My wife's a good sport and last year while on vacation driving around the North West, she let me schedule a down day for us at a small rural nudist club. Like many of the smaller family run clubs, everyone was nude there to the extent the weather allowed them to be, including the owners as they went about the business of running the place.
This year, while driving around southern California, we had an extra day and I suggested that we enjoy another down day relaxing at another resort. This time, she wanted something more upscale, complaining that the last place was like hanging out in someone's back yard. Wanting to make her happy, I researched the possibilities. Though SoCal was experiencing a terrible drought, it was our luck to be there when widespread rain hit. To minimize the impact to our trip, we headed for Palm Springs. Bracketed by two rainy weekends, the Desert Sun Resort there was virtually empty and they dropped their price enough that I booked a night there. The weather while we were there during the week was perfect!
While it doesn't bother me in the least to interact with clothed people when I'm nude, my wife was fascinated with the employees not only being dressed, but impeccably so, appropriate to their duties. The receptionist was dressed as one would expect a receptionist to be. That's not unusual, given that they're the interface to the outside world. But the landscapers and the maintenance people were dressed like landscapers and maintenance people. Worse yet, the housekeeper were impeccably dressed as (gasp!) housekeepers. The place was first class. Beautifully landscaped with top notch rooms and facilities. But my wife couldn't get over the difference between "us" and "them" to the point that she wondered what "they" thought of "us". She even asked a few of them what they thought (as one should expect when asked by a stranger, they said they were happy to be working there).
I've been to several "clothing optional" places where a good percent of people there are clothed. I understand that some people find that easier to deal with at first, but people being the social animals that they are, are most comfortable when everyone's on the same level. One of the upscale places I often go to isn't CO, but the employees at their fancy restaurant are dressed as they would be in fancy restaurants elsewhere, even if everyone being served is comfortably nude. As odd and hypocritical as that seems to me, it doesn't bother me. But it would bother my wife who would see those clothed as being "them", separated and different, from "us".
That blows my mind. I think of clothed people as being naked people covered up. Clothed people think of us as being somehow "different" than they are. We aren't. We're just not hung up as much as they are about having to hide ourselves from each other.
Friday, March 6, 2015
OK... I'm weird.
I admit that I'm weird. I was born with "the knack". Or as some would say, "the curse". This video explains it:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xto41p_dilbert-the-knack_fun
The video hits a bit too close to home. My parents weren't technical people. None of my family was. Yet even as a young boy I was insatiably curious about how things work. When it came to anything having to do with science, math, or later engineering, I couldn't stop myself. Yes, I took things apart. Yes, I asked millions of questions. And yes (hanging my head in shame), like Dilbert, I tore apart TVs and radios and made ham radios out of them before I was 12. Even as an adult working as an RF (radio frequency) engineer, I kept taking PhD level courses in advanced mathematics, quantum mechanics, and various different sciences and engineering disciplines.
My curiosity wasn't limited to just "things". I needed to understand what makes people tick. To that end, I minored in sociology and psychology. I was the top student in those classes, and my professors were extremely disappointed when they found out that I was an engineering major.
I learned early on that rationalizing human behavior was, and is, a waste of time. The question of why people can't just be naked around each other nagged me as a kid. But I knew my mother would tell me "because that's the way it is", which would have driven me crazy. I eventually realized that people are conditioned by their environment, their culture, their beliefs, and their families to be what they are and to feel what they feel about things. Most people aren't interested in objectively understanding their behaviors. And most people aren't interested in what their natural unconditioned behaviors are, or would be.
I believe that accepting what we are and what we look like is, in fact, natural social behavior that we've forsaken to our own peril. That being ashamed or embarrassed to what we are, is stupid. And that to be offended by what other people simply are, is mean. We evolved (or were designed to be) not only compatible with our environment, but to thrive in that environment, without the need, or the desire, to be clothed. Clothing was an adaptation to our foolishly leaving the climate range our bodies were intended for. And we've since become a prisoner of that adaptation.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xto41p_dilbert-the-knack_fun
The video hits a bit too close to home. My parents weren't technical people. None of my family was. Yet even as a young boy I was insatiably curious about how things work. When it came to anything having to do with science, math, or later engineering, I couldn't stop myself. Yes, I took things apart. Yes, I asked millions of questions. And yes (hanging my head in shame), like Dilbert, I tore apart TVs and radios and made ham radios out of them before I was 12. Even as an adult working as an RF (radio frequency) engineer, I kept taking PhD level courses in advanced mathematics, quantum mechanics, and various different sciences and engineering disciplines.
My curiosity wasn't limited to just "things". I needed to understand what makes people tick. To that end, I minored in sociology and psychology. I was the top student in those classes, and my professors were extremely disappointed when they found out that I was an engineering major.
I learned early on that rationalizing human behavior was, and is, a waste of time. The question of why people can't just be naked around each other nagged me as a kid. But I knew my mother would tell me "because that's the way it is", which would have driven me crazy. I eventually realized that people are conditioned by their environment, their culture, their beliefs, and their families to be what they are and to feel what they feel about things. Most people aren't interested in objectively understanding their behaviors. And most people aren't interested in what their natural unconditioned behaviors are, or would be.
I believe that accepting what we are and what we look like is, in fact, natural social behavior that we've forsaken to our own peril. That being ashamed or embarrassed to what we are, is stupid. And that to be offended by what other people simply are, is mean. We evolved (or were designed to be) not only compatible with our environment, but to thrive in that environment, without the need, or the desire, to be clothed. Clothing was an adaptation to our foolishly leaving the climate range our bodies were intended for. And we've since become a prisoner of that adaptation.
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