At Antioch University Seattle in 2005 & 2006 I and other graduate assistants came up with a hypothesis about human relationships which we called "Proximity Theory." Proximity means how physically close an object is to another object. We theorized that how physically close two people were to each other was the most important factor in weather or not those two people would develop a relationship of any kind, in any given amount of time.
When pushing agendas for upcoming meetings, we realized we needed to have "meetings before the meeting," which were smaller group discussions before the time official official meeting. Objections to any given proposal at a meeting needed to be determined and if possible settled before any official meeting actually began. The easiest way for the meetings-before-the-meeting to happen was for people to be working near by each other.
But we soon realized this applied to other relationships as well. When it was all said and done, if you have two attractive and likable heterosexual 17-year-olds who are members of the opposite sex in a room together for a long enough period of time, you will have a teen pregnancy on your hands. That relationship will not form in that time with anyone outside of that room. Proximity.
This needs to be taken into much more careful consideration with today's dating services, singles communities and dating apps. Long-distance is undesirable. It's wasting time, and we only have so much time to give.
My hero Michelle Stone recently took down her YouTube channel 132 Problems. The channel was a solid argument against God having anywhere actually commanded polygamy and against Joseph Smith ever having done polygamy. Many have suggested she took down her channel because of pressure from local Church leadership, but it's also worth noting she recently returned to University studies, presumably in history.
HOWEVER, in one of her last episodes she interviews Mads Larsen, a famous anthropologist from Northern Europe. What he has identified is 1/3 of the men reproduce in that area, relative to most of the women reproducing, meaning that by way of divorce, the men who are reproducing are reproducing with multiple women. THIS implies that polygamy in the early LDS church was more so driven by women than by men. We know that the earliest polygamy practiced by LDS leadership was by the Apostles on their mission to the UK, where they were converting Christian women who were already trying to practice polygamy.
I have gotten to know more than a few single ladies over the last year. I often hear shockingly unrealistic expectations from women in their late 30's and 40's essentially expecting to find sugar daddies. The obvious logical problem here is that sugar daddies date women in their 20's. I personally value maturity and character in a relationship, but that's not the resource men are looking for when they buy their way into a relationship. Unfortunately disconnection with reality in general, and specifically expecting a sugar daddy to come sweep you off your feet as a fully grown and adult woman, is not a sign of maturity or character.
YouTube suggests over half of women will only date about one in a thousand men (6 feet tall, less than 10% body fat, making $200,000 per year, single, educated, heterosexual, monogamous.) Now they ARE dating, which tells me something very important: they are believing lies told to them by opportunistic men who are misrepresenting their income and other aspects of their life. So these women are finding a one-in-twenty man who has the physical traits they are looking for, but who is also willing to lie about all sorts of things in order to get laid.
Women, please understand the reason why the guy you slept with moved on right away is he knew that your interest in him was based on the illusion he provided: there never was any possibility of a long term relationship because you never wanted who he really was.
Having unrealistic expectations is how you become a side piece. If your sights are too high, you will only be aiming for men who are dishonest or who already have enough mates, and you will be just one more extra. Promiscuity is it's own punishment with it's own built in karma. It makes you vulnerable to opportunistic men. It makes you mostly sad and alone. You think the most eligible guy you have slept with in your 20's is the same type of guy you can expect to marry in your 40's, the problem being is that guy was fake in the first place.
My first martial art style was Tae Sho Arnis. I understand that an Arnis stick is a sparring place holder for a machete. I also understand the value of an Arnis stick for disarming someone with a knife. What has caught my attention more recently is a more common stick variation: the billy club.
I saw my first billy club in the late 90's in Pittsburgh, and was immediately impressed by the practicality of this weapon:
It is much shorter than an Arnis stick making it easier to conceal, deploy, swing and thrust at close range. It's round edges make for a finer striking surface than a human fist, and it's hardwood construction makes it far less likely to break. The Billy Club's shorter length can afford more mass and still be swung at the same speed as an Arnis stick or knife. From a self defense perspective this weapon is much more like an improvised weapon you are likely to find to defend yourself with such as a heavy flashlight or a butcher knife than a longer Arnis stick, and it is also more similar to the length of weapon you would be likely to be attacked by.
This weapon has been brought to my attention by people practicing Korean martial arts. Apparently almost all Korean martial arts have some kind of "Dan Bong" techniques:
I would like to see this weapon explored more in free sparring.
I have been going out dancing several times per month for several months this year. I have noticed a strange behavior among women:
If you ignore them, they want you.
If you give them attention, they flee.
It's a sad thing because I am only at clubs to dance, not too hook up. I then have a lot of female attention at the clubs. But in my personal life if I bring a friend to the club with me, and tell her that I am into her, then the next day she is saying something like "I am not ready for a relationship." If I say nothing, she continues to be into me, as long as I am as emotionally neglectful towards her as I can manage.
The worst part about all of this is making women I like jealous in order to get them to pay attention to me. If someone who has given me the "I am not ready for a relationship" line sees me dancing with other women, then they usually warm back up to me right away. However if feels awful to manipulate people like that, and I suppose it's the man's fantasy to have a woman who genuinely likes him for who he is, not as a trophy for a woman in a status competition with other women.
I get it, it's evolutionary behavior: women are better at using their intuition to make decisions, and part of that intuition is looking at other women's opinions, especially with mate selection. However, this then creates huge moral dilemmas for any man involved: men are forced to be emotionally distant and manipulative because that is what women crave. The alternative is to be a good person, and apparently that means being a bachelor.
Notice the overt sin this requires on the part of the Woman:
10 commandment violation: Covetousness
Golden Rule violations: A. going after other women's men. B. Abandoning men who are more than good enough for someone like you, but you would rather die alone with your bones licked clean by your cat than have a husband night quite as amazing as you had dreamed up for yourself. The problem here is they have to die alone also, because of your pride.
The relevant deadly sins are: pride, lust, and envy.
It would serve our society well to have women as a whole consider their behavior in these regards and conduct themselves better. The only real solution on the table is good old fashioned morals and monogamy. It also has me concerned that various sexual problems in society once thought to be caused by men, may in fact be more caused by women, such as polygamy for example:
In the New Testament, when they refer to the "mysteries," they are often referring to the Greek word "mysterion", which applies to religious orders in ancient Roman Empire having secret ceremonies. Jesus makes such references in Mark 4:11, Matthew 13:11, and Luke 8:10 to let his inner circle know that the parable will have extra meaning to those already initiated into his new religious order's specific ceremonies. Jesus's new order was fundamentally Jewish at first, and so it follows that 1st Century Christianity's secret ceremonies would likely be based on the ceremonies of the Temple of Soloman.
(The counter argument to this is that Mysterion refers to the obscurity of the Trinity. However the 1st Century Christians had no concept of the Trinity as it is a post-biblical development, and Jesus was referring to Mysterion before his crucifixion and resurrection, so that his followers were not yet aware that he was God-in-the-flesh, so that there was no questions to be had leading to any concerns about a Trinity or Godhead.)
Free Masonry mythology suggests it originates with the original Temple of Soloman. Considering the historical impact Free Masonry has had on our modern world, we should consider the competency of the Free Mason community over time, and take their claims seriously.
Joseph Smith Jr using elements of Freemason ceremonies for LDS Temple rituals shouldn't be considered a criticism of his work so much as another piece of evidence demonstrating the divinity of his work. Of course first-century Christians has free-mason like rituals that would have had to be restored.
Most of the religious debate I have written about on this blog lately has been regarding debates within the LDS faith. But I occasionally run into protestants that seem to think they have something clever to say about LDS. Let me be clear: we won that debate in the late 80's, and by the late 1990's it was nothing but scorched earth victory in favor of LDS. Since 1999 LDS apologetics has been focused on arguments from Atheism, because the Protestant arguments are road kill thousands of miles behind us on the freeway. This video is from that final period where anti-LDS protestants still thought they had something on LDS:
You can see there that the Protestants have no answer to this basic proposition: LDS are clearly practicing Christianity as is described in the New Testament, while Protestants do not. Every time a Protestant raises an objection to LDS, they end up raising an objection to the New Testament Jesus. More recently Restored Faith on YouTube along with other like minded LDS have gone through the trouble of reminding Protestants where they stand with LDS:
We now have a new wave of Evangelicals that are socially separated for their protestant roots thinking they have something to say to LDS. They are easily refuted the same as Potestants in the 1980's:
None of us LDS believe we are smarter than protestant. Our advantage is simply that we are on the right side of both truth and history.
In 2021 I mentioned how the availability of sparring gear was impacting our training at Tres Espadas. Since then we have done a lot of experimentation on making our own free sparring weapons. Our conclusion is you want a light, thin, ratan arnis-stick core with boffer-style padding, but where we have gotten stuck is what to use as a skin, something that will work against a fencing helmet. The closest thing we have found is gaff tape:
But gaff tape, long term, doesn't stay in place, and additional glue adds too much rigidity and weight to be safe. This means the only reliable weapon in the "padded stick" category that meets our standards is the Nihonzashi Padded Wakizashi (their padded Katana is also nice.) This means that our stick sparring in the future is likely to be done with non-padded ratan arnis sticks. THAT means that our stick cirriculum needs to be the last and most optional stage of training, because it will be the most risky and painful stage of training.
Historically we have been hard rubber knife first, then padded flexible stick, then larger and more rigid weapons. What is happening now is we are still knife first, but then we are going straight to the Nihonzashi padded weapons, and then Stick will be optional at the end for those who want to get into stick fighting specifically, just as our unarmed fighting is optional and late stage.
Since our saber fighting is Tai Chi based, this will be the first time we returned closer to our training roots with Doc Fai Wong's system since we officially started Tres Espadas. That said Tai Chi saber is very late stage training in most Tai Chi systems including Doc Fai Wong's system, were as with Tres Espadas we only have two Tai Chi forms, and the first one is Saber (the 2nd one is open hand.)
Tres Espadas officially has no curriculum besides the Knife Badge, but inevitably people seek training from other members to become better weapon fighters. I expect this Tai Chi orientation at our Bremerton club to be local to Bremerton, I do not expect this to catch on at other Tres Espadas clubs as they arise. Keep in mind our Tai Chi is sparring oriented, for example here is some Tai Chi open hand free sparring for palm strikes and eye gouges that we were doing recently:
