Naufragio del Chubasco

You can see the picture in its original size here.

Bob Dylan, artist?

I didn't know he was as good at painting as music.  This is one of his. (Click to enlarge -- See more at The Guardian's article)

Reflection

Beautiful

The Chrysler building in New York.  A remarkable and very beautiful building. I don't like a lot of modern architecture, but I love this.

Beauty

Eagle Nebula’s 'Pillars of Creation'

“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words – to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”  C.S. Lewis

Georgian architecture

So beautiful.

Beaut

Contrasts

I receive a kind message from one friend, which brings tears to my eyes.  And nothing from another.  He has a very full life, d'you see?  He has important things to do and important people to connect with.  Get it?

The one friend is old and worn.  The other "friend" is young and handsome.  But in the end, who is worth more?  Who is the better person?  It's completely clear in my own mind.

So tempting--and stupid--to judge people by their faces, not their hearts.

Beautiful

A fishing boat on the Spencer Gulf, near Adelaide. What a beautiful photo.

Elegant stretch

Of course, a nude, male or female can be sexy.  But it can also be beautiful, in the way a fine horse or an elegant dog or a Siamese cat is beautiful.  So it is with this picture.  I would like to look at it all day, not because it turns me on, but because it's so lovely.  The sweet curves of the thighs and calves, the absence of excessive muscle, the elegant curve of the torso, the shapely arms.  Never mind the skilled photography, somehow better in black and white than in colour.  Beautiful. 

Alas, I can't tell you where it's from, who the model is or who took the photo.

Inner vs outward beauty

So let's talk about this  -- a vexed question among gay and bi men, in fact among humans.

You meet this guy.  He's stunning.  From the outside.  His face is extraordinarily beaut, perfectly proportioned, symmetrical, something you're glad to gaze on all day.  His body muscular but not too muscular (like my thong wearer), his cock fat and long, just the sort of proportions to make you turn bottom.

You see him across the room, you are magnetically drawn into his orbit, you talk to him, everything in you responds and wham!  You're in love.

But then you get to know him.  You discover that he has yet to get over a deep and long-lasting love affair  --- with himself.  That later on in the evening at parties, he always takes his shirt off, even if everyone else is wearing a jersey because it's so chilly, because he just loves showing off his perfect torso and his six-pack and his shoulders like cannon balls.  When you talk to him, the conversation always veers back to the most important topic ever:  him.  If you are lonely or unhappy or sick, he shrugs it off:  no one can ever be as lonely or unhappy or sick as he is or was.  Diddums.  The trials of his job are are always greater than yours.  When you make love, he falls asleep as soon as he's come.  You have to take care of yourself.

And so on.

It fact, it turns out that he is an arrogant, solipsistic, self-obsessed, selfish, boring, tedious, up-himself prick.  And when you've fallen out of love with him, you can watch unmoved as his new conquests make the same mistake you did.  Stars in their eyes, they wander around already half in love -- with a revolting, odious arsehole.

And one day Mr Beautiful gets old and flabby, his tan turns to skin tags and moles and icky crusty bits, his six-pack gets covered with a layer of fat, his hair thins until his head shines like a supernumerary moon in the moonlight, and his soccer-ball shoulders deflate tragically.  So very sad.  And now, bereft of physical beauty, his inner charms make him the dreary loser at parties, pathetically going from one group of younger, prettier people to the next, unable to believe that no one is interested -- in him.

Yep.  We are all in thrall to beauty.  I was, too.  Yet -- and it's a hard lesson -- in the end what lasts is inner beauty.  And when you find someone who has a sense of humour, is kind and thoughtful, who cares about you, who loves you and finds you hot and sexy, you have found the perfect man.  Even if he doesn't have a six-pack or cricket-ball shoulders.

[This post was inspired by comments and discussion on an earlier post which you can read here]

Compassion

 

 This is (more or less) the three-hundredth post to this blog.  Time to pause and reflect.

I found this at The Slab and I thought it summed up my own spiritual feelings pretty well.

.My call for a spiritual revolution is thus not a call for a religious revolution. Nor is it a reference to a way of life that is somehow other-worldly, still less to something magical or mysterious. Rather, it is a call for a radical re-orientation away from our habitual preoccupation with self towards concern for the wider community of beings with whom we are connected, and for conduct which recognizes others' interests alongside our own.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

You cannot yourself be truly happy unless you consider others. Selfishness makes you unhappy. Greed makes you unhappy. Unkindness makes you and the person you are unkind to miserable.

As the Dalai Lama says:

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

and,

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions

and

My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.

[Quotes from this website]

When we are at our most miserable, this seems like nonsense.  I know.  I've been there.  Yet I do what my lady does and count my blessings.  And there are so many, so many more than my problems.  And gradually, even though things are far from perfect, you find joy in small things; in a flower opening; in a cup of coffee; in a smile; in those who love me and those I love.  Yes, in a world dedicated to wall-to-wall false values, it's hard.  But never give up hope.


Christians seem to forget this all the time, though He kept on reiterating the messages:  love one another as I have loved you; the widow's mite; the story of the prostitute (let him who is without sin cast the first stone); judge not lest ye be judged; God is love.  Even St Paul, a bit of a bully, talks movingly about charity.  And he doesn't mean giving to the poor.


That so many Christians are so filled with hate is horribly sad.   That they hate us for what we are, which we can't change, and which in any case hurts no one, is dreadful.  Yet in our relations with each other we must not forget that we can if we try make a small difference, and that if everybody did it, it would make a huge difference.  It isn't easy to be brave or compassionate or to love without judgement.   I have to try again every day.  And I keep on failing.  I get enraged at the evils of the world and I have to scold myself into happiness.  Again and again.

We gay-shaded guys know what it's like to be on the receiving end of hatred, ignorance, disdain, prejudice, bigotry and violence.  Let's not do the same to others.


Onwards and upwards.