4. Imágenes importantes en Samsara

Cuando las mujeres hablan de la liberación de las mujeres, realmente lo que parece es un asunto de igualdades de cara al mercado, pero eso es como poner el carro delante del caballo. El problema es la proyección de la imagen de la mujer. La vida puede ser dividida en tres distintas áreas de interacción entre hombres y mujeres: hogar, trabajo y diversión. Que no quede duda de que la imagen proyectada por la mujer en estas tres áreas es distinta a la de los hombres. Los atletas venden su imagen igual que lo hacen las estrellas de Hollywood, las top models y cualquiera que esté en las noticias, pero estas imágenes tienen una cosa en común. Son todas estereotipadas. Las imágenes de los hombres es de dos tipos. La primera es la de un hombre guapo y robusto, aunque sin exageración musculosa, aunque hay excepciones. La segunda es la del tipo "interesante". Claramente, la imagen es usada para vender un producto. ¿Quién compra esa imagen? Las mujeres, por supuesto. Claramente, si no fuera eso lo que ellas desean, las ventas no saldrían.

Así que no hay nada asombroso ahí. A las mujeres les gustan los hombres fuertes e interesantes. ¿Eres tú un hombre fuerte e interesante? Entonces, ¿por qué está ella contigo si lo que busca es otra cosa? Tú no puedes hacer mucho con el hecho de ser guapo o fuerte, pero ser más interesante es posible. Así que, ¿de qué va eso de la característica "interesante"? No es ser igual que cualquier otro idiota. Es estar vivo y serlo sin intentar ser realmente diferente. Eso en sí mismo te hará diferente.

Jack London dijo: "Prefiero ser cenizas que polvo. Prefiero que mi chispa acabe en una hoguera viva que ahogada en una podredumbre seca. Prefiero ser un meteorito superlativo, y que cada átomo de mí resplandeciera, a ser un planeta permanentemente dormido. El hombre sirve para vivir, no para existir. No debería gastar mis días tratando de prolongarlos. Debería usar mi tiempo."

Todo el mundo alrededor tuyo está en un estado de "podredumbre seca" o como un planeta aburrido y durmiente. Si pudieras elevarte un poco podrías ser interesante. Una persona es interesante si es diferente.

¿Has coleccionado alguna vez sellos? En 1841, en Hawai, el gobierno nativo imprimió unos pocos. El más raro de todos los sellos valía dos céntimos, pero en 1890 solo existían quince. Lo raro es interesante. Un francés que era coleccionista robó uno a su mejor amigo cuando este se negaba a venderle la única copia de uno de estos sellos. Cuando eres diferente, eres raro y solicitado como lo es ese sello. Un hombre podría matar por un sello, pero ten cuidado porque muchos hombres se pueden encontrar con que su rareza sea fatal cuando el coleccionista es una mujer celosa...

Tal vez hace un tiempo alguna mujer te eligió. Eras brillante y tenías buen aspecto, quizá no valieras mucho pero fuiste coleccionado. Luego el romance terminó. ¿Describe eso alguna situación que conozcas? Ella, como aquel muchacho, encontró un sello de un céntimo en 1873 de color magenta de la Guayana Británica. Eso eracomo tú. No valía mucho pero era atractivo. Todo el mundo es atractivo a alguien. Él no sabía su valor o se cansó de ello. Lo vendió por unos seis céntimos.

¿Conoce ella tu valor? ¿Cuánto piensa ella que vales? ¿Cuántas veces escuchan los hombres las palabras "no vales ni un duro"? En cualquier caso, el niño vendió el sello por lo que pensaba que era lo que valía. Se vendió después por doscientos ochenta dólares. Tú probablemente no vales mucho, excepto como valor sentimental, así que observemos qué puede suceder. Lo primero, ella no quiere venderte porque no ha encontrado nada mejor y, después de todo, ella misma está también un poco sobrevalorada. Al fin y al cabo, tú eres el hombre de la casa, y un hábito.

Sí, originalmente eras interesante, pero últimamente te han dicho durante tanto tiempo que estás en el estante polvoriento y fuera del pedestal, que piensas que tu vida está acabada. Quizá por un momento, en alguna parte, en tiempos pasados, por alguna razón desconocida, te tropezaste y tu antiguo yo brillara por un momento. Tú sabes que puede haber sucedido, alguien más, incluso alguien joven puede aparecer de repente desde ninguna parte y podría ver tú auténtico valor y encontrarte interesante.

Esta nueva muchacha te encontrará tan interesante que no podrá imaginar por qué no eres apreciado. Olvidarás, por supuesto, que ella es otra mujer más y te reanimarás y volverás a sentirte joven de nuevo. Quizá incluso tirarás ese estúpido suéter, la camisa o la corbata que has estado llevando los últimos años y te compres unos vaqueros y una camiseta de los Rolling Stones de esas que llevan una enorme lengua, quizá como la tuya. Ella está deseando pagar el precio. Te sientes valorado de nuevo. Pero el juego humano, mi tontito amigo, no es como el juego de los sellos. Tu dueña puede que llegue a abandonarte hasta la muerte, amigo mío. Puede que no tenga mucho tiempo para ti. Ella podría pensar que no vales mucho, pero en el momento en que alguien te valore, ella querrá que vuelvas y gritará "asesino" si no vuelves corriendo. Serás declarado como de poco fiar. Serás una rata. Un perdedor para sus hijos. Ella te lanzará los libros. Nadie querrá saber cómo te sentiste de devaluado. ¿Qué hiciste para ser tan devaluado? ¿Te diste cuenta de que a las mujeres les gustan los gatos? Bueno, pues mira esta pequeña joya de Jay Leno, actor del Tonight Show:

"Nunca entendí por qué las mujeres aman tanto a los gatos. Los gatos son independientes, no escuchan, no atienden cuando les llamas, les gusta estar fuera toda la noche, y cuando están en casa les gusta estar solos y dormir. En otras palabras, todas las cualidades que ellas odian en los hombres, a ellas les encanta en los gatos."

Esa es la vida con las mujeres, amigo. Entra en el coche y luego tendrás que sacarte a ti mismo.

Pero todavía no estás encadenado. Estarás, como un tonto, buscando. Pero sin suerte. Es porque todavía no has pillado cómo ser interesante. En 1918 en EEUU, se imprimió un sello de correo aéreo. Creo que valía unos 8 céntimos. Había miles. Nadie los quiere hoy. Pero una sábana de los mismos se imprimió con el biplano "Jenny" volando al revés. Un comprador avispado compró la sábana de cien sellos por $24. Imagínatelo. Eso era a veinticuatro céntimos cada uno. Cada sello hoy en día vale más de 42.500 dólares.

Tú, espero, has captado el punto. Tienes que ser interesante y diferente. Pero no te creas por un momento que el truco de volar al revés te va a funcionar. Ser interesante es más que eso. Es ser una criatura humana masculina que se ha descubierto a sí mismo en dos aspecto que a las mujeres les parecen importantes. Uno es la capacidad del sentido del humor, particularmente la de reírse de uno mismo, y la otra es la capacidad de ser curioso y creativo.

Pero ten cuidado, pues aunque uno debe ser capaz de reírse de su propia tontería, uno debe hacerlo desde una posición de fuerza y no simplemente como una máscara. Eso significa que realmente tienes que ser capaz de ver profundamente dentro de ti mismo y ver la tontería. Pero entonces el problema es que debes preguntarte por qué estás con ella. ¡Oh, en qué mundo más enredado vivimos, que practicamos para engañar! Ése es el problema, como ves. Y tú ahora, a cada segundo del día, estás tejiendo una red de decepción. ¿Quién eres realmente? No lo sabes. ¿A dónde vas? No lo sabes. ¿Qué haces? ¿Qué has hecho? ¿Realmente le llamas a toda esa colección de mentiras y máscaras que has construido la cosa que has hecho? Crees que San Pedro está ahí esperando con un libro titulado "Juan Pérez" y va a mirar en las páginas y verá que has trabajado para la General Motors y dirá: "Bien, fue un buen trabajador como para dejarle entrar". No, amigo, lo que dirá es: "¿Dónde estuvo tu compasión y benevolencia?"

No importa nada si apoyaste a Green Peace, adoptaste un niño de la India enviándole dinero cada mes, o que cuando fuiste un boy scout ayudaste a las ancianitas a cruzar la calle. No, tengo malas noticias para ti. El anciano San Pedro va a mirar todas esas intenciones e intentos de "ser un buen tío" y dirá que sabe lo que estabas pensando en realidad. Espero que tengas un buen conjunto de amianto para llevar cuando abandones al supuesto Espíritu Santo que te da ese halo hecho de espagueti que se disuelve en cuanto llueve.

Él te dirá: "háblame de esas mujeres". ¡Vaya tema de perdedores!, para un ángel que interroga a un hombre que está muerto e intenta entrar en el cielo, para tener un momento de paz lejos de las mujeres y con suerte poder jugar con los ángeles al futbolín, en vez de sentarse con unas alas torpes a tocar el arpa.

ENGLISH VERSION

The Image

Really when women speak of woman’s liberation today it is really appears to be an issue of Equality in the marketplace, but really that is putting the cart before the horse. The problem is the projection of the image of woman. Life can be divided into three distinct areas of interaction between men and women home, work and play. Let there be no doubt that the image projected by women in these three areas is distinct from that of a man. Athletes sell their images as do Hollywood stars, top models and anyone in the news, but these images have one thing in common. They are all stereotyped images. The male images are of two types. First there is the handsome and rugged masculine type, without muscle exaggeration, though there are exceptions. The second is the “interesting” type. Clearly the image is used to sell a product . Who buys that image? Women of course. Clearly if that was not what they desire the leading edge of the sale would not be presented.

So there is nothing startling there. Women like fit rugged and interesting men. Are you a fit rugged interesting man? Then why is she with you if she is looking elsewhere. You can’t do much about being handsome or rugged, but being more interesting is possible. So what exactly is this characteristic “interesting” all about. It is not being the same as every other idiot. It is being alive to what is without trying to be actually different. That in itself will make you different.

Jack London, said, “I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by a dryrot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in a magnificient glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

Everyone around you is existing in a state of “dryrot” as a sleepy and boring planet. If you could soar a little you could be interesting. A person is interesting if he is different.

Have you ever collected postage stamps . In 1841 in Hawaii the native government issued a set stamps. The rarest of the set was worth 2cts, but in the 1890’s only fifteen were known to exist. Rare is interesting. A Frenchman who was a collector murdered his best friend when he would not sell him his single copy of one of those stamps. When you are different you will be rare and sought after just like this stamp. A man may kill for a stamp but beware many men too have found their rarity fatal whn the collector is a jelou woman..

Maybe some time ago some female may have picked you up. You were bright and new, looked good, perhaps not worth much but you were collected. Then the romance went out of things. Does that describe any situation you know. She, like a young boy in London in 1873 found a pretty interesting 1 cent magenta stamp from British Guiana. It was just like you. Not worth much but attractive. Everybody is attractive to somebody. He didn’t know its value or he tired of it. He sold it for six shillings, about sixty cents.

Does she know your value. Is that about how much she thinks your worth. Actually how many times a have men heard the words, “you aren’t worth a dime”. Anyway, the kid sold the stamp for what he thought it was worth. It sold later for two hundred and eighty thousand dollars. You probably aren’t worth much, except as sentimental value, so lets look what may happen. First, she won’t want to sell you because she has found nothing better and she is after all a bit over the hill herself. You are after all the man about the house and a habit.

Yes you were originally interesting and now have been told for so long that you are now on the dusty shelf and off the pedestal and now you feel that life is over for you. Maybe for a moment, somewhere, sometime, for some unknown reason, you may slip and your old self may sparkle for a moment. You know what may happen, someone else, even a young thing may pop out of nowhere and may see your true value and find you interesting.

This new chick will find you so interesting that she can’t imagine why you are not appreciated. You will have forgotten of course that she is just another woman and you will perk up and feel young again. Perhaps you’ll even throw away that stupid suit, shirt and tie you’ve been wearing for years and buy yourself some blue jeans and a rolling stones T shirt with that grand tongue hanging out like your own will probably be. She is willing to pay the price. You felt worth something again. But the human game my poor foolish friend is not like the stamp market game. Your owner may have given you up for dead my friend, She might not have much time for you. She may think you are not worth much, but the moment someone else values you she will want you back and will scream bloody murder if you don’t come running. You will be called unfaithful. You will be a rat. A lousy father for the kids. She will throw the book at you. No one will want to know how you felt being undervalued. What did you ever do to be devalued. Do you notice that women like cats? Well then look at this little gem from Jay Leno, host of the Tonight Show:

“ I've never understood why women love cats. Cats are independent, they don't listen, they don't come in when you call, they like to stay out all night, and when they're home they like to be left alone and sleep. In other words, every quality that women hate in a man, they love in a cat.”

That is life with women my friend. Get into horse and carriage and you will have to get yourself out.

But if you are not yet tied down with chains yet. You will, like a fool be searching. But no luck. That is because you haven’t caught on how to be interesting. In 1918 in the US they printed an Air Mail stamp. I think it was worth just 8 cents, There were thousands of them.. No one wants them today. But one sheet of stamps was printed with the Curtiss "Jenny" biplane on it flying upside down. A wise buyer bought the sheet of a hundred stamps for $24. Work that out. That is twenty four cents each. Each stamp today is valued at more than $42,500.

You, I hope, catch the point. You have to be interesting and different. But don’t believe for moment that flying a Cessna upside down is going to do the trick for you. Being interesting is more than that. It is to be a human male creature that has discovered within himself two aspects that to women are important. They are the capacity for humor, particularly to laugh at oneself and the capacity to be curious and creative.

But beware, for although one must be able to laugh at one’s own folly one must do so from a position of strength and not simply as a mask. That means that you really must be able to see profoundly within oneself and see that folly. But then the problem is you must ask why you are with her. Oh what a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive. That is the problem you see. You now, every second of every day are weaving a web of deception. Who are you really? You don’t know. Where are you going? You don’t know. What do you know? What you have done? Do you really call that pack of lies and masks that make up your image what you have done? You think that old St Peter is waiting up there with that little book marked “John Doe” and is going to look at the pages where you worked for general Motors and say.. Well he was a good worker so let him in. No my friend he is going to say. “Where was your compassion and benevolence?”

It is no use pointing out that you supported Green Peace, adopted a child from India by sending money every month or that when you were a boy scout you helped a little old lady across the road. No I have bad news for you. Old Peter is going to look at all those intentions and attempts to be “the good guy” and say brother I know what you were really thinking. I hope you have a good suit of asbestos to wear when you give up the supposed Holy Ghost that gives you that halo made of spaghetti that dissolves the first moment that it rains.

He is going to say “tell me about these women?” What a lousy question for an angel to ask a man who is dead and trying to get into heaven for a bit of peace away from women with hopefully angels who he can play tag football with and not sit around with clumsy wings playing on infernal harps.

So what do you say. “I thought I was in love”, “She turned me on,” or perhaps even closer to the point, “I lusted.” Maybe you could be clever and say, “I was only trying to cleave like God said.” He is only going to open the celestial dictionary and show you that cleave really means “to be as one with all things”. Bad luck. So why not get your act together today and try “cleaving” correctly.

If you really do have a mental problem that makes you chase after women, ogle them, whistle after them or turn to you’re mates with a knowing grin then just turn around and take that elevator right down to the basement. You will find all the “hot” chicks there.

O what a surprise my friend Inferno is full of women. Why, because what you don’t know is that Old Saint Pete up there is a homosexual and knows women better that you do. Do you know what his first question to them was? Why did you lie. That’s it you see. It is not that God made them that way, it is that she started off that way. Go back to that Garden of Eden scene. When God came out of the clouds (in those days without impressive burning bushes or trumpets, he shouted, “theres an apple missing.” Do you know what Eve did first. She pointed at Adam and said, “he ate it”. Of course our Adam was there all naked with the core of the apple in his hand and no-where to hide it. She lied. She did it so well that it didn’t seem like a lie. You see Adam did eat the apple. Not all of it, but he did eat the apple. The lie was a very clever lie and all women’s lies are clever lies. They even invented a term “little white lies” . Do you really want to know what a “little white lie is”? It is a big black lie shrunken down and painted white. It is a lie that says nothing. It is avoiding the truth, which is a bigger lie than stretching the truth. What women have never really realized is what La Rouchefoucauld presented as a condemnation. “Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we think up to hide them.”

Anyway, it was lucky that God didn’t give a damn who had eaten the apple, or it would have been Adam who had to hit the trail. God just wanted the apple back on the tree where it belonged, and that was impossible. Well perhaps not impossible for God, but still hell of a lot of work. So he kicked them out of the Garden. Of course the legends don’t tell us that, because they were written by men and they, as usual, with folly born in Deva worship they were protecting the honour of women.

What honour? What a lying image that is. Do you know why most of the women are in Inferno? It is for those lies and mental cruelty. I don’t have to tell you who the victims are.

Did men dual and do men defend the honour of Women. It sounds romantic but they did not. They are defending their own image. Aristotle spoke about young men, declaring plainly , "They are passionate, hot-tempered, and carried away by impulse, and unable to control their passion. For owing to their ambition they cannot endure to be slighted, and they become indignant when they think they are being wronged. They are ambitious not for honor, but more of victory; for youth desires superiority, and victory is a kind of superiority."

Honor then sets a respectable base to test superiority. It is never a woman who is insulted it is the man himself that identifies with her that feels the insult. Does a women ever defend the honour of a man. Sometimes perhaps, but rather as one defends one’s pet dog or as a foolish employee defends the disreputable behaviour of her owner, for make no mistake, she is owned in your eyes.. Of course she does not like being owned, yet she adores being you’re treasure.

Helen of Troy was treasure. The story has been turned into a love story. What was it really, pathetic egoism, foolish glory, absurd pride, ugly motives and deeds, all camouflaged by the story of love and a wooden horse. Who won? Helen of course.

So men fight and kill, steal and generate mayhem, work and live for their image. Women, do not fight and kill, do not generate mayhem, but work and live for their image, loading the rifle so that the poor idiot man will fire it. The natural man and woman has no image and needs no image they simply are what they are, human creatures.

But you and she are not human creatures, you are an abomination. But since most men and women have little interest in returning themselves to the state of being truly human we will mention how one can continue being a more acceptable abomination to the opposite gender. We have said that you have to build your image. The problem is that you have to admit that deep down you are not really special at all and that will really hurt. Of course they are not special either. There is an old phrase that says if you turn all the women upside down they will look the same. I suppose there is some reason in that, for feet are after all just feet if there are no shoes upon them. It’s the rest of their body that’s the image part.

So Mr America in a tango (or is it tangle) you also have to be unobtainable. Now that’s not easy when you’re running like a cockerel after all the hen chickens. There is a Chinese proverb that declares, “Men do not trip on mountains, they trip on small stones.” You are tripping over grains of sand.

You must watch where you are treading. You must be different and unattainable, but remember what London said. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” You will probably ignore that and will be foolish enough to burn yourself up externally with the “look” that is individual but really the same as everyone else and delude yourself that you are different. But she will be trying to give the image of a meteor also. So go out there and collide. You deserve each other.