Like a powerful magnet, my eyes are pulled from their current focus to catch a glimpse as they drift by…

I am what you would call a “breast man”.

The soft rolling hills, erupting forward in a parabolic curve that I cannot miss or ignore, the calling of the siren to the starry-eyed sailor…

I often ask myself, why? They’re just another body part. Nobody gets bent out of shape over elbows — why a breast?

The teasing of the flowery, silky, or lacy straps, rising up the back to the peak before diving sharply downward to cradle the softness within, they tease — always tease — the path of breadcrumbs to the house of treats…I am Hansel, I long to get lost in the woods…

Chemically-speaking, these are not amazing devices. In fact, the majority is made up of fat. I might as well have a prolonged infatuation with a can of shortening for all that amounts to. In the biological world, they aren’t even unique, as other animals have them as well, yet I don’t catch myself watching a cow’s udder as she passes.

Cloth pulled tight across them, the classic t-shirt, the button-up that isn’t entirely, the thin nightgown shifting slightly in the breeze. Each curve of the hill, each hint of the peak, my mind cannot help but become a virtual miner, pulling back the layers in my fantasy, wondering what lies sleeping beneath the layers, the hidden softnesses…

I wonder if much of it comes from instinct, a nod to my more primal urges and needs, those imposed upon me by my animalistic nature. Perhaps this has a great part in my fascination with these features of the female sex and my desire to see, caress, touch, and fondle them. Or maybe I’m just obsessed. Women like washboard stomachs for some reason, why not breasts?

Those who know about breast cancer know a lot about breast health. You can find medical information on breast health on the internet. It is good to know facts on preventing breast cancer.

I am like Santa Claus walking down the street, making mental notes on the good and bad little children. It is well that my inner monologue isn’t published in an RSS feed to the world, for it can be quite impressive at times. The wide array of sizes, styles, and shapes always keep me on my toes. “Oh, how cute”, will be one, and another, “Nice, very nice”, and the occasional, “OMG, would you look at that!” Yes, let’s keep that mental thoughtstream out of the public domain for now.

I have known many pairs in my life, both casually and intimately. From the very small to the very large and anywhere in between, it never ceases to amaze me that they all attract in one way or another. I thought at first that my fascination was only because of a lack of exposure, that once I got used to the idea, it would no longer hold my mind as tightly. Sex was often that way, giving me uncomfortable long nights of imaginations of some time in the future when I was a teenager, leading up to my current state of still liking it as much as I thought I would, but not nearly being so obsessed with it as I was back then. Breasts, however….well, they just don’t cease to ever amaze and confuse.

Hours can be spent with them when the person is willing, adoring them, caressing them, appreciating them in ways that would make a good deal of the general public blush…

I am likewise amused to hear women talk about their own, as of course their attitudes towards them are vastly different. Sure, many find them to be a source of pleasure during sexual acts, but at the same time, they agonize so much over them. How to cover, lift, separate, squish, push, pull, squeeze, rearrange, flatten, plump, hoist, lower, shape, or otherwise adjust. Whether they are showing too much or not enough. How much cleavage? Do my nipples show through? Bra straps peeking out? Mine are too big, too small, too round, too pointy, too flat, too plump, too high, too low, too wide, too narrow, too heavy, too light. Not the right color, nipples are too big, too small, too many freckles. Breasts, to women, are often like shoes that never matches the dress they want to wear, no matter how many pairs you try on.

And, just when you think they aren’t enough work already, add on top of this the need for mamograms, X-rays, self-examinations, doctor exams, biopsies, poking, prodding, feeling, squishing, hurting. The constant fear that the part of your anatomy that makes you look most like your gender might eventually kill you and you might not catch it in time.

Breasts, to a woman, are just one big stress-fest.

I smile internally as I see another great pair walk by, happy for me for the beauty that I’ve seen, happy for the woman that she has such beauty from the outside. I can only muse, of course, about the beauty within, but I can hope…

I think in many ways I appreciate this feature of women all the more because of the strife involved with them, of the concentrations on them that give such huge pressures to women in fashion and self-esteem, and because of the dangers they possess to the unlucky ones.

So, perhaps my attraction isn’t entirely instinctual, but a combination of that mixed with a healthy dose of admiration for a body part that, were it an elbow, just wouldn’t get as much attention.

Author’s Note: This entry is the third round in a Blog-Off run by Courtney Slavin of Five Second Dance Party. Each week we have to write a blog entry centred around one word. This weeks’ word is, “breasts”. To read the blog entries of others that are participating, head on over to The List. The proceeds of this Blog-Off go to support breast cancer research and prevention. And I’m a breast man, so I’m all for it.

I wonder if hope is applicable any more in this modern world.

In an age where almost everything can be explained or reasoned by means of physics, biology, chemistry, technology, or good old cause-and-effect logic, is there any room in our psyche for the concept of “hope”? Clearly it still exists in our culture, but is it necessary? Is it healthy, or are we simply deluding ourselves into a fantasy world?

I’ve always thought of hope as, “emotional wishing”, and in many contexts, I think this description fits it pretty well. Hope is often viewed as the true wishes of the heart, the desires of the inner person for events to transpire in a particular way, to turn out in the favor of the hopeful or of their friends and family.

Wishes are, for the most part, irrational longings. They are what people want to happen regardless of the probability of it actually coming to pass. Despite all odds or impossibilities, wishes remain a staple part of many people’s lives, coming into play both as children and adults, simply changing in content as the individual moves through life. Some consider wishes to be free; they are the unfettered desires of the mind, free to float about, unchained from reality’s sensibilities and accountabilities.

I have always viewed wishes as being quite dangerous and often inappropriate. Large amounts of wishing often means that the individual is not tied closely with reality in their mind, or they are avoiding the arduous task of dealing with harsh and unpleasant events and situations. Using wishes in this manner is a self-delusion akin to drowning your sorrows in an alcohol-fuelled fog, only this one is completely self-brewed and bottled, labelled with fantasy, corked with irrationality, and leading up to one hell of a “morning after”, complete with a psychological walk of shame.

Wishing as a child for events is simply a matter of being young and ignorant of the inner workings of reality; wishing as an adult is a denial of the basic fundamentals of life, resulting in a moment of irrationality — a cowering of the mind behind its fantastical blanky. On the whole, wishing ends up being a fruitless waste of time and energy in most cases.

Hope would no doubt be described by people in a much different manner. There is an element to hope that wishing does not encompass; a sense of purpose, of assuredness, or guarantee. The hoper is often very committed to their vision of reality.

The religious would say that their hope for the spiritual rewards and gifts are backed by their tenants; their hopes are the true longings of an inspired and faith-filled heart, backed with a spiritual insurance policy and guarantee of deliverance. Years of study and teachings, exposure to the ideas of the faith, and stories of others who have benefited from their particular religion lend much “evidence” to their experience, often making doubt a thing to keep far away from the core of the belief.

Others view hope as a sort of emotional bridge between what you really desire to happen and the reality of the situation. In this manner, hope appears to be a wish backed by some rationality or evidence, but not fully, and the desire to merge the current reality with the proposed end result is filled in with emotion and desire in the form of hope. Perhaps Johnny has a job interview with Google. He know he has a decent chance of getting a job, but he’s not certain of it, so he hopes that the result will be a new position. There is nothing at all to suggest that he has the job in the bag, 100%, but it’s leaning in a certain direction. Hope, in this case, does the rest of the work.

So is hope harmful? I often wonder about this because, although wishing is purposely unbacked by evidence or rationality, there are certain moments in which hope plays a similar role. There are great swaths of people who rely upon their own justifications for their hopes, no matter how self-deluded they are. Their hopes are rationalized out by their own logic, but that evidence is flawed to start with, so the resulting hope is likewise erroneous.

Thus, I usually try to shy away from making both wishes and hopes for my life. If I find myself utilizing one of these justifications for holding onto a vision of an alternate or futuristic reality, I chide myself, mostly because I can never be sure that my own rationalizations for feeling a particular way have a foundation in unbiased logic. I can say that I hope that my child is beautiful, but I have no evidence to support this thought. Of course, I have no evidence to the contrary, either, so my stakes are evened out in this particular case. But the point stands that I probably do not have a rational reason and I am better off in the long run if I mull over the odds as they really are and not as I wish them to be.

A great deal of people would no doubt argue against the idea that hope is no longer applicable, saying it gives emotional and mental coping power to those in difficult situations, allowing them to continue on in the face of adversity. While I agree that it does seem to have empowered the many inspirational folk to weather the storms of life, I wonder what delusions they have had to ascribe to in order to accept such hope into their minds to the point where it was a motivational factor? Which person is more likely to be wiser and better balanced after an experience, the one that states, “I always had hope that this would turn out OK” or the one that shakes their head and says, “Look, I didn’t have a hope in the world. Everything was against us, nothing was going right, and we buckled down and did what we could. The fact that we ended up here is nothing short of amazing.” Which person has learned a more valuable lesson in life?

I do not think that hope is completely and utterly useless. There are times in which we should allow ourselves to go, to dream the impossible dream, to envision the world that we would create if our minds would allow us. Like a daydream, these fuel creativity, passion, inspiration, and amusement. It is, however, difficult to recommend the path of hope as a regular implement when life instead calls for wisdom, rationale, and realistic coping skills. These tools end up giving the person a much firmer foundation upon which to weather the hurricanes and persevere through all the nasties that are thrown at them.

I wish for you, all of you, the best and most productive use of hope in your lives.

Author’s Note: This entry is the second round in a Blog-Off run by Courtney Slavin of Five Second Dance Party. Each week we have to write a blog entry centred around one word. This weeks’ word is, “hope”. To read the blog entries of others that are participating, head on over to The List. The proceeds of this Blog-Off go to support breast cancer research and prevention.   And who doesn’t like breasts, really?

Are you a survivor, or did you merely continue to exist?

The reality TV show’s motto is, “Outwit, Outplay, Outlast” — it requires that the contestants not simply “stick around”, but to engage themselves within the challenges, to constantly modify and adjust their strategies, and to rise above the struggles of the situations they are placed in. It is an active role that they must apply themselves to in order to come out on top.

This is not unlike real-life challenges.

“He is a survivor.” Is he? Or did he merely not die? Is he now a shell of a human, emotionally and psychologically wreaked by the experience, a stripped out hull that, while he did indeed manage to live past the experience, he essentially died within? You see, because survival requires so much more than simply plowing through to the other side of a barrier.

The root, “survive”, comes from the Latin super “over, beyond” and vivere “to live”. If you notice, it does not say “lived through” something, nor “lived around” something…but lived over something. I think that’s a very important distinction.

I think of the many survivors I know in my life, not only concerned with diseases, but with other challenges, from day-to-day struggles with jobs, money, life, and relationships to those huge events of disease, injury, disasters, and family crisis. The ones that really shine and deserve the title, “survivor”, are those that do not simply make it through the ordeal but learn, grow, adapt, and not only beat the situation but give it a thorough whipping.

This is not to say that all survivors come through unscathed; indeed, part of the process of becoming a survivor is to become maimed, hurt, beat down, and flayed open. At these times, we see what they are made from as they change their strategy, learn new things, evolve, and climb back up the shaky ladder once more. They may fall back down again and again, maybe even getting hurt worse each time, but the will to keep fighting to emerge pulls them onward. The light may get dim, it might even become so dim you can hardly see it — but they come back from the brink to succeed once again. Survivors are admired for the quality of their struggling, not their shiny trophy at the end.

The urge to survive is deeply embedded into the human psyche. It has, in fact, been essential to our existence to persevere. Lying down in a ditch and wallowing forever has never been a tactic that results in an improved species. Likewise, those that are now successful, wealthy, well-adjusted, and socially nimble have become so through surviving above and beyond their fellow humans. This carries onwards from the simple berry-gathering and buffalo-hunting of years past to the new challenges everyone faces in this modern world. The mountains to climb have changed names and shapes, but everyone still has to scale sheer faces to get to the top.

I’d like to posit that survivors are not necessarily those that manage to avoid death. Even when dying people can be survivors, fighting the stacked odds, listening to the ticking of the clock slowing and yet not succumbing to its incessant chimes. I do not view the terminal survivor as the person who fights death to the bitter end; rather, this sort of victor is the one who faces the inevitable — not with fear and shaking, but with a firm resolution, a drive to make the most of what is left, to love those close to them, make amends where necessary, and use the opportunity to teach, inspire, and motivate others in their own lives. A survivor of this kind lasts long after they are gone, continuing to affect the people that knew them and sometimes ones that never had the opportunity. They are the ones that come to mind often, bring a smile to your face, and give you hope for something better when the odds are against you.

To those who are survivors now and in the future — good luck. You’ll make it, you’ll succeed, and you’ll be better than before. Remember all those who have been survivors before you and around you.

Outwit the challenges, Outplay the games, Outlast the fear.

Be a Survivor.

Author’s Note: This entry is the first round in a Blog-Off run by Courtney Slavin of Five Second Dance Party. Each week we have to write a blog entry centred around one word. This weeks’ word is, “survivor”. To read the blog entries of others that are participating, head on over to The List. The proceeds of this Blog-Off go to support breast cancer research and prevention. Being a big fan of them myself, this is a pretty darn good cause.