(j-million.com)"No sex please, we're ameboids and gatchularians" is one of our favorite funny lines in the BBC Radio version of the original "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams (1952-2001).
It refers to the fame-loving renegade star Zaphod Beeblebrox rather than the human, Arthur Dent, most listeners identify with. It is all the funnier because that seems to be all The Big Z is ever thinking about.
The radio series was so popular it became an increasingly inaccurate "trilogy" selling millions.Sadly it then became a dud movie in American theaters, so most know it only as an afterthought of one of the smartest and most innovative book series in the English language.
Wisdom Quarterly diary entries
He we are Buddhists talking about sex in a healthy and frank way. But what would we tell our diaries? The editors are reluctant to speak individually. Yet readers are eager to know. An insta-poll reveals a goodly number of celibates. Are they master meditators? Most do not even meditate daily. But all of them do meditate multiple times a week. Are they cunning linguists? Just one. Are they unmarried hypocrites? No. While most of the editors are not married, all adhere to the Five Precepts, which says no to sexual misconduct not to sex itself.
Of course, sex is embarrassing to most Americans. We're Puritans and fundamentalists after all. One never realizes this until one travels out of the country, but it's true. We are raised on violence, guilt, explicit advertisements, and official hypocrisy. We say we're "open" but we act like prudes. Some of the editors at Wisdom Quarterly are prudes -- not that they wish to be, just more sort of out of habit after a while. But they have great back stories because, "Every sinner has a future, and every saint has a past." Here is a normal day in the life of.
Dear Diary: Last night she looked at me. I talked to her. She took me to her house. And then... Well, nothing happened. But I sensed potential. If I get invited over again, I may just try something. *Inconsolable weeping* Oh, to close the deal already rather than over thinking it! I'm a disgrace to mankind! But without the crushing karma of alcohol?- Dear Diary: Last night I made myself a cup of tea, chamomile, not that cheap kind, but the fancy box. We're worth it, and I feel it's what Katz Meowington would want for us. O, if only cats could date!
- Dear Diary: Last night we argued again, he's really *issing me off. Think yer gettin sum 2nite, chief? Fuhgittabowtit, gavone! I'm not ya plaything. Respect is a two-way St.
- Dear Diary: Last night? I'm not proud of it. I'm not ashamed about it. It's natural. It's not unnatural. Why is there a stigma?! [What?] No comment.
- Dear Diary [translated from our in-house Buddhist monastic]: Last night, vespers. Lock up the temple. Make sure everyone has eaten. Plan for speech... Look at computer [for cheap thrills].
- Dear Diary: Last night, wife was being difficult, kids being [jerks], better meditate if I have to write about this for WQ.
- Dear Diary: Ugg, better off without him. I may not have anyone. But I'm off without him...
- Dear Happiness Journal: Last night, I got home late after my meditation group, wife was already (mostly) asleep. I ate some slightly appetizing fast food and watched New Girl and Best Ink on my DVR before I hit the hay. I feel slightly lonely, and maybe a bit disappointed, as I write this.
Society sold us a bill of goods! "Project X," "Act Like a Man," "Blue Velvet," "The Diary of Anais Nin," and that part on the cliff in "Lion King," we were cheated. And it makes us lonely. And we think everybody else is having fun. Religion promises answers while advancing the problem. We have to be responsible. We have to go against the corporate stream. There is love, there is intimacy, there is nature free of obsession compounded by denial. And Wisdom Quarterly will find it.
