Happy New Year! It is 2014 and the beginning of a new and glorious year. A new year with Jennelle and with love. Let me speak of her again!

She does little things for me, that I do not and would never ask for, like making my cigarettes for the day (I roll my own) or making breakfast, or just a little something to make the day a little better and a little more beautiful and a little less stressful. That is love!

Just when she leaves me a little note, or a simple Post-It Note with a red heart drawn on it...it makes all the difference when that is the very first thing I see when I awake. I almost want to burst into tears thinking about it because it it so valuable and precious to me. It is so beautiful to me that I save every note in a little shoe box as if it were gold. It is gold to me.

Have you ever known this? I have not. And I never want to know what it is like to not have this again, for I know I truly have love. I have a love that wants to do anything, even a little thing, just to brighten every single day of my life. And I want and do the same.

Its been over seven months. It is not infatuation or gross error, it is true love; it is not a lie or a facade, it is truth.

On New Year's, at midnight, we danced and kissed. We played several songs and danced and hugged and kissed. The same love was still there – a love that is different than all others, bigger, and larger, and stronger. I love her for exactly who she is and she loves me for the same.

I want to speak of freedom to you, but I cannot get this woman out of my head, because I love her so much. She is freedom to me – love is freedom. I was so close, yet I could not place what I was whining or venting about.

I'll say it again, it is love. Love is freedom! Love is not a drug, it is anything and everything that makes sense and purpose in life.

You want to be free? First find yourself, then find someone who loves you for you, whom you love for who they are. Sound difficult? I think it just happens, eventually, when you set out to truly find yourself and BE yourself.

And do not FEAR. For who says it needs to be here or there? This or that? Let love be what it is, when it is, and let time do it's thing. If you walk into love with this attitude, you can survive its might and take full advantage of it, without fear. Just let it be what it is, when it is, and allow it to travel it's course. Just let Love be.

Maybe it is when we try to control love and capture it in some sort of bottle that it dies?

Jen speaks of appreciation, and perhaps that is something huge to her. Me? It is something deeper. It is not appreciation, but desire to make another happy and better. It is a desire to do anything and everything you can, even the little things, to make the life of the one you love just a little bit better – one day at a time. Maybe you could call that appreciation, but I call it love!

Love is not just someone to lean on, but someone who will lift you up both when you are down and even before you have a chance to fall – because they give a damn. It is a heart that is always there, waiting and watching and caring. It is a heart that is so taken by what you give that it would give all it can just to keep what you give effortlessly, out of pure natural love and affection.

Jen is my “trip”. I am tripping for her and I am high as a kite. She is still here and still in love and has seen just about all there is to see. Really the only thing left to see is when I truly lose my temper (which is few and far between) and the playing out of my sexual fantasies (which I am fairly certain she would be more than for).

So what do I mean? Well...sometimes I lose my temper (long fuse, explosive anger) and she has not seen me truly lose it yet (it has scared the shit out of all who have seen it – including me), but I do not see that as a problem as I only lose my temper when it matters and counts and she is one who understands. Maybe she will fully understand? Maybe it will turn her on? Maybe it will be no big deal to her? Maybe I'll never have to go there again?

And what do I mean by sexual fantasies? I am bisexual and quite open when asked, yet understanding and considerate of those I love. Maybe that will bug her one day? Maybe some day I will feel more on the bisexual side and she will catch me watching porn she doesn't feel comfortable with or something? I don't know. She is bisexual as well, so I don't see how, but it could be. Maybe she just won't be capable of figuring out how to handle a man who has my sexual drive and orientation?

Don't get me wrong. I can be monogamous, but it does not change what turns me on.

And this is all part of freedom and knowing the self and having love; it is a complicated thing. Love kind of rises above this all and makes everything alright. Love understands on both sides and finds a way Love transcends!

Granted, she has many desires and infatuations that definitely appeal to me (although she only dances around them), so as I said...I am actually quite positive in thought about the sexual fantasy department – I think she wants to go places that would help to fulfill a bisexual guy anyway.

Let me put that last part this way... I ask myself, being bisexual myself, what it is this woman desires and what is all that I can give to fulfill those needs and desires? I obviously cannot be a woman, but what is it that both men and women can give her that I can give? So I give her emotional support and masculine strength and love and I go down on her often – I give the best I can to capture all worlds. I know I can never be a substitute for all longings, but I can be the best thing across the board – the best love. I know I can compete in that arena and I can be me. And I am open enough for her to come to if the longings to play out her sexuality are too strong. I won't and don't care, so long as my body, health, mind, and heart are considered in the equation – I demand her freedom.

Is it wrong for me to do so? I don't think so. And maybe I should say such more? Or maybe I should keep my mouth shut and love as I do? Or maybe we both should run amuck and do our thing? I honestly do not know. I am honestly new to loving and not giving a shit as to what I WANT to be projected onto the other (non-freedom). I am still trying to figure out just how to let the other be FREE and be their self and still LOVE them.

Anyway...happy 2014 and happy love! Live your life FREE and with PEACE and LOVE! Be satisfied and feekl wanted and appreciated.

Blessings,

Alraune

P.S. Jen is right. There is lot's of love in this house. That is why I am still here and why I am who I am. But love does not come without pain, and there is tons of hurt, but love conquers all, and the hurt only makes the love stronger.

I am deadly dangerous not because I went to bodyguard school, but because I love. The most dangerous man is not one who has nothing to care for, but one who has everything to care for. It is impossible to defeat a man or woman who has everything to lose with the strength of any army or weapon of the world, for love conquers all... Love will always find a way!

A New Love

I haven't written for awhile and that reason is: a woman – Jen. She is incredible and I thank the Goddess Freya for her. Our first date was camping and I couldn't have possibly asked for more. I spent 9 straight hours talking to her before I even kissed her (this is my way), and she is madly deeply into me, as I am her.

She is 21 days older than me and a near mirror of myself. She is crazy (in a good kind of way), highly sexual (and very good at it) – the best ever (and I didn't think that could be topped), highly intelligent, an awesome cook (specifically on a campfire), crazy about the natural (she even likes camping nude), into mythology (specifically Celtic and Norse/Germanic), loves fantasy novels, and is cool with me as me all the way from the skin to the bone and spirit. Mere words cannot describe how incredibly perfect she is!

The Goddess Freya shines down upon us (in more ways than one) and there are so many confirmations it is bizarre. Neither of us dare not say it at this time (we are too old and too wise to say such after a mere 27 days), but we are falling in love.

I wonder where she has been my whole life, but I know it was not meant for then, but for now.

We work together and we work great together – we know this. If that is not a firm foundation, then there is none (in my mind). I love this woman, and I did not think I would ever love again...

We just spent an entire week together camping (without pants) and it was the greatest and most fulfilling week of my life. I did not think this woman existed! And I can tell – she is not fake. Words cannot describe the happiness she brings, and I am content just knowing I have her NOW. For the first time in so long (too long) I think of nothing but her.

I am overjoyed with her in my life. I thank the Goddess for her, and for the first time in a long time I can say again, “I never want to die” - not as in “me”, but as in “us”. I feel complete. I don't know what to say – I am exceedingly happy, and I thank the Goddess for her.

Thank you Goddess for giving me Jennelle. Thank you so much! Even my daughter's face shines upon us just as the Sun's rays shined upon her beautiful body dripping dry and the Moon shined upon us every night we made love.

Words cannot describe my happiness – I am healed.

Peace.

Alraune

Jacques Ellul, Technique, Efficiency & Materialism: The Disease of Modern Civilization

Book Review for The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul

I acquired a copy of Jacques Ellul's The Technological Society, translated by John Wilkinson (ISBN: 978-0-394-70390-9), a few months ago. Recently, I finished reading this monumental 473 page critique of technological civilization in its entirety (everything but the bibliography and index). It took me awhile to read it for two reasons: it is rather dull and I was reading it in my spare time (literally sitting in the car before work). The book was extremely interesting but rather dry in presentation. Jacques Ellul is no doubt an intriguing intellectual, but he is fairly lacking in the emotional expression of his personality and it really makes this book a flat read.

That said, I am rather impressed at the scope and depth of his argument against the course of civilization under the direction of blind materialistic efficiency. I am most certainly of the opinion, at this time, that this text is of enormous importance and can be a useful aid in many sociological, anthropological, politically philosophical and idealogical circles.

This book speaks to me because it puts into words some of the things I had noticed and was thinking, but couldn't quite pin down. One of the overarching points which Ellul seems to be getting at is that modern civilization, which has a pervasively materialist worldview, idolizes and gives priority to the value of efficiency, and that materialist based efficiency is cold, calculated, inhuman, and absolutely dangerous and destructive to both human happiness, the value of life, and the ecosystem.

Another major point is that of how man utilizes technique as a tool to ensure his survival, comfort, and evolution through the manipulation of his environment (physical, societal, and psychological) with various techniques. However, in doing so he must adapt to the tool and therefore becomes himself manipulated (physically, socially, and psychologically) by the conditions necessary for the most efficient use of that tool, which ultimately leads to a utilitarian development of personhood directed by massification and materialistic efficiency – man becomes a sort of robotic machine.

In layman's terms and in lay psyche that translates to Jacques Ellul brilliantly defines the coming new world order by examining technique and society. He tells you how the world works, why the world works the way it does, what the various parts of the world system are, some of the methods used within the world system, the historical development of the world system, where this new world system is headed, and even who controls this world system and how much power they have.

Ellul tells us that what are enslaved to the world system: "The 'all' is involved because technique yields results and demands efforts to such a degree that no individual can remain outside. But if technique demands the participation of everybody, this means that the individual is reduced to a few essential functions which make him a mass man. He remains 'free', but he can no longer escape being a part of the mass. Technical expansion requires the widest possible domain. In the near future not even the whole earth may be sufficient." (Jacques Ellul. The Technological Society, pg. 207). He tells us how we arrived in this situation and in the same breath hints at how might free ourselves: "But when the natural is intergrated, it ceases to be natural. It becomes part of the technical ensemble. It is an element of the mechanism, an element which must play its role, and no more." (Jacques Ellul. The Technological Society, pg. 217). Finally, he tells us who controls and shapes the world order: "...there is a limited elite that understands the secrets of their own techniques, but not necessarily of all techniques. These men are close to the seat of modern governmental power. The state is no longer founded on the 'average citizen', but on the ability and knowledge of this elite. The average man is altogether unable to penetrate technical secrets or governmental organization and consequently can exert no influence at all on the state." (Jacques Ellul. The Technological Society, pg. 274). He then concludes: "Technique shapes an aristocratic society, which in turn implies aristocratic government. Democracy in such a society can only be a mere appearance. Even now, we see in propaganda the premises of such a state of affairs. When it comes to state propaganda, there is no longer any question of democracy." (Jacques Ellul. The Technological Society, pg. 275)

I found the last statement striking as it was exactly what I had been thinking when I realized that the world order was designed by aristocrats, yet the common person thinks they can somehow have freedom within a system designed specifically by and for aristocracy merely by altering one or two key components (ie. the political or economic system). What ignorance! Such naivety amounts to believing that by replacing the umpire, switching ball fields, changing teams, or introducing a new ball or bat, it will somehow result in something other than a baseball game. It seems to me that if one honestly believes they can be free within a society based upon technique and materialistic efficiency they are either ignorant to reality or blatantly delusional. How can anyone expect to obtain a very human concept (freedom) from mechanized materialistic efficiency (the world system)? How can anyone conclude that a system designed to control will ever provide individual liberty? These are just a few thoughts this book brings to mind.

Now, this is where I may differ from others who happen to agree with Ellul's assessment, as I do. I do not believe technique or technology are themselves harmful to humanity, however I firmly believe that when humanity is excluded from the equation and all technique becomes founded upon materialism and efficiency it is utterly destructive to humankind and will eventually result in the total loss of all which can be described as human. I believe this is the danger which the technological society, as described by Jacques Ellul, presents to us all, and the very cause of this present darkness. The materialistic world view coupled with technological efficiency is a disease of modern civilization and a scourge upon the universe.



All in all, The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul is an excellent book which I feel should be required reading for any conscious person despite its dry presentation. The wealth of useful information which an individual can extract from this book makes it well worth the time and effort of reading this nearly 500 page text.