Karma

 I have an extremely unpopular opinion:

1. Cheating disproportionately impacts men, in that it is more deeply wounding to a man than it is to a woman (all other emotional resilience factors being equal.)

2. There is a natural consequence of cheating for a woman that makes the consequence of her cheating more severe for her than it is for a man, and it has to do with men being an ideal mate for longer than women are.

Cheating Disproportionately Impacts Men

If a woman is raped, a great violence has been committed against her. But in addition to the violence against her, she has been denied the choice of who the father of her child should be. She may potentially give birth to a child that is half her DNA, and half her abuser.

If a man is cheated on, a great theft has been committed against him. He has been denied the right to be a genetic father at all of the resulting child. It's not that half of the DNA was not his to choose, it's that ALL of the DNA is not his whatsoever.

For men the line between violence and theft is much thinner than for women. Because of the potential to give childbirth, women value the sacrifice that goes into creating each life more than men do. Because men as a whole spend so much time getting resources to support families, they see their own life slip through their fingers in sacrifice for wealth, and stealing from them disregards their sacrifice.

It is a joke to say that cheating impacts women as much as it does men. Anyone saying this is either callous towards men or hasn't thought it through. Contemplate this song carefully, and understand the righteous indignation behind it:

Natural Consequences

"I the Lord delight in the chastity of woman" (Jacob Chapter 2.) Peak fertility for a woman is age 18. If she has the luxury of taking herself seriously and her mate selection seriously from a young age, she is likely to have an enjoyable life. But self destructive temptation can destroy a Queen's kingdom.

Many men, including even myself, can get continuously better looking and even stronger all the way into their 50's. Women have no such luxury, they can work very hard to age almost as slow as men, or they can age much faster, those are their two choices. This means that while women get accustomed to being disproportionately desired compared to men at a younger age, as they get older that is completely reversed with men their age being far more desirable than women their age.

The Karma here is that as men shed cheating women their options improve, and as cheating women are shed their options decline. Though I strongly resent this song's lack of sympathy for the damage done to who it is addressed to, I very much appreciatethe tone of regret, desperation, confusion and recognition of maybe-permanent loss that effects and vocals in the song portray:

Lose/Lose Situation

Men in our society generally do respect women, thanks largely to the feminist movement. The dark side of that success is now men are often disrespected by women. No man wants to be cheated on just so he can have the satisfaction of watching Karma run it's course - cheating on some level can be forgiven. However the point of no return comes fast with cheating, and Karma is a vengeful bitch.

Self Actualization

The dancing went well. It got a huge dose of cardio going once a week that I was not otherwise getting. This made me feel a lot better, and think a lot clearer, I suspect because of neurogenesis. This huge improvement in quality of life for me has me thinking a lot about self-actualization vs. the existential crisis.

Most of humanity believes in a benevolent higher power because they have had the experience of becoming desperate, praying for help, and witnessing a miracle as a result. But then why does the higher power not reveal itself to us in every detail? The only answer that works for me is that our beliefs dictate our choices and this higher power highly values our free will. So in the end, our higher power forces us to find our own way of overcoming the existential crisis, thus granting us self-actualization.

Though I have never used drugs, alcohol or tobacco, I am a fan of the notorious industrial band Skinny Puppy. They say heroin users have the existential crisis solved. When an active opioid addict gets out of bed in the morning, they know exactly what their purpose in life is going to be that day: they are going to hustle until they have enough drugs to avoid withdrawal. 

But when people get into recovery, the existential crisis is still waiting for them with all it's horrific riddles and doom. Skinny Puppy had a band member die and disbanded in 1995, and had a comeback in 2004. This is the first song off that first new album when they came back, and among other things it describes the existential crisis better than any other song I know:

The name of the song is I'mmortal. So is the problem either that we are all mortal and are going to die, or is the problem that our souls are immortal so we'll always live with the consequences of our actions? The answer is: yes!