Go Confidently...

For many, many years, Master has used the signature tag line by Henry David Thoreau:

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.  Live the life you've imagined."

There are layers and layers of meaning and intent in the use of that quote.  It tells the story of a life lived in the face of triumph and adversity -- always with an unwavering certainty that going forward believing in the possibilities is the only thing that makes sense; that makes the living of life a worthwhile venture.

It isn't a naive or romantic approach to living life.  Assuming that one might imagine something beyond the safety of conventional employment, or conventional and mainstream family life, or the conventional pursuit of the trappings of wealth; living the life one dreams of -- the life one imagines -- can by times be exhilarating and then again, terrifying. Chasing dreams is not for the faint of heart. 

John Dewey, the well-known American philosopher and principal spokesman for progressive education, observed that, "Confidence ... is directness and courage in meeting the facts of life."


Directness.  And courage.  Those are some good, sturdy, plain-faced, adult virtues.

To be direct is to go straight at a challenge with intent and a level gaze.  The one who is direct speaks plainly, tells the truth, means what he or she says.  Master has always been a Man who sees the world with an intensity that drives change.  Big and small, the challenges He has encountered over His lifetime have yielded in the face of His direct action and intervention.  When it was the fact of an unjust war, He was in the streets fighting to make change happen.  When, as a young professional advocate, He encountered whole communities of individuals who had been marginalized and discounted by the larger society, He transformed His radical activism to focus it effectively on the political system -- determined to make changes occur.  When, on a more personal level, the challenge was His own diabetes diagnosis, He changed His life and His habits with a ferocious deliberateness that put the disease into a state of "practical" remission.  When it became clear to Him that His use of tobacco was harming His health, He enlisted T's help and together they beat that addiction.  When our life together was on the cusp of becoming a real time fact, as I dithered and fussed about the practicalities and seemingly insurmountable obstacles, it was His simple and direct, "Get to me this summer," that drove us forward.  When, after years of battling intractable weight gain, and as the health impacts of that grew more and more dire, He chose the very difficult and very risky route of gastric bypass surgery with all the sweeping changes required to make that path be successful.  He is not now, and has never been, a Man to shrink from a challenge.  He is entirely DIRECT.

Over and over, life has put Him in the position of having to face the facts and realities of the situation.  His great courage lies in seeing life exactly as it is, without embellishment or sugar-coating, and then dealing positively and proactively, with that reality.

I have tended, over the course of my years in the lifestyle community, to take exception to the pervasive construct of the "perfect" dominant.  The notion that those who assume the control, who take charge of the balance of power between partners; are somehow, necessarily, almost mythic, infallible, without the usual faults, failings, and weaknesses of their merely mortal human counterparts. I always find myself bemused by that "story," told so often by would-be submissives, and then promulgated as the one true way.  It is passed around our circles as conventional wisdom, but also as a sort of measure of character -- no self-respecting, sensible, submissive woman would put herself into the hands of a dominant who was any "less."  I've wondered, many times, what it must feel like to be one of those men, thrust into a role which may or may not be natural for them, and charged with presenting that perfect face to the world -- and to their own most intimate partner.  Inside of that construct, any fall from perfection is grounds for termination -- because the prime requisite for being given the gift of a partner's submission, is that living the life that is beyond reproach, without weakness, devoid of failings or fears.

I have never met that partner.  I do not believe that person exists.  The Man that I call Master is entirely human -- deficits and failings and faults and fears; but also a wide array of gifts to share;  vision, energy, power, determination, intellect, joyfulness, sensuality.  He is not the least bit mythical.  He is every bit of a real, living, breathing human person.  This last passage of weeks has once again confirmed me in my belief in His courage and personal integrity and strength.  If there ever was someone who walked through the world exuding that confidence that He so values, then I have been lucky to have found that Man.  I am honored and lucky to be loved by that Man.  I see Him, know Him, value His contribution to my life and to the world; and I am awesomely proud of Him.

swan