The Lifestyle and Ichigo ichie

Transcript

Speaker1: good evening wherever you are i hope you have blue skies welcome to that other lifestyle podcast i am your host jason leave vanilla behind as we talk about a nice cup of tea this podcast is for adults only we'll be diving into adult and sexual topics with plenty of colorful language so it is not safe for work if you're under 18 this is not the place for you this show is all about exploring the lifestyle and ethical non-monogamy it's open to everyone no matter your background gender identity expression or your personal truth while i do my best to use inclusive language you might hear terms like husband wife or partner for simplicity's sake this show is for everyone lifestyle, vanilla, or just the curious. Want to connect? Send me an email to host at thatotherlifestyle.com, visit my website thatotherlifestyle.com, and check out my favorite lifestyle product recommendations at binable.com slash thatotherlifestyle. Everyone is welcome here because the lifestyle is so much more than you think. I sat transfixed by a bonfire last Saturday night, the sparks crackling from the fire rising, lifting, flying higher and higher to become the stars, waking in the night sky that crept in from the east, laying a blanket over the horizon. Within the fire, I saw purples and reds and yellows matching the sky behind me, while the sun sank beneath the tree line on the other side of the lake. I drank in the moment, noting the sensations of each of my senses. My feet crunched on dry grass. Wood crackled, sending a faint hint of smoke through the air. The first warm night of the year and I sat happily in a tank top and shorts. My usual summer attire pulled out early. My hands were cold from my own concoction of tequila, Sprite, and lime. Don't knock it till you try it. It is sour and bright. It's the best I could do tonight with limited ingredients and I'm going to lie to myself and call it a margarita. Waves slapped against the docks. Arrhythmic. No frequency unlike ocean waves. Likes are weird like that. I take stock of this moment because I want to remember it. I want to keep it. Even now, days later, this combination of sensations is bringing me back to that bonfire with friends. I want to save that night. Deep in my mind, locked away, safe from the noise of daily life, this memory to be placed on a pedestal in the vault of my mind forever. We didn't take any pictures last weekend. We always forget to take pictures. No pictures can do these inferior motes of time justice. Just like no picture can ever truly do a party or a concert or a smile justice. Only my own memories will keep this beautiful moment safe. In my memory of each beat of time, it will fade. I may forget what I was drinking. I may forget what I was wearing or in time, very distant from now. I may even forget where we were. I may forget the sequence of events during the day that led to this night. I will remember, though, that good people, happy people, gathered for one night, sat around a fire to celebrate a friend's birthday in the woods by a lake somewhere. I will remember these good people that I enjoy their company so much. We were all strangers at some point, and by that lake, by that fire, we became friends, laughing and smiling. Strange how a smile always flashes bright by firelight, like we were designed by evolution and the universe. For these quiet moments, there is a tragic beauty here, though. A tragic temporary beauty. Because soon, we would all go back to our normal, boring lives in a few days. I will record This Night for Prosperity here on this show, and I'm going to share it out with the world, so that you, dear listener, can summon some similar memory and reminisce on your own happy times with friends. We few gather together. We would go back to our boring lives. The ashes of the bonfire will be scattered by the wind, and one day, in some distant time from now, this night will no longer be remembered or celebrated. We left that cabin, returning to the vanilla world, going through the daily motions of life once again as the zombies we are, devoid of sensation. We would all deal with the stress and anxiety of our modern life in our own ways. Here in this moment, this little sliver of time, so insignificant on the cosmic scale that it could not even be measured. There, in that happy, happy moment, I am thankful, peaceful, and okay. I'm surrounded by the beauty of the human connection. I remember shaking my glass, shifting the ice around, wondering if it's time for more tequila. It always is. We share together our lifestyle horror stories, dreams, and I learn more about these people. We sit around outside past midnight, well into the witching hours. The conversation drifts in and out of spicy topics and the mundane. Someone, at some point, suggested we make this an annual trip. Let's do this again, and the entire group agrees. Same cabin, same weekend next year. We will celebrate our friend's birthday again. That thought hurts me, but not why you think. I'm not worried about being left out of the next adventure. I'm not hurt of the possibility. I may not associate with anyone in this group ever again. I accept those vagaries of life. What hurts is I know that this night can never happen again. I know in my heart that nothing is ever the same. No two adventures are ever exactly the same, no matter how hard we try. This is the secret I carry, and I wouldn't say I'm a nihilist. A realist may be pragmatic. I accept the inevitability that the universe never repeats itself. My perception of life does not create any great sadness in me. I live with this outlook every fucking day. I'm okay with it. I see the ethereal, temporary nature of all human encounters. I can't unsee it. Maybe we will make this trip again. Maybe we will have the exact same combination of people with us again. Maybe. Maybe we won't. That is the tragedy of the moment. That is the little knife that pokes at the back of my mind because I know it will never be the same. This moment of peace and joy and happiness by a bonfire will never be the exact same, no matter how much we wish for it. No matter how much we try, it can't be the same. Granted, most people will never give it this much thought, accepting on the surface that two events with enough similarity are, yeah, functionally the same, though I disagree. The wood in the fire cannot be burned twice. The drink in my hand cannot be drunk twice. The wind will not blow again. The water in the lake will be completely different in a year, and that's okay. We can't catch lightning in a bottle twice. Each moment is special in its own way. Okay, what the fuck does that have to do with the lifestyle? You really should be used to meandering thoughts by now. I've been doing this a year. This show is my one-year anniversary show. I started the show on February 16th, 2024, when I dropped my first five episodes. It has been a wild fucking ride and I am not done yet. We can talk more about the show in a little bit. For now, stick with me as you usually do as we talk about nchigo ishi. Nchigo ishi is a Japanese concept rooted in Zen Buddhism. The term translates roughly to one time, one meeting, or once in a lifetime. It is an idea that each encounter, each interaction we have with another person is wholly unique and will never happen the same way, the exact same way ever again. In all of human existence, no two interactions are the same. Each one is special because of that. Think about it. In all of human history, in all of the history of the world and the universe, the rocks and the trees and all that stuff, every experience, every time we talk to another person is unique and will never be repeated. That sounds wrong on the surface, doesn't it? You may wonder and ask, well, if I visit a friend every Sunday and we have a cup of coffee for exactly one hour, wouldn't that be the same experience every time? Is it though? The temperature outside is going to be different. Maybe the temperature inside is different. Bet you're wearing different clothes. The stories you share are going to be different. You're a week older each time you talk. The atoms in your body have shifted and cycled since last week. The conversation is going to be different. So while, yeah, you're doing the same thing, it's not the exact same. Hence, Enchigo Ishii. I didn't know there was a name for this concept until a few years ago. At some point, I realized in my own way, in my own life, that each encounter between people is special. Not to get too morbid here, but one day, you're going to your best friend for the last time. You will never know when that time is, so you need to make the most of every single moment. The guessing stops now with STD Hero. STD Hero is a trusted source for at-home STD, HPV, and herpes testing. It's simple, private, and reliable. All results are reviewed by an in-house doctor, and as a small business, customer service is a priority. They offer an advanced STD panel that screens for chlamydia, gonorrhea, trichomoniasis, HIV-1 and 2, and syphilis. Their HPV test screens for 14 high-risk HPV genotypes, including HPV-16 and HPV-18, which are directly linked to over 70% of cervical cancer cases and 90% of anal cancer cases. It is one of the only HPV tests for men on the market. In combination with the HPV test, they offer the only direct-to-consumer oral HPV test on the market. 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Just the best tools to make your lifestyle experience smoother, sexier, and more exciting. Head over to Benable.com slash that other lifestyle now and explore the list. Because in this world, the right gear makes all the difference. Injigo Ishii, originated with Sen no Rikyu, a 16th century tea master in Japan. Apologies, I am bastardizing these pronunciations. I'm just going to call them Sen. Sen was born in 1522 and studied Zen Buddhism as a young man, which influenced his approach to the tea ceremony. Pardon me in advance for my over-simplistic explanation of a Japanese tea ceremony. A full shashi? Shashi? Fuck me, I don't know how to say Japanese words. The formal name for a tea gathering can last up to four hours. It includes guests ritually washing their hands and then a silent appreciation of the surroundings. There's a light meal followed by two tea services and then cleaning up. All right, this is super oversimplistic. During sin no rikyu's time, haha, maybe I said it right, shanuyo, or the way of the tea, was a luxurious practice associated with samurai and nobility, and often they used very elaborate Chinese ceramics and tea sets. It was this whole lavish thing, very fancy. Sin, ha ha, I called him that. However, he rejected the excess and materialism, embracing the philosophy of wabi-sabi, finding beauty and imperfection and transience-transcence. Wabi-sabi, it is a super cool concept that I encourage you to go dig into sin refined the tea ceremony into a more intimate meditative practice that emphasized simplicity minimalism and mindfulness his approach was based in the concept that no two steamer tea ceremonies would ever be the same twice the humidity in the air the flowers the conversation the clothing emotions expressed, every tea ceremony would be different. We as humans can never truly recreate two moments in time exactly the same. The idea of Nchiko Ishii is a reminder to cherish fleeting moments, to appreciate a moment for what it is, not what it could be, or if it could be recreated again. For the lifestyle, what I see is in Ichigo Ishii, I'm not going to say these names right, has relevance to the way we do what we do. No two friendships, connections, encounters, parties, or frisky nights will ever be the same twice. Every engagement with another couple is a singular, standing on its own, shaped by the emotions we are bringing to the session, outside circumstances, the thread count on the sheets, the amount of lube used, a singular moment that will never align in exactly the same way ever fucking again. Recognizing this can help us fully embrace the now, let go of expectations and appreciate the beauty of these fleeting connections without clinging to expectations or outcomes. Let's say you meet a couple and you go on a date. You go to a local sushi place. See, kind of on theme here. You order a drink. There's that rare four-way connection. After dinner, y'all go to a hotel for a few hours of fuckery. Premium grade A experience. Good fuckery. So you and your spouse plan another date with this couple six months down the road. Six months later, everybody is now six months older. The weather is different. Last time y'all hung out, the date was in the summer. Less clothes and you're wearing shorts. Now it's winter, so you got to wear fucking coats. You try to go back to the sushi place and sushi's all right the drink that you got last time that was so great well it's seasonal instead of a tropical passion fruit margarita you have to order a winter mint chocolate abomination that tastes like ass your shoes suddenly you're noticing your shoes are way too uncomfortable the table is sticky conversation doesn't flow as easily as last time. This time around is different. You went into this date with high hopes to recreate the last experience and instead you just feel like this is a pale imitation, not what you wanted at all. It's no one's fault. The date still ends with great sex and y'all plan to do all this again. The hoping though, your hopes. You had hopes for one type of night, and it just didn't go as planned. And you feel disappointed. Why are you disappointed? You got to spend time with friends. You still got laid. Your spouse had a good time. The other couple had a good time. In spite of all that, you still feel disappointed. I can tell you why you feel disappointed. You went into that date expecting to recreate what happened last time, setting an idea in your head of what a perfect night would look like. It has to look exactly like this one over here. Wanting this date to be a recreation of the previous thing you did. You went into the experience setting the whole date up for failure in your mind because no moment can ever truly be relived. Each moment in time, each interaction, each session of four hours of fucking every orgy, I can tell you every single orgy is different even when you got the same people involved. Everything must exist as its own lived experience or you're going to be forever chasing the high that you can never achieve. Another example, I don't drink tea. I drink coffee. I love coffee. I drink coffee every day. Just simple black coffee. Multiple cups of black coffee every day. I get a little jittery sometimes. Each morning, I make a pot of coffee. I have my particular brand I like. That's the only brand I really like. I put in three scoops of grounds and a pot of water. I can do this in my sleep and I think I have a few times. Each cup of coffee is different though. Even if all the variables are the same, coffee just tastes different. Tastes better when it's cold outside maybe. Or maybe I'm in a hurry and I just can't savor that first sip like I want. Maybe my fucking cat knocks over my first cup of coffee and then looks at me like I'm the one who screwed up by daring to put the cup of coffee on my desk in the first place. I love my cats but they're assholes. I have to appreciate each cup for what it is versus always comparing it to another cup of coffee or I'm never going to be satisfied with the cup that I do have in my hand. I feel applying this concept of Ichigo Ishii can go a long way to address the stresses that the lifestyle can create. Walking around the cabin this weekend, I touched the wood on the stairs. I smelled the breeze. I heard laughter. These are all fleeting sensations of my human body that enhanced the experience, but it did not define it. When you're with another couple, a woman's touch, women are so wonderful, a woman's touch is lovely, the way she smells, her laughter, the way her body tenses up. These are all sensations of the act, but they do not define it. No one goes into sex thinking, all that matters is the way her armpits smelled. Maybe somebody does. No judgment. Most of us don't. Sex is a composite of sensations that creates a whole experience. Just like the lifestyle, sensations that exist in one moment in time. Orgasms. Orgasms are fleeting. As much as you want to just live in that moment forever that sensation the sensation of pleasure should not define the whole experience that you have it is a component of the larger story maybe it's the climax of the story or is the beginning of a new chapter the community the people your friends your connections all these components together create your experience in the lifestyle. Accepting that these components will change, evolve, rise, and fall allows you to experience the full spectrum that the lifestyle offers without trying to box yourself into one type of experience or constantly trying to recreate something, anything. flipping this around. Instead of saying, I want to recreate this experience I had, change your outlook to, I want to have a new experience. Recognize the uniqueness of each encounter every time, all the fuckery, and look forward to learning what the next one can offer you. Going one step further, I've seen couples run afoul of this. We're going to create an imaginary couple. We're going to call them Beth and Bill because I'll see you next time. what the next one can offer you. Going one step further, I've seen couples run afoul of this. We're going to create an imaginary couple. We're going to call them Beth and Bill because I don't think I know a Beth or a Bill. Beth or Bill. Beth and Bill. They meet a new couple and they have great sex. Bill is utterly smitten with the other wife. Bill wants another date with this other couple really fucking bad. So he pursues. He tries. And honestly, his efforts are in vain. The stars are not aligning. The other couple is busy. Life happens. Bill gets upset because he wants this so fucking bad, he gets pissy about it. It reminds me of an addiction sometimes when I see it. Bill wants another hit. He wants another date. He is making himself upset by chasing this, pushing against the will of a universe that is just resistant to his actions. By choosing to focus on this one couple, Bill is shutting the doors to all these others. Applying a Chigo Ishii can help Bill put his emotions in check. Accepting that an encounter will not happen again in the same way, it frees up the mind. Instead of trying to put lightning in a bottle twice, you get to go chase a new thunderbolt. Doing this allows you to check your emotions. It allows you to be mindful of what is upsetting you about any given situation. I talk about mindfulness a lot for a show that's kind of about fucking. And knowing that you cannot repeat an encounter, it frees you to look forward to the next adventure and put your energy into something else. Fixating on the past or trying to chase that high from a previous sexual escapade, that's what causes people to become stagnant in the lifestyle. And if there is one constant in the lifestyle, it is change. And sex, that's's the other constant and the need for STI testing, stdhero.com, promo code TOL, 10 for 10% off. Boom, smooth out insertion. The lifestyle changes every fucking day. Couples evolve, couples join, couples drop out, singles join, singles drop out. Every party that you go to is going to have a different configuration of people every single time. That evolution and that randomness is what makes the lifestyle so damn special. Compare this to the vanilla life. Every day, you get up the same time, you have the same breakfast, you go to work, you do your job, you go home, you eat dinner, you go to bed every fucking day, except the weekends maybe. And those are taken up by family or social obligations that you just really don't want to do. But you have to. It's part and parcel and a requirement of being a functioning member of the vanilla world. Your time off from work is taken up by shit you just don't want to fucking do. The lifestyle is different. We are admittedly a little bit weird over here. Kind of different people, different arrangements of people, different places to put your bits. Just like this podcast I write every single week, every episode is special and is inspired by my own experiences in the lifestyle, be it good or bad. I take the randomness I experience weekly, distill it down into a script, and I share it with everyone. And it's different, right? I like that. I like that two nights will never be the same in my life, especially in the lifestyle. Yes, I will go back to that cabin next year. It's going to be a brand new thing for me, though. Maybe I'll have more fun or less fun. I will not go into the trip next year expecting to follow the exact same motions. That's okay. I find comfort in the randomness of life and the randomness of the lifestyle. I find comfort in the idea that the next adventure is going to be just as special as the one I just had. Circling back to the lifestyle, right? Some actual advice here. Do not get hung up on just one date. Do not get hung up on just one sexual occurrence. Do not think that if X happens, then I will be happy. Free yourself from those thoughts. They only lead to ruin. You don't know what you don't know, and you don't know what the next couple or the next date may offer. Are you ready to party in paradise? Risqué Lifestyle Parties presents Pulsify 2025 at the Island Resort on the sparkling waters of the Gulf Coast in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. September 26th through the 28th, 2025. Come for the two-day party that will take hotel takeovers to the next level in one place. With many stories and endless fun for you and your sexiest friends. 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