Taking A FaceBook Vacation

May 30, 2018July 21, 2018 Mike (The Geek With Muscles)Leave a comment

When’s the last time you had a vacation? Before you start describing your most recent trip to a far off place dotted with palm trees or ancient buildings, let me be more specific… when’s the last time you vacationed from FaceBook? You know, that wonderful destination you hold in your hand that you escape to while on the train, laying on the couch or even dare I say in the bathroom? When’s the last time you dared to disconnect from all the noise, the pictures of friends enjoying dinner without you, the cat videos, the ads for things you’ll never use, the secret data miners collecting analytics designed as clever surveys, and the people you didn’t realize were Trump supporters? Have you ever even thought of it?

Read more “Taking A FaceBook Vacation”

The Piscean Prison

May 19, 2018July 21, 2018 Mike (The Geek With Muscles)Leave a comment

Being a Pisces can be a bitch. Plain and simple. As I get older it seems it just gets harder and harder to deal with the outside world and all of the horrors available to us through social media and news outlets. Pisces are idealistic lovers, we quite literally love love. We love everything about love and everything about being in love. We love people we don’t even know and we can smother those we do with so much love that they run away. And it doesn’t stop there. Since we love to spread love so much we become paranoid when we may have not spread the love inadvertently. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lost sleep thinking I said or did something to someone that hurt their feelings or pissed them off. The idea of intentionally hurting someone, or stepping outside of the “love” zone really turns our world upside down.

Experiencing Homophobia Overseas

April 24, 2018July 21, 2018 Mike (The Geek With Muscles)Leave a comment

Living in the United States can and will make you pretty spoiled. You become accustomed to life as you know it, and take everyday occurrences completely for granted. Many of us here in Miami are reminded of our abundance as a nation when we share the experience of someone that recently immigrated from Cuba, and see their reactions to to a well stocked produce section at the local grocery store. It’s an all out emotional meltdown at times, something neither person is prepared for. While economic prosperity is something that’s relatively easy to appreciate and witness, individual freedoms are not. Most people vacation in areas of the world where they are welcomed with open arms, but even in the most beautiful and serene locations, the gay tourist has to be mindful of their destination in a different capacity… their personal safety. There are many parts of the world where being homosexual is against the law, and I’m not referring to some distant land on the other side of the planet, I’m talking about enjoying the beauty and splendor of the Caribbean. It was there that my partner Eric and I became very appreciative of the security and liberties we now enjoy in the United States.

Activism and the Lightworker

March 13, 2018May 30, 2018 Mike (The Geek With Muscles)2 Comments

Many of us that identify as lightworkers often feel as though they are tasked with a very important mission in life. This mission, sometimes still not understood or realized fully, is at the core of their being and perhaps even led them to the discovery that they are lightworkers themselves. The term lightworker, usually refers to someone that’s of high vibration, uplifting, and has a desire to spread this sense of well being around the globe. What happens though when a lightworker’s mission in life contradicts with this practice of spreading light, and literally does the opposite? What if in the process of activism, a lightworker brings “to light” acts of humans which are disturbing to others, in effect, lowering their vibration? Can a lightworker successfully fulfill their destiny and at the same time make others feel a sense of love and worthiness? I often struggle with these questions myself and present them to you for your feedback and point of view. Perhaps we can both learn a thing or two and help each other out at the same time.

Constantly Seeking Approval

February 8, 2018March 20, 2018 Mike (The Geek With Muscles)Leave a comment

“Please like me.”

“Please like what I have to say.”

“Please love me.”

“Why do you only like what I have to say, why didn’t you love it?”

“I think you suck for not liking me.”

Looks sort of mental doesn’t it? Did some emotional crippled person write this before going into a manic episode? Didn’t Glenn Close say this in Fatal Attraction?

Read more “Constantly Seeking Approval”

Being A Leader, A Follower, Or Both

December 30, 2017February 24, 2018 Mike (The Geek With Muscles)Leave a comment

I have a friend that sometimes annoys the hell out of me when she says:

“That person is such a follower, they’re not a leader, they just do what ever that other guy wants. They can’t think for themselves.”

The names have been removed to protect the innocent.

I’m sure you’ve heard this before and sometimes I even question myself and wonder where I fall in this scenario. Am I a leader? Or a follower? Do I just take orders and advice blindly, or do I put some thought into it first? Most recently, while pondering the cracks in my ceiling before falling asleep, (okay there are none, but it sets a mood) I realized it’s beneficial to be a little bit of both. We should know when it’s best for us to let our inner leader shine and take command, and know when to let someone else do the driving, be the follower we need to be, and learn a thing or two. Sometimes we might even realize that we’re following to a point that we’ve stopped thinking for ourselves, and that’s not a good thing. When we do that, we give up a part of who we are, a slice of our identity, a hand it over to someone that may or may not know what’s in our best interest. That sort of following can be seen in many areas of society, most notably in religious organizations and political affiliations.

The Need To Control

November 6, 2017December 14, 2017 Mike (The Geek With Muscles)Leave a comment

I was looking for parking the other day at the local grocery store and immediately located a middle aged man, with just a few groceries, loading his vehicle. This was probably the most simple and mundane of tasks, not requiring much effort since the amount of plastic bags he had in his cart was probably fewer than twelve. Yet he seemed to relish in the idea that I was anxiously waiting for him to finish and leave so I could park my car. Clearly he was in control and he milked the opportunity… so much so that another person came, loaded their vehicle and left before this guy finished. I ended up taking that spot instead, with some level of satisfaction that the guy with control issues never got to achieve a power-play orgasm. Clearly he would have climaxed while backing out ever so slowly, suddenly stopping for traffic that wasn’t there. Still, I was completely pissed off at this obvious and pathetic need to control.

Why Are Gay Men So Damn Needy?

November 2, 2017December 14, 2017 Mike (The Geek With Muscles)Leave a comment

I’m sure it’s happened to you before. You get home after a nice date with a handsome guy, he looked just like his pics online, so that’s a plus right out of the gate. Sex was pretty much a slam dunk so he’s definitely getting a second try and you’re actually looking forward to it. You get the usual text message accompanied by some cute emoji…

“tonight was really great, thanks for being so cool.”

You smile and drift off to sleep as you contemplate how dating really isn’t that bad after all.

The next morning you wake to the familiar routine of shutting off the alarm on your phone, oversleeping, and suddenly realizing you’re late for work. As you rush to get yourself together and out the door, you notice you have a text message on your phone which must be from the office reminding you of a meeting you’re late for. In what has become a very automatic set of movements for your fingers, you navigate immediately to your texts and retrieve the poorly timed piece of information…

“thinking of you.”

The Toxicity of Social Media

October 2, 2017March 21, 2018 Mike (The Geek With Muscles)Leave a comment

I’ve only been on Facebook for a short amount of time relative to most, a couple of months has gone by since I made the leap into this digital equivalent of humans in herds. I administer content management systems at work (ECM), so the least thing I needed was a personalized version. Then my blog came along and I gave into the temptation of having a platform to share my articles. While during my first week on Facebook, I was amazed by this unified form of consciousness I seemed to be observing, I quickly became aware of a darker side to this mass method of communication. Unlike social interactions in the flesh, people feel free to act or react in ways that they wouldn’t do so in public. I used to teach an orientation class at work on cyber manners, back when this new thing called the Internet became a tool for business. It was then that I was first introduced to the analogy of people acting the same way online, as they do in their cars, especially during incidents of road rage. The comparison was made of someone getting in front of you in the movie line, to if they did the same action in their car while driving. In the later example, you might scream and yell at the person, shoot them the bird and hold your hand down on the horn. While if you acted the same way face to face, you’d probably scare the shit out of everyone around you and might even get arrested.

Still Stronger Together

August 16, 2017September 8, 2017 Mike (The Geek With Muscles)Leave a comment

This past week it seemed like Americans took a huge leap backwards in time, and in human progress. We saw scenes unfold on live television that we thought were only reserved for documentaries and high-school history class. We heard angry words from the mouth of our elected leader, the President of The United States of America, refusing to condemn those representing a way of thinking which humanity attempted to extinguish in World War II. So many lives lost on a global scale, so many families broken… all disgraced by someone that has proven to be the antithesis of leadership and what it means to hold the office. Our nation is angry and justifiably so. We are all witnessing the very destruction of American principles and freedoms we have come to cherish as citizens of this country. In the processes, we’re also seeing that hate and vitriol is contagious, and we’re turning on our own friends and neighbors, accusing them of putting this monster in office, all too eager to pick up the first stone and cast it. We’re also forgetting American values, like democracy and the freedom to choose, in an effort to assign blame. Ironically, the words of Hillary Clinton are more relevant now than ever, “We’re stronger together.”