Phase 10^TM is a fun card game produced by Fundex Games Ltd.. I love playing this game as-is, but I've also played Strip Phase 10 with some of my friends. I'd like to share the rules with you, so you can share in the nekkid fun!

1. All the normal Phase 10 rules are in force. Set up and play the game as you normally would.

2. Define what constitutes clothing before beginning to play Strip Phase 10. If it matters to you or the others, make sure that each person is wearing the same number of clothes. I suggest that you only count underwear, shirts, pants, socks, and shoes. I suggest that no accessories or jewelry should count, no belts, no shoelaces, etc. Just to make sure, everybody should agree on how many pieces of clothing they are wearing, and what those pieces are, before beginning.

3. Choose a dealer and begin playing the first hand according to the normal Phase 10 rules.

4. At the end of each hand, anybody who did not complete their Phase must remove a piece of clothing.

[4a. Variation One: Anybody who did not go out must remove a piece of clothing. This fosters accelerated group nudity.]

[4b. Variation Two: The winner of the hand may choose a player who must remove a piece of clothing.]

[4c. Variation Three: The player with the highest score for the hand must remove a piece of clothing.]

[4d. Variation Four: Treat "Skip" cards as though they are "Strip" cards -- to use, simply discard the "Strip" card on your turn, then choose a player who must remove a piece of clothing.]

[4e. Multiple Variations: Create your own combination of the above variations for a faster slide toward group nudity!]

5. If you run out of clothes before the end of the game, then each time the rules call for you to remove a piece of clothing, you must either drink a shot of hard liquor or chug a bottle of beer instead.

6. If a player passes out from drinking too much, place him or her on a comfortable mattress (rubber sheets optional) until the next day. Check him or her occasionally to ensure continued breathing. If breathing stops, administer CPR and call 911 immediately.

Enjoy!

One of the potential side effects of Buddhist meditation and study is an expanding empathy. Once you knock down some of your own ego walls, and realize how interconnected we are, that we are all chaotic open systems interlocked with and within other chaotic open systems, it is possible to experience a wider range of empathy than before.

For some Buddhists, this expanding empathy leads to dramatic changes in behavior -- a code of right speech, right livelihood, nonviolence, sexual monogamy, avoidance of all intoxicants, daily meditation, and continual mindfulness. In this, they are not unlike some born-again Christians, trying to live their entire lives as idealistic adherents to a special code of conduct (perhaps to be rewarded in the afterlife).

This realization that the universe is made up of interlocking open systems can also lead to heavy feelings of guilt for past and present behaviors, because it is practically impossible to go through life without ever damaging other living entities, sometimes intentionally. A form of totalitarian political correctness can take over the Buddhist's mental life, as he or she tries to carefully shape every action in ways that will reduce harm the most.

In addition, this realization can create pressures to help all other living entities who are in need.

An enlightened Buddhist could spend all of her waking hours chasing after a better world, paradoxically forgetting the drill that sparked her enlightenment in the first place -- sitting still, viewing the world as it is, and accepting whatever she sees.

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Spiritual pursuits, as well as the more secular ones, can lead to the creation of a Messiah Complex, in which a human being is convinced that he ought to be saving the world from its sorrows, even at the price of his own greatest sacrifice.

Saving the world in return for sacrificing one life (either via enslavement to a cause, or death). Not so much to ask for, eh? Especially if you believe in a punishment/reward system that exists in the afterlife. Karma, nirvana, heaven, hell, you name it -- the idea is that you'll be rewarded later for current sacrifices, or that you'll be punished later for current indulgences.

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Other Buddhists avoid this sticky totalitarian web, by continually reminding themselves that good and evil arise only within the grasping mind, and that their own perceptions of the universe will always be limited and imperfect. After learning, via Buddhist practice, to avoid their own suffering by accepting their personal pains, they learn to avoid additional empathic suffering by accepting their empathic pains (which are presumably echoes of the pains felt by others).

It seems like America has been undergoing a spiritual revival, especially for those of the Christian persuasion. Even I've been walking a more spiritual path during the past several months, having dropped my prior hostility to attending Christian services with family and friends. I'm not a Christian, though. I'm also starting to feel hemmed in by the Buddhist label I've been wearing.

Perhaps I'm a pan-spiritualist!

Panning the various spiritual traditions in search of gold, opening Pandora's Box along the way, as I travel to Pandemonium, where I meet the ever optimistic Pangloss and then return to having my next panic attack.

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What is spirituality anyway?

Adhering to a good, moral code of conduct?

Believing in something beyond the physical world, something we can neither confirm nor deny, something we must accept with faith?

A sense of community, knowing that we are not alone and that we are part of something larger than ourselves?

A self-important waste of time?

Finding purpose for our lives?

Paying attention to our subjective, internal world of thoughts and feelings?

Being in touch with a sense of wonder at living in the midst of beauty and tragedy?

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The root of the word comes from Latin's spiritus, meaning breath.

Buddhists, when first learning to meditate, are taught to focus on their breath. Babies, after being expelled from the womb, must take their first breath. When we die, we take our last breath. Whether we are conscious of our breathing, or distracted from it, we must continue to breathe to stay alive. Breath connects us to the rest of the universe -- we breathe in oxygen, we breathe out carbon dioxide, we exchange molecules with the atmosphere. Breath is cyclical, rythmic, in and out, constant, vital.

Why wouldn't Buddhists start with the breath?

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Western spiritual traditions tend to split experience between this life and the afterlife, between the material world and the spiritual world, between earth and heaven.

Eastern spiritual traditions tend to unify experience, viewing everything as interconnected and reincarnated.

The prime motivation for all human spirituality appears to be the phenomenon of death. Death appears to give our lives a finite boundary. Death appears to be the end of our subjective awareness. Death is quickly followed by an irreversible decay of the physical body, a transformation into ... other things. Some spiritual traditions attempt to preserve the physical body for as long as possible. Other spiritual traditions burn and scatter the physical body shortly after death.

Another important motivation for all human spirituality appears to be a need for control. In order to create a good and just society, we are expected to follow a particular moral code, and those who follow the code are rewarded, while those who violate the code are punished. When church and state are unified, the moral code is the law. When church and state are separate, the moral code is a higher law.

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Spirituality can not be just one thing. It is a fuzzy word, with different meanings for all who utter it.

But all spiritual seekers have one thing in common -- they are searching for knowledge, searching for answers. Answers to universal human questions about the meaning of life and the meaning of death. We all have these jumbles of sensations and perceptions running through our minds and bodies -- what do they all mean? How should we behave? What should we expect? Whom should we trust?

There used to be no separation between spirituality and the search for knowledge. Religious leaders were the most educated of people, religious leaders were also secular leaders -- there was no division between religious matters and secular matters. The massive and accelerating fountain of new knowledge produced during the past few centuries has put so much pressure on the system of knowledge that it has fractured into specialties ... religion has had a difficult time keeping up.

This has made it seem like spirituality is that area of knowledge that is ancient, primal, and resistant to modern exploration. Like spirituality is that area of knowledge which has failed to evolve.

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Ultimately, spirituality gives people comfort. In a world filled with pain and suffering, spirituality gives people reasons to hold on (breathing in), and reasons to let go (breathing out). Perhaps it doesn't matter whether these reasons are true, as long as they give comfort to those who search for them.

And perhaps spirituality is what makes us social animals -- a system of shared beliefs that transcends the individual, filling psychic needs that force us to look beyond our individual needs and individual survival.

Occam's Razor is also called the principle of parsimony. These days it is usually interpreted to mean something like "the simpler the explanation, the better" or "don't multiply hypotheses unnecessarily." In any case, Occam's razor is a principle which is frequently used ... by philosophers of science in an effort to establish criteria for choosing from among theories with equal explanatory power. ^{http://skepdic.com/occam.html}

Theory "A" is less complex than Theory "B", and they both seem to explain the same observable events. The principle of Occam's Razor tells us to prefer Theory "A" because it is simpler.

But no theory, whether simple or complex, accounts for all phenomena. Equations explaining reality are typically a "best fit", not a "perfect fit", as anybody who has taken a college lab course should know from personal experience. Uncertainty and chaos are fundamental characteristics of the known universe, and the simpler theory is often less explanatory than the more complex theory. For example, Newton's theory of gravity is simpler and easier to understand than Einstein's, but Einstein's theory is a better explanation than Newton's.

By following Occam's razor, philosophers of science are likely to oversimplify their understanding of the known universe, increasing the amount of data which they can not explain. And then, typically, philosophers of science become unduly attached to their oversimplifications, and react skeptically to data which they can not explain.

Anytime you believe something, anytime you identify with a particular explanation, theory, equation, statement, myth, grouping, label, or expectation, you are placing an extra filter between your perceptual systems and the fundamental nature of your reality. Theories are never true, they are merely stories that attempt to explain a selective portion of reality. We create and rely upon theories because they usually work, most of the time, not because they are perfect.

(I first posted this essay on 10/10/02)

A bunch of the guys I hang out with on a regular basis are "dieting" right now. I got rid of my scale earlier this year and haven't thought of myself as being on a diet since. Getting rid of my scale has been a boon to my self-esteem :-) Now I don't terrorize myself each morning with arbitrary weight loss goals. I weigh whatever I weigh.

Instead of having a diet, or particular weight goals, I make a priority to exercise nearly every day, I eat a mostly vegetarian diet, and I pay attention to the messages my tummy sends me. If my tummy says, "I'm hungry!" then I eat. If my tummy says, "I'm starting to feel full!" then I stop eating. Once in a while I'll stuff myself, but only once in a while, on special occasions, less than once per week.

I don't specifically avoid candies, munchies, or cakes, but when I do eat these things they are part of my meals, which means I only eat them when I'm (still) hungry.

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A couple weeks ago I was on a walk with a friend, and he was talking about his diet. It sounded like he was imposing restrictions on himself without regard to hunger and satiety. I proposed that there are two general methods of dieting. One is top-down, where the brain imposes rules on the body, and the other is bottum-up, where the brain listens to the body and responds to its needs.

My friend told me that if he listened to his body he'd keep on eating. I didn't see anything wrong with that!! So keep eating until your body is finished!!

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I tend to see everything through a Buddhist lens these days, which can be tiresome for others to hear ;-) But I'm more interested in the life that is happening in front of me than in particular outcomes for my future. It seems like a lot of the dieters I know are grasping for a particular numerical outcome -- a scale reading a particular number of pounds. Their desire for this outcome leads them to bludgeon their bodies and their egos for perceived failures, to guilt-trip themselves into submission.

That doesn't sound fun at all, and it doesn't sound healthy for either mind or body.

I'd prefer a "diet" that is focused on the process. A diet that listens to the body and takes care of the body. A diet that springs from self-love instead of self-hatred.

If the dieter starts with a simple emotion of love for himself, then he'll want to take care of himself because he loves himself. Taking care of himself means getting some exercise each day, and eating a moderate variety of nutritious foods. Taking care of himself means occasionally taking a day off to celebrate, without feeling guilty afterward. Loving himself means loving himself unconditionally, as he is, whatever the scale might read on any particular day.

I don't think many diet plans start with self-love. Most of them start with fear and guilt. They label the dieter as "obese", rattle off a bunch of statistics about how obesity causes dire health consequences, and then focus on what the dieter must give up in order to reach his "ideal" weight.

I'd rather start with love. I love myself. I love my body. I love my brain, my mind, and my soul. Because I love myself, I care for myself and my body. One of the ways I care for myself is by moving my body in various ways, like running & biking & walking & rowing & lifting weights. Another way I care for myself is by eating a variety of nutritious foods, including a full breakfast, lunch, and an afternoon snack. Another way I care for myself is by not stuffing myself at dinner, because stuffing myself feels unpleasant and isn't healthy. Another way I care for myself is by rewarding myself with occasional treats, alcoholic beverages and parties :-)

(Adapted from an essay I first posted on 10/6/02)

I had written a very long entry about this, and my computer froze before I posted it.

Damn. It was very long, well reasoned, with plenty of history and bit-by-bit development. Better than what follows below.

Anyway ...

To summarize ... the real source of my anger about boyfriends is that for many many years I've tried too hard to have one (or more!).

I've kept trying to stuff fellas into the boyfriend role before knowing if they'd be any good at it. I've thought I could not be a happy person without a boyfriend, so I subordinated my personal needs to the requirement of having and keeping a boyfriend.

Then, during the poly years with Moose, I went even further, and subordinated my personal needs to the requirement of having and keeping multiple boyfriends.

I'm not going to do this anymore!

I've been focusing on taking care of my own needs, starting with the ground floor and working my way up.

First, I've been getting enough sleep -- which is why I haven't needed to use my alarm clock even once in several months.

Second, I've been getting enough exercise -- which is why my blood pressure, resting pulse rate, and weight are all healthy ... and which is why people think I look as many as 10 years younger than my age ... and which is why enough people think I'm sexy that the main limitations on my sex life are the limitations I put there myself.

Third, I've put my career on auto-pilot -- I'm making more than enough money, so I'm just gonna go with the flow at the office, up to 40 hours per week, and not think about work when I'm not at work ;-)

Fourth, I'm investing time into my spiritual practice -- meditating, reading about Buddhism and other religions, attending worship services. This investment is paying off in a lot of ways, unpredictable ways! My life and personality are changing in front of my eyes.

Fifth, I'm having fun -- I invite my friends and family to do fun things with me, I don't spend time with people just because they are on the schedule anymore, and I'm trying out new and exciting things, like taking trips to meet LiveJournal buddies or to visit places like NYC all by myself, or going to nudist and S&M parties ... then there are all the Buffy & 24 episodes I've been catching up on!

And that's all. And that's enough. More than enough!

And, if I'm to have a "boyfriend" in the future, he is going to be a person who is also doing the things that I like to do. He's going to be somebody who takes care of his body by getting enough sleep and exercise. He isn't going to be a workaholic (or a volunteeraholic, or a chemical addict either). He's going to have a spiritual practice that feeds him and calms him and gives meaning to his life. And, he's going to have fun with me :-)

The search for a boyfriend, or the keeping of a boyfriend, will not be more important than living my life in healthy, spiritual, and fun ways. If we find each other, we'll find each other doing much the same things that we are doing now.

If we don't find each other, that's OK too, because I'll be taking care of myself and having fun and playing with a variety of activity friends, some of whom will be snuggly/sexual partners, most of whom will not.

Back when I was in elementary school, during the 1970s, TV shows about ESP and other tales of the paranormal were popular. Leonard Nimoy's In Search Of ... ran from 1976 through 1982, and I remember it being one of my favorite shows. He'd investigate UFOs, ghosts, telepathy, the Loch Ness Monster, and those sorts of things. The wave of faddish interest in paranormal experiences peaked with Steven Spielberg's Poltergeist, and then the rise of the Religious Right seemed to eclipse the nation's brief foray into non-Christian explanations for ghosts, visions, and funny feelings about impending disasters.

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I'm mostly finished with my first reading of Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul. It was my first real exposure to the type of metaphysical thinking that commonly underlies various New Age philosophies. I find it difficult to summarize this book in a paragraph or less ... but it purports to be a book written by a non-physical personality communicating via a human medium. It covers concepts like reincarnation, multidimensional reality, simultaneous systems of probable realities, how consciousness creates the material world, the purpose of dreams, the innate consciousness of everything, and other related topics.

Although I don't agree with everything in this book, and I feel like it could have been edited better, I do conclude that it contains many important ideas to consider.

Most saliently, it leaves me feeling as though I understand the nature and limitations of ESP better than before. I hadn't spent much time contemplating ESP since the faddish years of the late 1970s ...

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ESP is something that divides people. Either they believe in it, or they don't. Not many people think that ESP includes a set of phenomena that can be scientifically studied and verified. Those who believe in it seem to think it is a powerful and inexplicable force allowing us to communicate with the spirit world. Those who don't believe in it think it is nonscientific hooey.

I think that ESP is more than the skeptics think, and less than the faithful believe. ESP (a.k.a. extrasensory perception) is the set of perceptions we experience that don't originate within our physically oriented sensual apparatus -- perceptions that don't originate within touch, smell, vision, hearing, or taste.

Using this definition, ESP is simply those perceptions that seem to originate in our dreams, our imaginations, our thoughts, or even our hallucinations, anywhere but physical reality. Using this definition, ESP exists, and we all have ESP. Every day and every night.

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So, the question is not whether to believe in the existence of ESP. ESP exists. The question is what these extrasensory perceptions mean, if anything.

If a medium channels a voice from another personality, where is this voice really coming from, and what can it really tell us?

If you recall a dream from last night, what does it mean, and what should you do about it?

If you feel a strong sense that a loved one is in danger, how should you react?

Does it do any good to visualize our internal bodily systems in order to help them fight diseases?

Can ESP activate the placebo effect? And why does the placebo effect work at all?

Can some people predict the future, peer into the past, or travel outside of their bodies in the present?

Can people communicate merely via their internally expressed thoughts?

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I don't have comprehensive answers for all of these questions, but I think they are all valid areas for exploration, both personally and professionally, and that all of them can be studied using observation, intuition, logic, and experimentation.

I think that both our scientific investigations and our everyday lives are unduly limited by assumptions that 4-dimensional "objective" physical reality is the complete basis for everything that happens.

I think it is naive to assume that 4-dimensional physical reality is all there is. Such a framework is anthropomorphic at best -- to think that reality is best described by the perceptual systems to which humans are most obviously and readily attuned, LOL! Is the universe defined by the cognitive maps inside your cat's brain? No. Is the universe defined by the cognitive maps inside your brain? No. The universe is far more than you or I can ever understand. That's why we invented God ;-)

The metaphysical theories spawned by ESP are attempts to generalize our understanding of the universe beyond the obvious 4-dimensional physical reality we can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. Why couldn't there be more dimensions than we can perceive via these senses? Why can't there be connections between two points of space-time that function via other dimensions?

And why the hell are we conscious at all, instead of fully-functioning non-sentient biochemical androids? Where does consciousness come from, and where does it go? What does it mean that we can feel what happens to us as we focus upon our particular portions of reality?

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If we are going to wonder about the origins of the known universe, along with black holes, quarks, and anti-matter, why not also wonder about the possibilities of the unknown universe, and what our extrasensory perceptions might signal about these possibilities?

On the other hand ... what good do these theories do me here and now, in my very human life, which finds itself subject to all the understood and misunderstood forces of 4-dimensional physical reality?

Well ... they could do a great deal of psychological good for me, if nothing else. If I better understood my dreams, my occasional hallucinations, my funny feelings, and my empathic imagination, I might better understand myself and my motivations. It could help a great deal to know where "I" came from, and where "I" am going, particularly after I die. These theories could correct a lot of harmful religious dogma, and help people to treat each other (and other species, and natural resources) with more love and respect.

When I came out as a homosexual, at age 19, in 1986, I made my first gay friends by (1) going to campus or youth-oriented gay groups, (2) going to gay bars, and (3) working out at a gym with other gay fellas. The Internet did not exist. Personal ads in the gay newspapers were as lame then as they are now ;-)

Although the Internet did not exist, casual gay sex did exist. How else would so many of my gay friends become infected with HIV and then die quickly from AIDS? Gay men would meet each other for anonymous encounters at certain public parks, in certain rest rooms, and at particular gay bars that catered to rough trade. We didn't need the Internet. Instead we needed agreed-upon places.

Those agreed-upon places still exist, but more and more we gay men use the Internet as our primary method of pursuing anonymous sex.

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I've never been comfortable with pursuing anonymous sex, not at agreed-upon places, and not via the Internet. The only times I've agreed to hook up with a stranger, regardless of method, I've been intoxicated. Yes, this has happened several times, but when I'm sober I have no interest in casual sex. And I've never gone to a place or logged on to my computer with the specific intent of finding a warm body to fuck.

I think this trait probably saved my life when I came out, back in the 1980s, back when AIDS killed people relatively quickly. Because I resisted having casual sex with those in my first group of gay friends, I am alive today well after most of them died.

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This trait has apparently also protected me, so far, from being infected by any sexually transmitted bacteria or viruses. Or I've been lucky. Or both.

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There are many gay men for whom sex with strangers is a recreational activity. If they find themselves with free time, they log on to a computer or go to a bar with the specific intent of finding a sexual partner. Superficially, I don't see anything morally wrong with such behavior. I do think it helps to spread sexually transmitted diseases, and crabs, and scabies -- no matter how safe you are, some of these critters find a way to jump from one host to another. I think that it is a much safer strategy to create a stable group of sexual partners, rather than to play with newcomers on a regular basis, but there appears to be something exciting about strangers that trumps safety concerns -- and something emotionally entangling about fuckbuddies.

However, when I sit back and ponder why I don't pursue anonymous sex, my reasons have nothing to do with safety. When I listen to my body and my emotional responses, I feel having sex with people I know and care for is far superior to having sex with strangers. I feel getting to know somebody on an intellectual and emotional level -- in addition to the physical level -- is far more interesting and rewarding than a night of high performance sex.

I feel having a group of close friends, regardless of whether we have sex, is a more humane way to live my life. I don't think it is healthy for me, or perhaps for others, for me to treat people as sex objects, for me to pursue people solely on the basis of their physical sexual attractiveness, or to rate people solely on the basis of their sexual performance.

Obviously many many people differ from me on this point. They seem to enjoy recreational sex. They continue to pursue it, regardless of the risks, regardless of the opportunity costs. Some people like crossword puzzles, other people like sex with strangers.