the marks of a slave

[gypsy*seer]

Originally Posted by mitchell67

Nobody has ever gotten needs met by expecting the other partner to become a mindreader.

Gawd! This has become my theme song...you hit the nail on the head, mitchell.

[eastern sun]

Originally Posted by mitchell67

Nobody has ever gotten needs met by expecting the other partner to become a mindreader.

That's true. But when you know someone really well, it's nice to wake up to a cup of coffee or a blow job just the way you like it.

[Stag of Oberon]

Originally Posted by Netzach

I'm trying to decide how I would feel about a hire who was dancing to the tune of their spouse and I can't come up with anything good.

If it makes them happier I guess that's good but I sure the hell do NOT want to have ANY insight into that. If I'm writing a check, I'm putting a name on it for a reason.

when you write a check, you put two names on it. Payer & payee. The payee's dominant spouse is not on the check & not part of the agreement. I think that may be at the crux of this.

If the "payer" had wanted to subcontract someone to have their employee do it, they'd have done that in the first place, and the names on the check might be different.

[Red Sonja]

Originally Posted by eastern sun

That's true. But when you know someone really well, it's nice to wake up to a cup of coffee or a blow job just the way you like it.

That's definitely true... but then, aren't those needs already known because they were made known earlier?

[eastern sun]

Originally Posted by Red Sonja

That's definitely true... but then, aren't those needs already known because they were made known earlier?

Yes. You're making me think of what a Chinese father once told me about his expectations of his son's academic performance . . .

Whenever his son makes a mistake on a test, he asks "did your teacher teach you this material?" (His son usually says, "yes.") "Then why didn't you know it?"

And that is the question, isn't it?

If we have been taught, shown, experienced, or told something . . . anything . . .

why don't we always know it in the time and place we need to know it?

I contemplated this for a few years, and could only conclude that my mental distractions are numerous and carry a force of their own. So I started meditating which helped . . . a lot.

With my increased work load, I stopped finding the time for regular meditation.

[eastern sun]

Yesterday, we discussed the possibility that my newly formed company should probably take a back seat to his company due to its relative (i.e. lack of) profit margin. I genuinely agreed.

So, in return for sexual reward, it seems I am willing to let go of my personal ambition.

It's a bit of a relief, to be honest.

[ownedsubgal]

Originally Posted by eastern sun

Yesterday, we discussed the possibility that my newly formed company should probably take a back seat to his company due to its relative (i.e. lack of) profit margin. I genuinely agreed.

So, in return for sexual reward, it seems I am willing to let go of my personal ambition.

sexual reward?

[Netzach]

Originally Posted by eastern sun

Yesterday, we discussed the possibility that my newly formed company should probably take a back seat to his company due to its relative (i.e. lack of) profit margin. I genuinely agreed.

So, in return for sexual reward, it seems I am willing to let go of my personal ambition.

It's a bit of a relief, to be honest.

No real comment on your sitch, just resonated funny with me:

I have become a creature Ayn Rand would be proud of, while still deriving creative pleasure from my work - I constantly get in trouble when my ego gets in the way, and smarter when I go back to the question of $$$. I'll scope out some competition's voice sample, and then I'm left in the dumps - she sounds like Ann Bancroft and I sound like...Sarah Vowell! And then I get stuck in a giant morass of trying to deliver my least hypnonasal performance...losing money and sanity for days. DAYS. Turning into a creature I don't like very well staring at waveforms and reading the same thing over and over and over.

when truly...truly...not one client of mine gives a flying fuck.

Whenever I go wandering off into the forest of cost inefficiency, it's a dumb ego mistake.

[intothewoods]

Originally Posted by eastern sun

Yesterday, we discussed the possibility that my newly formed company should probably take a back seat to his company due to its relative (i.e. lack of) profit margin. I genuinely agreed.

So, in return for sexual reward, it seems I am willing to let go of my personal ambition.

It's a bit of a relief, to be honest.

How are things for you guys post-hurricane? I should have asked earlier. I guess sometimes I forget my Lit friends exist in the real world. Seriously, though, hope you all are hanging in there.

Originally Posted by Netzach

No real comment on your sitch, just resonated funny with me:

I have become a creature Ayn Rand would be proud of, while still deriving creative pleasure from my work - I constantly get in trouble when my ego gets in the way, and smarter when I go back to the question of $$$. I'll scope out some competition's voice sample, and then I'm left in the dumps - she sounds like Ann Bancroft and I sound like...Sarah Vowell! And then I get stuck in a giant morass of trying to deliver my least hypnonasal performance...

when truly...truly...not one client of mine gives a flying fuck.

Whenever I go wandering off into the forest of cost inefficiency, it's a dumb ego mistake.

Off topic but I've always wished I sounded like Sarah Vowell. I feel like some of these This American Life voices were made in a factory! They're just so perfectly unique and "off" in the best way.

[IrisAlthea]

Originally Posted by Netzach

Whenever I go wandering off into the forest of cost inefficiency, it's a dumb ego mistake.

I wish I could honestly say that I have no idea what you're talking about here.

[Netzach]

Originally Posted by IrisAlthea

I wish I could honestly say that I have no idea what you're talking about here.

It's about making stuff to make money and its pitfalls. Sometimes when you're making some kind of creative output it's for the love of the idea. Sometimes it's about profit, without making something horrible. But when you're making something and you are working very very very hard...then sometimes examining your own motives yields answers that aren't necessarily flattering either - like wanting to stroke your ego, be validated by praise from other people, feel like you're sexy....in a way sometimes money is a pure motivation, and sometimes when the cost/benefit ratios are off you have a kind of "duh" moment of enlightenment.

[eastern sun]

Originally Posted by ownedsubgal

sexual reward?

Yes, there are times when I feel sexual pleasure in slavery, which then serves as a reward for certain behaviors. I don't always feel pleasure, and a lack of pleasure is woven into my slavery too. It creates a reward/punishment system that has proven to be a very effective means of changing my behavior.

[eastern sun]

Originally Posted by Netzach

No real comment on your sitch, just resonated funny with me:

I have become a creature Ayn Rand would be proud of, while still deriving creative pleasure from my work - I constantly get in trouble when my ego gets in the way, and smarter when I go back to the question of $$$. I'll scope out some competition's voice sample, and then I'm left in the dumps - she sounds like Ann Bancroft and I sound like...Sarah Vowell! And then I get stuck in a giant morass of trying to deliver my least hypnonasal performance...losing money and sanity for days. DAYS. Turning into a creature I don't like very well staring at waveforms and reading the same thing over and over and over.

when truly...truly...not one client of mine gives a flying fuck.

Whenever I go wandering off into the forest of cost inefficiency, it's a dumb ego mistake.

Yeah, it's easy to lose track of what's important when the ego gets involved - especially in those moments when I'm comparing myself to someone else. No matter which way I go - up or down - I'm always on the wrong track.

(I've seen those waveforms, too. I've tried to record myself singing with myself. What an exercise in self-loathing/self-love that can become!)

Raised by hippies, I am so anti-money I don't know how to reasonably engage with it. I operate on 0 balances, and then volunteer my time. This is the behavior he hopes to change.

[eastern sun]

Originally Posted by Netzach

But when you're making something and you are working very very very hard...then sometimes examining your own motives yields answers that aren't necessarily flattering either - like wanting to stroke your ego, be validated by praise from other people, feel like you're sexy....in a way sometimes money is a pure motivation, and sometimes when the cost/benefit ratios are off you have a kind of "duh" moment of enlightenment.

(I sometimes go back and re-read this thread, and I can't tell you the number of times I have noticed how brilliant you are - hitting the nail right on the head - and then watched as I walked determinedly in the other direction. Though I am not always able to look in the direction you're pointing, cause I'm just uncomfortable with what I think I'll see, I have been able to look back later.

I just wanted to tell you that. Cause I'm going to walk in the other direction now...)

[eastern sun]

He corrects me. "You looooooove money."

[eastern sun]

Originally Posted by intothewoods

How are things for you guys post-hurricane?

We're ok, though one of our schools down in lower Manhattan has not been deemed safe to enter yet. An underground parking garage across the street filled with water and the cars just started floating to the surface. No one knows what impact the water, the fuel and the bobbing cars had on the foundation of the skyscraper above it.

The whole city is exhausted and on edge, facing circumstances they haven't known before. For most of us, not much has really changed; and it's hard to justify these feelings. But everyone I know is re-examining their priorities.

[intothewoods]

Originally Posted by eastern sun

We're ok, though one of our schools down in lower Manhattan has not been deemed safe to enter yet. An underground parking garage across the street filled with water and the cars just started floating to the surface. No one knows what impact the water, the fuel and the bobbing cars had on the foundation of the skyscraper above it.

The whole city is exhausted and on edge, facing circumstances they haven't known before. For most of us, not much has really changed; and it's hard to justify these feelings. But everyone I know is re-examining their priorities.

That city has really been shit on.

[eastern sun]

Originally Posted by intothewoods

That city has really been shit on.

That is one thing I haven't seen, though. No one is feeling sorry for themselves. Some people are angry, pointing to long-standing inequities in resource distribution; but I haven't met anyone who feels like the city got the raw end of the deal.

(A political rant - I've heard that our Senator, Chuck Schumer, held up the release of a post-Katrina FEMA report analyzing the potential impact of flooding in major cities across the nation. It was completed and ready for public release about five years ago. I'm wondering why he didn't release it - given the huge surge in waterfront development - and whether or not coastal communities in NYC would have taken the storm more seriously and/or been better prepared if the report had been made public.)

[IrisAlthea]

Originally Posted by eastern sun

(I sometimes go back and re-read this thread, and I can't tell you the number of times I have noticed how brilliant you are - hitting the nail right on the head - and then watched as I walked determinedly in the other direction. Though I am not always able to look in the direction you're pointing, cause I'm just uncomfortable with what I think I'll see, I have been able to look back later.

I just wanted to tell you that. Cause I'm going to walk in the other direction now...)

Yes, like I said: It would be rally nice to not know what she's talking about.

[Netzach]

Originally Posted by eastern sun

(I sometimes go back and re-read this thread, and I can't tell you the number of times I have noticed how brilliant you are - hitting the nail right on the head - and then watched as I walked determinedly in the other direction. Though I am not always able to look in the direction you're pointing, cause I'm just uncomfortable with what I think I'll see, I have been able to look back later.

I just wanted to tell you that. Cause I'm going to walk in the other direction now...)

Oh, I keep going that way too. I'm parroting stuff said to me by a very smart lady who uses content photos, keeps her life simple and her bills paid better than I do. I'm trying to listen more to her.

[Bandit58]

Originally Posted by eastern sun

On Sunday morning, he reintroduced proactive service as the ultimate goal.
"You need to be able to do what is required without being told to."

Proactive service without obedience is meaningless.
But obedience without proactive service is tiresome.

He wants to be pleasantly surprised.

My service is always proactive. It has to be, due to Sir's health and the treatments which need to be done regardless of how either he or I feel.

It's not always that either - I make sure our bills are paid on time, that He always has a good supply of meds, I go do the grocery shopping when we start to run out of stuff. I remind Him of appointments, call the ambulance if it's needed...lol if I waited for Him to tell me, He would have been dead several times over

Sir has deliberately encouraged me to be more proactive. Early in our relationship, I would always ask what He would like me to do, now I just do it

[eastern sun]

I am still a disappointing slave, far more likely to protect my own interests than promote his. And the fundamental problem is always doubt.

I begin to doubt that this choice is healthy, wholesome. I begin to doubt the source of his intentions, the source of our intentions. I begin to think that he will destroy me and/or the things I cherish and that it is my responsibility to make sure I am not destroyed.

And that doubt turns the sweet honey of service and devotion into hot molten lead which - when cooled - transforms my normally flexible nature into a rigid, insensitive, and potentially toxic "shield."

[eastern sun]

Doubt, a status between belief and disbelief, involves uncertainty or distrust or lack of sureness of an alleged fact, an action, a motive, or a decision. Doubt brings into question some notion of a perceived "reality", and may involve delaying or rejecting relevant action out of concerns for mistakes or faults or appropriateness. Some definitions of doubt emphasize the state in which the mind remains suspended between two contradictory propositions and unable to assent to either of them.

The concept of doubt covers a range of phenomena: one can characterise both deliberate questioning of uncertainties and an emotional state of indecision as "doubt."

- from Wikipedia

If doubt stands at the fork between belief and disbelief, is it just a matter of "choosing" to trust? Is it necessary - as doubting Thomas did - to use empirical tests to verify your choice? How do you know when doubt is just the mask your fear is wearing? When do fear and doubt have merit?

[sweepthefloor]

I don’t know but usually when I am doubting, it’s for a reason that is not clear to me yet. This is because my belly knows the answer before my heart, or mind can comprehend.

[Netzach]

Golden words from my professor.

"Other people work from success to success. You're at your best when you work from doubt to doubt."