford

I love and admire Persian Jews. It sickens me to hear regular Jews disparage them. I think Persian Jews are amazing. Many of them came to America at, say, age 15, and then graduated Beverly Hills High School at 18, got undergraduate and graduate degrees at places like USC and UCLA, went to work in prestigious jobs, living with family until marriage. They blow my mind. I just love their culture, their rugs, their love of education, family values and traditional unspoiled mores. They’re not as jaded as Americans, and their women are more chaste.

I had a beautiful young married Persian Jewish therapist. She wasn’t religious, didn’t even know what a “Bet Din” was, but she wouldn’t let me talk about sex in therapy because it made her giggle and she lost control.

I love talking to Persian girls. I always make them laugh. I’ve never been able to date one. It kills me. I like my women a little bit dark, Persian or Asian or Sephardi or Ashkenazi with long black hair, preferably curly, and I like them Orthodox and chaste and shy and demure. I love to shock and awe them.

When I arrived at UCLA in 1988, I had the same type of admiration for the Asian immigrants I met. I was on the Quiet Floor at Rieber Hall and it was filled with Asians. Many of them escaped from Vietnam on rafts and now they were creating good lives. They studied hard. They honored their parents. They were hard-working, diligent, polite, cheerful. My roommate was Vietnamese. There were these beautiful Korean Christians on my floor. They were handsome, happy, hard-working, polite. I was dying to despoil them. They were such a refreshing contrast to the drug-taking spoiled Americans around me.

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Vespers Service At Pacific Union College

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Luke Ford

According to Wikipedia: “Vespers is the sunset evening prayer service in the Western Catholic, Eastern (Byzantine) Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran liturgies of the canonical hours. The word comes from the Greek ἑσπέρα and the Latin vesper, meaning “evening.” It is also referred to in the Anglican tradition as Evening Prayer or Evensong. The term is also used in some Protestant denominations (such as the Presbyterian Church or Seventh-day Adventist Church) to describe evening services.”

So, in January 1980, my step-mom joined my dad in Washington D.C. so that he could defend his controversial theological views before a meeting of the Seventh-Day Adventist elite in August.

I stayed behind at Pacific Union College in the Napa Valley with friends. I tasted a freedom I’d never experienced before. For one thing, my parents couldn’t read my diary any more now that I wasn’t living with them. Soon after I reunited with them that summer of 1980, I abandoned writing personal stuff that they could possibly find for the next ten years. It’s a sharp pain that I had to give up such solace in my confusing youth. I wish I had journals from my youth I could leaf through now. Until I got away from my home in July of 1993, I had to be careful with confiding my true thoughts and feelings. Many of the people around me could not be trusted.

My family came to Pacific Union College from Avondale College in Australia in May of 1977. I was 11. Before my classmates got to know me, they were friendly. Then after they got singed by my hateful words and actions, they backed off. I wasn’t the biggest loser in my grade. I was about average. I had moved around the world, but quickly found myself in the same place in the social pecking order.

My classmate Andy Muth in December of 1979 was forced by his mother to invite me home for Sabbath lunch and it was the greatest lunch of my life. The Muth family was so cool. I could talk about everything and it wasn’t used against me. You’ve heard of the movie The Blind Side? That’s my story. The Muths adopted me, so to speak, and I became a part of the family, a bit like Brideshead Revisited but without the dark side.

Unfortunately, I could not stay with the Muths for my last six months of eighth grade because my parents had already promised me to someone else, but I did become close with Andy and his whole family. They probably did more than anyone outside of my own family to civilize me.

One Friday night, I went to the Vespers service at the Pacific Union College church. I walked in the back. The service was already going on. I stood there and looked around and felt awkward and alone, my two most familiar feelings.

Then down the stairs came a vision in white — the beautiful Denise, the classmate I had a crush on. She wore a long dress. She invited me up to the balcony where several of my classmates sat. It was awesome. I was part of the group.

We sat in the back and talked all through the services. Christian services are very different from Jewish ones. They’re much more reverent and transcended. Christians don’t talk in church like Orthodox Jews (excluding the converts and baalei teshuva) talk in shul. So we eighth graders had to whisper, but it was great fun.

I don’t think any of us had any strong belief in the church. It was just how we were raised. It was our social community. I don’t think any of us went on to lead an observant Adventist life.

I kept going to Vespers after that and kept sitting with my friends and with my parents gone, I finally felt like a normal kid and I got to do normal kid things like sit in church and talk the whole time. If my parents had been around, they would’ve put a stop to these hijinks. My parents were fervent believers. Adventism wasn’t just a social group or a good way to raise kids, it was God’s will for humanity (after my dad got kicked out of the church later that year, he said we belonged to the invisible church of Jesus Christ, and he really believed that).

When I think back to that night when Denise floated down the stairs to include me, to invite me up to the balcony to join my classmates, I well up. There’s no better feeling than being included by people you like. Yeah, I know I say and do ugly things, but I still yearn to be included.

Fast forward to May. My class went on a long bike ride on a Sabbath afternoon. I attached myself to Denise. I adored her. She biked really hard up the hill and I had to struggle to keep up. At a rest stop, she complained to somebody that I was sticking to her like glue and I got the word and left her alone. When people like her give me an inch of friendliness, I try to take a mile.

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My Writer’s Credo

Posted on July 11, 2013 by Luke Ford

I’m reading Playwriting: Writing, Producing and Selling Your Play by Louis E. Catron.

I’m on chapter four, “The Credo”. It stopped me the last time round.

Catron urges you to write out your strongest convictions, at least eight of them, for at least ten pages total.

Hmm, reminds me that a few years ago, Rob Eshman, Editor of the Jewish Journal, told me to write out my Jewish beliefs. I shrank from the task.

OK, that hasn’t served me. Time to step up to the plate. What do I believe?

What do I love writing about? That’s a good start. What moves me? Where’s my passion? Which of my writings do I love to read? What makes me laugh?

What animated my writing over the years? What were my favorite themes?

The first theme in my writing was my desire for food — whatever I wanted and as much as I wanted. That’s what I wrote my first story on when I was eight. It went about 20 typed pages. I hand-wrote it and then my step-mom typed it and shared it around Avondale College and people commented that I seemed obsessed with food. My story described my best friend Wayne and I going on a rafting trip down Dora Creek, which flowed below my house. Before we left on our trip, we went to the Sanitarium Health Food Factory and bought all the food we wanted. Then we loaded it on our raft and away we went. It was like Huckleberry Finn Down Under.

Food was my greatest desire at age eight because yummy processed food such as peanut butter was strictly rationed in my house for health reasons. We were Seventh-Day Adventists and healthiness was next to Godliness and you don’t get health eating candy and snacking between meals and drinking water or juice, let alone, God forbid, soda, with your meals. It wasn’t until midway through eighth grade that I connected with the Muth family at Pacific Union College and got to eat and drink all the approved Adventist swag I wanted. That was a life-changing lunch that December of 1979. Think the movie The Blind Side. I was adopted by a loving family that allowed me all the peanut butter I desired and to drink with my meals and to talk about girls (my dad was completely against dating if you were under 18, and only for marriage after 18).

From age ten on, from fifth grade on, my greatest desire was for romance (none of that agape crap). That’s the thing I’ve yearned for most in my life — sex and love.

I’m fascinated by power and glory and meaning and the struggle for the good. Conflict, winners and losers appealed to me so much that during high school I wanted to be a sportswriter.

I loved history from about age eight on, particularly military history.

I became fascinated by politics with the election of Ronald Reagan when I was 14. With America’s economic revival in 1983, I got into economics for the next six years. I thought that was a key for me to unlock life. Journalism started to pall compared to the rewards of doing original academic research.

I loved literature. I read widely. I loved a good story. My step-mom wanted me to major in literature but it wasn’t manly enough for me. I wanted power, fame, fortune.

With CFS crippling me from 1988-1994, the search for meaning became primary in my writing. Then Judaism and ethics. Once I regained my health in 1994, my fascination with sex reared its ugly head and became supreme in my writing for the next 13 years.

What did I love in writing about sex? The humor. The outrage. The drama. The excitement.

Sex leads to love but when it gets out of control, it starts flirting with death. Dramatic stuff.

As I entered weekly therapy in 1998, after losing many friends because they were offended by my blogging about Dennis Prager, I became fascinated by human connection aka bonding aka attachment.

My primary themes in chronological order: Food, love, power, meaning, God, ethics, sex, connection.
My secondary theme underlying all other themes: Loss.

My therapist said that when I spoke, she sometimes got the image of a baby boy sucking on his mother’s breast, sure it was about to run dry. She said I exhausted people. I took and took and took, sure the tap was about to be turned off, thus bringing about the very thing I feared.

In high school, I started getting highs from breaking scoops. I loved the excitement, the adrenalin rush, the power and the glory of journalism.

What are the topics for my credo? Revealing life. That drives me. I loathe the corruption of power. I want to unmask the corrupt and write my own way to power.

I should talk about this with my therapist and get her to help me with my writer’s credo.

Writing is a way for me to explore my dreams. Writing is a way for me to gain mastery. Writing makes me feel alive. Why? Because I get strokes for it. I get influence and money and love and fame and fortune and attention.

Theoretically, a person’s greatest concern should be acting in accord with God’s moral law, but most people can’t live by abstract theory. Practically, a person’s greatest concern should be the quality of his bonds with those he loves. Happiness is proportionate to how close you are with those you want in your life.

Yet, my greatest concern is the quality of my work aka revealing life, even if it costs me bonds and happiness. I sense my lack of attachment and then try to justify it or deal with it by writing things that will keep me excluded.

According to Torah and reason, God is the one ends in life that you can pursue without diminishing yourself. God’s dictates are what is most important and what God most wants from us is ethical behavior.

From human connection naturally flows ethical behavior. The more connected you are, the happier you’ll feel, and the more righteous your behavior. You don’t increase your ties with others by cheating them. You usually have to disconnect from people before you can deliberately hurt them. You don’t hold your head high in the community by getting caught for bad behavior. Rather, good behavior builds bonds and your close ties with those you love constrain your tendencies to bad behavior.

* What is my strongest belief? Most number one belief is in God, creator of the universe, whose primary demand of people is that they act ethically (aka according to the guidelines of the Torah). God will reward and punish, both in this life and the next.

If there is a Creator of all, then it flows logically that He will have an interest in his creation, that He will want those who have free will to choose to treat ethically other members of creation, and that all choices will have eternal consequences wherein the wicked are punished and the good are rewarded.

Because I believe in the God of the Torah, I believe that life is meaningful, that life questions each of us every waking moment, and that how we respond will echo through eternity. You ever watch a movie and want to step into the frame? You will. Each of us will get to see in the afterlife a movie of our life. For some this will be heaven, for others it will be hell.

God wants us to be happy, joyous and free.

* My second fundamental belief is that people are not basically good, that people need moral education and organization, and that religion is generally the best way for people to join together and pursue the good life. Most people are better off (morally, socially, psychologically, economically, etc) if they are a part of a transcendent community (which usually means an organized religion) that looks out for one another.

* I believe that our allegiances not only bind us together but blind us to the suffering of those outside of our allegiances. Every close-knit group is going to have moral blind spots that you could drive a truck through. I attach to close-knit groups, particularly close-knit traditional religious groups akin to the one I was raised in, but then I stand outside of them in my thinking and writing. Because I value publishing that reveals life, I do this at the price of my happiness/connections/popularity/welfare.

* I value freedom over equality of result, freedom over democracy, but because people are not naturally good, I believe that civilization must have bulwarks that limit or channel personal freedom towards ends that are good for society and the raising of children (such as teaching that the ideal vessel for sex is monogamous male-female marriage, encouraging religion, distrusting those outside of marriage and religion, etc).

* I believe that people are driven towards human attachment but if they can’t do it healthfully, they’ll attach to food, drugs, alcohol, TV, sports, exercise, etc and addictions naturally tend towards destruction.

* Life is easier and happier for people if they believe many things that are not true (such as the traditional teachings of their religion or tribe, that their aging sagging spouse is beautiful, that their parents loved them, etc). Many false beliefs in the realms of the personal and the religious are not only harmless but positively wonderful for the believer.

* I believe that the less you take things personally, the happier you’ll be. I believe that you can let go of all conscious resentment against people, places and things. I believe that you can fake it until you make it. I believe that you can recover from addiction by, among other ways, working the 12 Steps.

* Everything we do affects other people.

* Arguments about matters of faith are a waste of time. Theology doesn’t matter much.

* “He feels things deeply?” Yeah? Every man is super-sensitive about himself.

* Every minute (after ten) thinking about the next life wastes this life.

* Evil people are as apt to see morality clearly as good people.

* Everybody has parts of his life that cannot be shaken by criticism and ridicule. That’s where you are secure. When you’re criticized and bothered, that’s where you are insecure.

* People instinctively know your weak points and they will push your buttons until you become secure in that area. Life will keep reminding you of what you need to work on. Life will also show you what you’re good at. When the pain becomes intense enough, you’ll grow choose death.

* Many perhaps most of the greatest things in your life will be given to you so long as people like you and find you useful (a typical perspective of the youngest child).

* Woody Allen says 80% of life is just showing up. He’s wrong. It’s no more than 20%. If you show up but are either incompetent or unlikable, you won’t succeed.

* Addicts will use everyone and everything in their lives to meet their addictive needs.

* People will always treat their own property with greater care.

* Whatever you subsidize, including bad behavior, you’ll get more of. Whenever you increase the price of something, holding all other factors even, you’ll get less. Demand curves slope down and supply curves slope up.

* Almost all ethical questions will be solved by publicity aka if people know what you do, you’ll take care to control yourself.

* Sharing and judging are different modes. You can’t be in one and do the other. You can’t create and edit at the same time.

* Life is easier, if, all other things being equal, you just go along with other people’s enthusiasms and show appreciation for their kindness.

* You can get away with a lot if you’re honest.

* People who relate to you as fodder for a cause are easy to spot and easy to use.

* Nothing significant is accomplished without passion and you can’t get passionate about something unless you believe it is for the greater good.

* People need to put you in a box. Labels are necessary because people are many and our time and brain power are limited so we need to file people in our mind according to categories. When people can’t put a label on you, when you refuse to conform to known categories, they’ll usually dismiss you rather than push themselves.

* It’s hard to advance your social status from second grade.

* The purpose of going to work is to help God’s kids.

What are my most powerful contradictory impulses? I want to pursue my addictions (aka women), yet God commands me to be holy. Life comes down to the quality of your connections with others and yet I’m driven to shock and awe. I want to be loved by the people I respect and yet I pursue distinction (aka difference) above all else. Judaism commands that I keep my speech holy and yet I want to keep it real. I need to connect to people to get the best material but to write it, I have to disconnect and risk my bonds. I’ve converted to Orthodox Judaism and yet I am naturally lazy and rebellious.

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The Best Things In My Life Were Gifts

Posted on July 10, 2013 by Luke Ford

Many of the best things that ever happened to me were given to me. My biggest scoops were given to me. At various times in my life, I got adopted by great people. I got this great job in 1984-85 cleaning and gardening at the Boyne Island Shopping Center. I more than doubled my pay by snagging this contract and it all came about because of Mike, a friend of my brother Paul. He got it for me. I read for about three hours a day on this job. It was sweet. On my own, I can work hard and connect with people but I rarely accomplish anything great. I can go along for years working nowhere jobs. Kinda scares me how little I accomplish on my own and how much I rely on getting given things. Doesn’t feel manly.

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How Much Confidentiality Should You Expect When You Consult With A Rabbi?

Posted on July 9, 2013 by Luke Ford

What expectation of confidentiality should you expect when you consult with a rabbi? For instance, with the priest in the confessional, you expect 100% confidentiality. But I heard the other night that there should be no expectation of confidentiality when you consult with the rabbi. I heard a story from a rabbi about a man asking him a question that indicated that the man had money. The rabbi knew the man had massive debts from two decades previous, so the rabbi later went to the debtors and alerted them that that the debtee now had money and they went after the guy and got their money. And the man was indignant that his confidentiality was violated. The rabbi said there should be no expectation of confidentiality when you consult with a rabbi.

A rabbi says: “This was a court case around 15 years ago in New York where a rabbi revealed something about a wife and she sued the rabbi. Shouldn’t be hard to find the details. If say the woman reveals she isn’t going to the mikveh, this is something that the rabbi will probably tell the husband about, just like if someone reveals he is going to hurt another.”

Another rabbi says: “Great question. It is worth clarifying when ever speaking to clergy – “this is being said in confidence.” I think the rabbi sees the entire community as his concern – and not just the person he is speaking with.”

Another rabbi says: “Nothing to write. There should be 100% confidentiality unless a life is in danger.”

A major rav tells me: “The concept of confidentiality of clergy is not a Jewish concept…”

I guess there are no clear halachas here that come to mind. It seems that the more western, more secularly educated the rabbi, more likely he is to give confidentiality and the reverse for the more haredi.

Rabbi Michael Broyde wrote: ” To the extent that the secular law is inconsistent with halakha with respect to these issues, the issue of Dina De’Malkhuta Dina (the obligation of Jews to follow the law of the land) invariably comes to mind. The halakhic parameters of the concept of Dina De’Malkhuta Dina are extremely complex and beyond the scope of this memorandum.[32] However, suffice to say that the concept of Dina De’Malkhuta Dina is mainly directed towards the sphere of taxation and certain other monetary matters (such as landlord-tenant regulations or certain creditor-debtor regulations aimed for the betterment of society [33]), but is not applicable when the secular law runs directly contrary to the exercise of a religious obligation. [34] Thus, to the extent that the halakha mandates disclosure of information, then disclosure is obligatory even if it will result in an inevitable violation of secular law. The discomfort heaved upon Rabbis due to the entanglement of secular law requirements with the dictates of halakha only serves to underscore the necessity for a more conscientious application of the free exercise clause of the U.S. constitution by the secular courts.”

Agudath Israel press release: ALBANY, NY — In a unanimous decision, the highest court in New York State ruled on November 27, 2001 that members of the clergy cannot be held legally liable for the disclosure of confidential communications made to them by their congregants.

The Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit brought against two prominent rabbis in the Lawrence/Far Rockaway community by a congregant who claimed they had revealed information she had given them in confidence. The rabbis’ attorneys, supported by a “friend of the court” brief written by noted Washington attorney Nathan Lewin and submitted by the National Jewish Commission of Law and Public Affairs (COLPA) on behalf of several Orthodox Jewish organizations including Agudath Israel of America, had argued that the rabbis considered themselves obligated by Jewish religious law to disclose the information, and that secular courts are prevented by the U.S. Constitution from involvement in matters of religious law.

The case, which grew out of a marital dispute, involved the wife’s disclosures to the two rabbis that she was no longer observing certain basic practices of Jewish family law. In such circumstances, each determined that Jewish law obligated him to inform her husband, as well as the court considering issues involving custody of the couple’s children.

The woman then filed suit against the rabbis, alleging that they had violated their duty to keep silent under the New York State’s “clergy-penitent privilege.” The rabbis countered that the “clergy-penitent privilege” was enacted only to protect members of the clergy from being forced to reveal, in court, confidential information relayed to them by their congregants, and does not grant individuals the right to sue members of the clergy. They further argued that they had been religiously required to make their disclosures, and that their actions were thus protected as a matter of freedom of religion.

Initially, a lower court ruled that members of the clergy could indeed be sued for violating their congregant’s confidences. That court went so far as to conclude that the rabbis’ defense – that they had been religiously obligated to disclose the information – was “wrong” and “outrageous” as a matter of religious law.

When the lower court handed down its ruling, the Conference of Synagogue Rabbonim of Agudath Israel issued a statement attacking the ruling as “troubling and dangerous.” In the words of Rabbi Dovid Kviat, chairman of the Conference: “To tell rabbis that they risk civil liability if they follow the dictates of halacha [Jewish religious law] in the extraordinary situation when they conclude that Jewish law mandates disclosure of confidential information is to undermine an essential component of the rabbinical function.”

The case proceeded all the way to the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court. Agudath Israel of America and the other Jewish organizations participating in the COLPA brief argued that the ultimate effect of a ruling against the rabbis would chill all communications between a rabbi and his congregants, out of fear of civil liability. It further made the point that secular courts cannot and should not rule on issues of religious law – in this case, whether the rabbis were correct in determining that as a matter of Jewish law they were obligated to reveal the information provided them.

The Court of Appeals, in its ruling, agreed: “The prospect of conducting a trial to determine whether a cleric’s disclosure is in accord with religious tenets has troubling constitutional implications.” Citing past precedents, the court ruled that “civil courts are forbidden from interfering in or determining religious disputes,” and concluded as a matter of law that the “clergy-penitent privilege” does not provide a legal basis for suing members of the clergy for violating their confidences.

Posted in R. Michael J. Broyde, Rabbis | Comments Off

Racism As Cultural Differences

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Luke Ford

When people want to live among their own it’s often called racism, but I see it as simply cultural preferences such as living among people who value peace and quiet, nuclear families, dedication to religion and education and work. Different cultures tend to comport themselves differently. I converted to Judaism. I’ve seen both sides. Jews are generally noisier and more outwardly demonstrative and emotional than WASPs. In my experience, blacks and Jews generally tend to be louder than WASPs and Asians, etc. WASP and Asian kids tend to be much more restrained than Jewish and black kids. When Jews of different denominations get together, they usually find they hate each other as Orthodox Jews and Reform Jews, for instance, have almost nothing in common. So much more so the differences between in values and comportment between Jews and other ethnic and religious groups. For Reform Jews, praying with black Christians is often a big deal, while Orthodox Jews, who are more likely than Reform Jews to live among blacks, have no such desires.

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The Fears That Block My Acceptance Of God

Posted on July 7, 2013 by Luke Ford

With the exception of my college years, I’ve always believed in God, the author of the Bible, but each day I struggle over how much of my life I want to submit to His direction. What are my fears in this regard?

I fear that if I make God king over all of my life, I will no longer be able to live on my terms. I’ll have to give up my treasured character defects. I won’t have as much fun. I won’t get to do the things I love and need to do to feel happy. I won’t get to have as many good times. I won’t get the worldly success I crave. I’ll have to make too many painful amends. I won’t be able to take the easy way out. I’ll get tired. I’ll have to humble myself. I won’t have time to do the things I want because I’ll be so busy doing God’s work. I won’t get to watch as much Netflix and I’ll have to be more discriminating in my entertainment choices.

When have I had the most success overcoming these fears? When I’ve been closely connected to Godly people I admire. Then I experience that the Godly life is not so frightening.

What keeps me from believing that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity? Nothing.

I think the way I relate to God was damaged by my foster care in earliest years. I came to distrust authority.

What do you remember about the spiritual environment in your home? How do those memories influence your feelings today?

I remember being unhappy at home and experiencing most of my joy as a child away from home, particularly the last six months of eighth grade. My home was filled with spiritual teachings. My parents strove to do what was right. My father was a machine for God. Despite this, there was little I wanted to replicate from my home. I distanced from my parents in my teens. It’s hard for me to consciously accept anything spiritual from my home. If I heard something as a kid from my father, it’s hard for me to accept it as an adult unless I’ve come to it my own way.

In what ways do I see God restoring me to sanity?

I’m less reactive these days. I’ve given up all conscious resentment. I’m no longer fighting anyone. I avoid personal conflicts. I take care to protect myself from people and places that put me in danger morally, spiritually, and physically. I’m not blowing up relationships. I’m more at ease with myself and with others. I’m of service to fellow addicts. I do fewer things that are destructive to myself and to others.

What can I do to maintain my emotional sobriety? Keep money in the bank. Renew friendships and support systems. Stay calm, rested, alert. Self-care. Give myself adequate time to get things done. Increase my contact with God. Go to 12-step meetings. Listen to 12-step lectures on Youtube. Take care to read or listen to something inspiring and elevating every day. Stay away from toxic people. Keep working the steps. Be of service to others. Pursue things that lead to my personal growth and are of benefit to the common good. Promptly admit when I was wrong. Pay attention at work and at everything I do (that could have a big downside if I don’t pay attention). Ask for help.

In what ways do I hope that my relationship with God will improve my life?

I want to be happy, joyous and free. I want to constantly grown and contribute to the common good so that I’m passionate and filled with motivation. I don’t want to spend, debt, drive or write (for publication) recklessly. I want to become secure. I want people to enjoy my company. I want to use my abilities for my communities, not against them. I want to heal my broken relationships. I want to make amends to those I’ve hurt. I want less depression. I want to stop spiraling down, stacking shame scenarios one on top of another. I want to attach to other people normally and to build a normal life with a wife and kids. I want to let go of my needless anger. I want high-paying absorbing work.

What is my reaction to the fact that recovery takes time, patience and understanding?

I get frustrated, angry and discouraged. I’m too close, I can’t see accurately the progress I’m making.

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What Are My Limiting Beliefs?

Posted on July 7, 2013 by Luke Ford

I need to track these, write them out, and challenge them.

Here are things I notice flitting through my brain:

* No quality woman will go for me while I’m deeply in debt.
* I’ll never a home.
* That the second half of my life will be as lonely as the first.
* It’s too much hassle to get a good job.
* That woman has her bitch shield on, it’s no use approaching her.

Where do I not value myself? Where am I limiting my life? Where in my career, work, income, friends and love life am I holding myself down?

What things am I taking personally that I don’t need to take personally. Neil Strauss says, “You are going to blow it if you take it personally.” I hold on to my rejections. I take them personally. “All I can be is the coolest guy, show her the most value. Be the high value guy,” says Neil Strauss. “Don’t make the relationship the focus of the relationship. Don’t be outcome dependent.”

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Something’s Wrong

Posted on July 7, 2013 by Luke Ford

My keenest pains are when I realize there’s something wrong with me, that I am way behind my peers (when people I know marry, have kids, get good jobs, etc). Growing up, I kept getting told I was far more mature than my peers but then I kept having experiences that told me I was far behind.

Due to my carelessness, I took Sophomore Composition class as a Junior in high school. It was mortifying.

At age 19, I had an open mic to the world, anchoring news on the weekend for KAHI radio. Then I dropped out of community college in the fall of 1986 to work in landscaping. I remember going around that September day in 1986 and dropping my classes and running into this girl I knew from the previous semester and she had lost weight and looked amazing in a mini-skirt and when I told her what I was doing, she said, “You were the last person I thought would drop out of school.” That hurt.

I remember driving up to Chico and landscaping around apartment complexes for students and they were partying and the girls were hot and I was covered in dirt, and the weather had turned cold, and I was miserable and Chico State was the number one party school in the world according to Playboy magazine. Landscaping was fun in the summer (except that I earned $4.50 an hour while these other kids my age earned $20 an hour as gophers, and I didn’t get how they pulled that off, why couldn’t I glide through life like the cool kids, connecting and making smart decisions and having a good time and getting laid and paid?) but it sucked in the winter and I quickly headed back to school full-time. I got myself together, transferred to UCLA from Sierra Community College with nearly an A average, but came down with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in February of 1988. On the good side, at UCLA that 1988-1989 school year, I could talk to world-class scholars such as Russell Roberts, an Orthodox Jew and economist. I felt like I was part of something grand. I listened to Dennis Prager on KABC radio on weekends and finally got some much needed clarity on life and religion. I learned that UCLA was considered a top ten university when you considered graduate school. I could be in an elevator there and hear an African say with downcast eyes that he only knew five languages. The UCLA football team was ranked number one in the nation for a couple of weeks. I felt important. I saw them thrash Nebraska at the Rose Bowl. Their quarterback, Troy Aikman, looked like me. He was selected number one in the NFL draft by my favorite team, the Dallas Cowboys. I read the Daily Bruin and felt a keen pang that my illness prevented me from contributing. This was to be the campus where I finally established myself, caught up with the slick and rich and popular and successful.

My girl friends read this one particular columnist in the Daily Bruin who wrote about feelings and running over a cat. They were crazy about him. I didn’t get it. He didn’t appeal to my linear way of thinking. I thought I was better than him, I just had to get well to prove myself. It was a keen pain. I wish I remembered his name. Did he become a writer?

Now my life is fine except for when I have to confront myself, such as on the Sabbath and Jewish holidays, and then the picture I see in the mirror makes me feel uncomfortable. The movie Greenberg hit a little close to home.

On occasion, I walk around the UCLA campus and wonder about what should’ve been, could’ve been. I run into the cool kids at parties and wonder how they glide through life, connecting and making smart decisions, and getting laid and paid.

How many awards do you have to win until you feel like a winner? How many covers do you need? How many TV appearances?

Posted in Personal, UCLA | Comments Off

Prisoners Of War

Posted on July 7, 2013 by Luke Ford

I’m watching this Israeli TV show “Prisoners of War” and this gorgeous girl, working undercover, throws herself at this guy to try to suck information out of him. And I’m thinking, I’d give anything to be this guy. This is such a sweet deal. She has such a huge incentive to be nice, I’d love a relationship like this. I don’t care that it is based on deceit and using, in fact, those are my favorite kind of relationships. I don’t care that it will only last as long as she finds me useful. It just seems like a good starter relationship, to get yourself back in the game after long years in captivity. I really dig controllable intimacy, where you get the simulcrae of intimacy but without the messiness because one of you has the power and will set the limit on how it runs and for how long. Afterward, you don’t have to feel bad about screwing things up because it always came with an end date. You don’t have to confront your neediness and your bad traits that doom relationships, you can just tell yourself, this was doomed from the beginning, I don’t need to learn anything I don’t want to learn, I’m off the hook.

I’ve long liked to date emotionally unavailable women because they were more safe. When things went bad, I didn’t have to look at myself. I didn’t have to take the blame. I had an excuse for all our problems. I could just take what I wanted and keep my eyes open for my true love.

Guys like me are just fine as long as we’re getting laid and getting paid. Either of those things stop, and we start falling apart. It’s called counterdependency and most counterdependents are men and most codependents are women.

“Counterdependency is the state of refusal of attachment, the denial of personal need and dependency, and may extend to the omnipotence and refusal of dialogue found in destructive narcissism, for example.”

My self-care went in the toilet when I lost Min Ho a few years ago. Filipinas really know how to take care of a man. She’d cook, clean, fix my computer, sort out my technical and mechanical issues such as inadequate blood flow. A lot of Jews I know have Filipina nurse GFs. Nurses make for great girlfriends because they’re into taking care of someone and they’re co-dependent and you can be counter-dependent, and in the beginning at least, you can just take and take until she wises up. I just bought this stationary bike delivered to my door in two days. I’ve managed eight miles so far, and burned 100 calories, about one-fourth of the calories of the chocolate protein banana smoothie I’ve been consuming three times a day for the past week. I’m plump tuckered out but kinda proud that I assembled the bike myself. It’s a nice change getting off my back to get some exercise (I was just bicycling my feet in the air for the past year because plantar fascitis and elbow pain limited other exercises).

I’m basically depressed unless I’m talking about sex. That’s what people pick up — there’s a deep sadness about me unless I’m talking about something that excites me.

Folks, if you want what I have, you’re going to have to do what I did.

Posted in Abandonment, Addiction, Personal | Comments Off