by SG’s Team Agony feat. Rin

Let us answer life’s questions – because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.

Q: I recently ended the second relationship in a row with what can most appropriately be called a psycho. I know that I am not the root cause as others around me can confirm that she was indeed off her rocker. I am thoroughly fed up with being with women who have a loose grip on reality at best and I would like to figure out what it is about me that is either attracted to this type of woman initially or what attracts them to me. I like women with a strong will and personality but that has been translating into absolutely crazy women not strong willed women. If there is someway you can help me separate these to qualities I would forever be in your debt.

A: I can totally understand why this problem would be vexing you! Dating patterns can be kind of difficult to get to the bottom of.

A good way to find out if a person is insane is to take time getting to know them. Don’t jump straight to dating. Spending time getting to know a woman will let you see different facets of her personality. See how she deals with problems. When issues arise, does she take responsibility for her own actions, and admit when she has acted wrongly? Does she have many long-term friends? Does she blame other people for all the bad things in her life?

Once you figure out how she reacts in all these different situations, you will have a good idea if she is batshit insane or a tough woman who knows how to take care of herself. When you meet someone you’re attracted to, it’s tempting to pursue it immediately, but if you want to break your psycho-cycle it’s best to take things a bit more slowly.

I can’t speak to what in you might be attracted to crazy women – do you like drama? Do you like having someone to take care of? Does your mother have a strong grip on sanity? Are you afraid of having a serious relationship, so you unconsciously seek out situations that will self-destruct? Sometimes like attracts like – maybe you have some of your own issues to deal with before you will be a really stable boyfriend. It’s worth examining your own motives in this context to see how you might be drawn to these women.

Rin

Got Problems? Let SuicideGirls’ team of Agony Aunts provide solutions. Email questions to: gotproblems@suicidegirls.com

by Brad Warner

A guy named James wrote to me and asked:

“Could you explain rebirth to me like I’m five? I’ve never been able to grasp a knowledge of this.”

I answered him thusly; Rebirth is a myth that some Buddhists believe in. It might be loosely based on fact. But it might just be a fantasy.

I used the word myth to define the Buddhist idea of rebirth. These days a lot of people use the word myth as a synonym for falsehood. But that’s not the proper meaning of the word. A myth is a way of explaining something for which there is no good literal explanation. A myth is not necessarily false. But it doesn’t have to accord with fact.

A myth is not untrue because it fails to accord with fact. It can be true but not in the way scientific explanations or histories are true. A myth can be true without being factual.

But it’s important that we don’t believe in our myths in the same way we believe in science and history. The problem that contemporary Christianity and Islam have is that many of the people who follow those faiths insist that their myths are true in the same way that scientific facts and histories are true.

A lot of Buddhists, particularly but not exclusively in the West, make the same mistake with Buddhist myths. This is especially true when it comes to Buddhist myths about rebirth. We read mythical books, like the Tibetan Book of the Dead for example, and we want to interpret them as being empirically true. But they aren’t.

My personal experience with zazen practice leads me to the conclusion that my previous understanding about what I was and what the world was, was incorrect. Based on some of what I’ve touched firsthand in my real experience, I might be tempted to spin out my own myths about rebirth. But none of those myths would really explain what I’ve seen any better than the myth of Noah’s Ark explains its writer’s understanding of God and the way God rewards virtue. And if you believed my myth about rebirth as a literal truth, you’d be no better off than those people who insist that a long time ago an old man really did put two of every real animal in a real boat and floated on real water for forty real days and forty real nights.

Brad Warner is the author of Sex, Sin and Zen: A Buddhist Exploration of Sex from Celibacy to Polyamory and Everything in Between as well as Hardcore Zen, Sit Down and Shut Up! and Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate. He maintains a blog about Buddhist stuff that you can click here to see. You can also buy T-shirts and hoodies based on his books, and the new CD by his band Zero Defex now!
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by Daniel Robert Epstein

’”It’s not a movie about pornography but how our individual sensibilities get formed.”
– Brian Grazer

I was very excited to talk to Brian Grazer. Not only has he worked on some of my favorite films such as Night Shift, Armed and Dangerous and Bowfinger, it’’s just so rare to get to talk to a person that only produces. I get to talk to actors, writers and directors everyday but a powerful producer on par with Joel Silver and Jerry Bruckheimer, almost never.

It’’s to be expected that Grazer would come out to promote the documentary Inside Deep Throat because it’s been a passion project of his for many years. In fact at one point he had the rights to do a biopic on Linda Lovelace, but that didn’t work out.

Read our exclusive interview with Brian Grazer on SuicideGirls.com.

Ellia Suicide in Fresh

• INTO: Art, tattoo’s, good music, baking & cooking, friendly people, PB&J, cereal, summer time, going on walks, good times, sleeping in but not too late, watching people (in a non creepy way), funny people, vegetarianism, and so on.
• NOT INTO: Awkward situations, bad luck, terrible hair days, driving in traffic, mustard, winter, cold showers.
• MAKES ME HAPPY: Puppies, good music, friends, family, andy, yoga, getting tattooed.
• MAKES ME SAD: Being alone, over thinking when I have too much time on my hands.
• HOBBIES: Drawing, cooking, baking.
• 5 THINGS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: H20, phone, food, friends/boyfriend, sleep.
• VICES: Cigarettes, being a little shy sometimes.
• I SPEND MOST OF MY FREE TIME: Working, and hanging out.

Get to know Ellia better over at SuicideGirls.com!