Christian Tan

A long time ago I was a member of the choir of the Delft students music company Krashna Musika. One time a friend asked me if I wanted to sing at the chamber music evening, and I did. I sang Die Krähe from Schubert's Winterreise. And I got a very very bad review. I was devastated and I decided not to sing solo anymore. But I kept singing in the choir and taking singing lessons.

Around that time I was doing a photography course at university, which was analog, so shooting on film, and developing and printing. For our final exhibit, people could print their best photos on 30x40. But I could not, because none of my photos where good enough. But I kept taking photos, but seldom showed them to anyone.

Later in life, I joined this student's symphony orchestra, the CREA Orchestra Amsterdam. One time, during a rehearsal in which the string players were split in string quartets, our conductor would listen to all the quartets. When he heard our quartet he was shocked about my level, how bad it was. I was very discouraged, and had considered stopping with orchestra and cello. But I didn't and kept playing.

Now, some time later after these incidents.

The crea orchestra also had chamber music evenings, and I decided that I would try to sing solo one more time. This time Frühlingstraum, from Schubert's Winterreise. And I got great reactions, from people who were deeply moved by my singing.. and since then I had sung a few more times solo, duets and sextet.

Around that time I was messing around with digital photography which was not going anywhere. I picked up an old Nikon camera and shot on black & white film again. And I got very good reactions from people on my photos. People really liked my photos, and were willing to pay for a photo shoot with me.

Recently, I did a few performances on cello, some solo, some with violin and singer. Improvisation, but also some classical. And I got great reactions from people, some people were really moved by my playing.

The moral of the story is; keep doing it. It may be a while before you get the results you want, and positive feedback, but if you keep doing it, you will get better. Of course, not everything you do will be successful, but the most important criterium is: are you having fun? And if not, are you getting better? If both answers are no, then yes, maybe you should stop. But If either, or ideally, both answers are yes, then keep doing it. You will get there eventually. There will be a point that you and other people will like the results.

Tu mă stii și tu 
Mă înțelegi încă
Mă iubești… ciudat

Ien hûn syn holle
treast myn skoat
tusken de diggels van myn siel

Naken kontrapunkt
Harmonisk merkelighet
Blodet strømmer varmt

Une seule queue frappe
Le mal arrive unisono
Le blue syncopé

Topi nieśmiałość 
Przypada między płatkami 
pierwszy pocałunek

Het is weer lente
Een aanvoerder ontfermt zich
Over zijn pupil

In de caravan
Klinkt echtelijke ruzie
Dorp wil gek terug

Het gaat er niet om
Hoe groot hij is toch speel ik
Liever contrabas

Proefkonijn op het
Rietenfeest het doet geen pijn
Althans niet voor jou

Sans toi, les émotions d'aujourd'hui ne seraient que la peau morte des émotions d'autrefois. -- Hippolito

 A long time ago someone asked me what my goal was with my art and my music. I said: to make girls cry. She asked why. I said: because so many times, girls have made me cry.. 

 I consider myself an expert on heart break. Recently someone asked me how often I had been heartbroken and I said, jokingly, 31 times. Then I started counting. The number was actually quite accurate. In 31 cases, my being in love resulted in a negative result. This includes the girls I was in love with but never told. Or the girls I was in love with but who had a boyfriend. But also girls who did not have the same feelings for me as I had for them. And relationships that ended. 

 For a long time I was either heart broken or in love. It was my main source of inspiration, in my art and my music. I remember practicing this song, the "Frühlingstraum" from the Winterreise cycle by Schubert. I remember that each time when tried singing the following sentence at singing lesson, I would choke up: "Wann grünt ihr Blätter am Fenster, wann halt ich mein Liebchen im Arm.." 

 But I learned a lot from this. The good news is that there is a solution for heartbreak: time. Time will heal all heartbreak. It is a matter of patience. It might take three months, or a year, but it will heal eventually. There are some things that can help with the healing, like a healthy lifestyle, meditation, exercise, doing the things you love doing, meeting with wonderful people. But heartbreak is like every injury, like every trauma: it takes time to heal. Some times the healing takes more time, and sometimes the pain becomes so overwhelming. Unbearable. There are times that it takes effort to keep breathing. And you need to do things to manage this. Sometimes you need to get drunk or high for days. Dance like crazy. Or sleep 20 hours a day. Or go out every night. Or cry all day. Or scream. Or indulge in junkfood, or sad movies and music. But in the end, time is the only thing that helps. If it is only heartbreak you are dealing with. 

 But when you experience heartbreak again and again, things will become a lot harder. Because your current heartbreak is not just about the last failed relationship or crush. It is not about this person you were in love with. It is also about loosing your faith in relationships and love in general. Especially if your relationships follow the same pattern again and again, as it did in my case: a girl would be infatuated with me, and then suddenly, after some time, she would loose her interest in me. You will be thinking of the past all the time (all my previous relationships were failures) and of the possible future (all my future relationships will be failures). You will enter any future relationships with this in the back of your mind, and when the relationships fails, it will be a confirmation of this idea. You will become very needy in your relationships. And there is oneitis, when all your happiness depends on this one person. I remember a beautiful summer evening in Montecatini in Italy, on tour with my orchestra. It had been a few months after my last breakup and I was talking to a good friend about relationships and how I should just go for one night stands. She then asked me if I didn't just want a relationship with a special someone. I said, while choking up, that I would like that, but that I had a very hard time believing that this was possible. 

 But the problems can get even worse. After all those failures, not only are you doubting about love and relationship, but you start doubting about yourself. What am I doing wrong? Is there something wrong with me? Am I unlovable? Am I not good enough? This feeling of not good enough then starts to spread to other areas. Your work, your studies, your friendships, and all the other things that are important for you. And the failure of a relationship becomes a confirmation of your not being good enough. And that, is a depression. There you have it. It is quite normal to be sad when you are heartbroken. But if this grieve takes control of all the aspects of your life, then it is no longer about the last person you were in love with. It is about you. 

This is how it was for me. But I got out of it. I did many things that helped me somewhat, including therapy (cbt, mbct, metacognitive therapy), training, exercise, supplements, hallucinogenics, suspension, meditation, friends etc etc. It worked. I can not tell you how you should resolve your depression (although I will write a book about that), but you have to resolve this first before you can successfully start your next relationship. So I overcame my depression. Became aware of my qualities, my beauty, my attractiveness. The next stage was to be able to bielieve in love again. And again I did a lot of things to resolve this, including the Grinberg method and ayahuasca. I had my breakthrough on ayahuasca. This is what happened. I took the ayahuasca at a ritual organised by this group of wonderful people. A girl was there singing songs. At that time I was severely heartbroken because of a Spanish girl. I heard a Spanish love song and I became ovewhelmed by sadness, seeing in my mind the way things could have been between this girl and me and I cried. But with each moment, I felt the sadness being drained from me. I then saw the face of the girl I was in love with before me.. and suddenly I saw the faces of many, many girls who had been somewhat interested in me, who looked at me, who flirted with me and I suddenly realised that there where many. And between all those faces I saw her face, just one face among many. And at that moment I was cured: I realised that there were many wonderful girls, and that my happiness did not depend on just this one girl. After the trip, I told about my experience. I also told about an encounter I had at a club where a girl saw me, gave me a bottle of water and said: "here, because you are so beautiful". And all I could think at that moment was: maybe I am beautiful, but apparently not beautiful enough, and not good enough for the girl with whom I was in love with. And as I spoke these words, I realised that it was bullshit. And at that moment, I got rid of this feeling of not being good enough. 

 For me this story has a happy ending. Not the fairy tale happy ending where I found the love of my life etc. I am still single, but in general, I am very happy, very content with who I am and the people I meet. I don't feel lonely when I am alone. I found it easier to get into contact with girls. Of course there are some things I do miss from a relationship. I miss the cuddling. I miss having sex with someone I have some emotional connection with. I miss having someone who is the default person you do things with and ahng out with. With whom you spend your lazy Sundays. I also miss being inspired by heartbreak or being in love, or the way heartbreak moves me to make important changes in my life. And I sometimes miss being in love. There are many works of art, of music, movies, that move me in a very emotional way, that move me to tears. I always wondered why it felt like that. And now I realised why: because it felt like being in love, in both the euphoria, and the agony. But in the end, the things I miss I can also do with friends. And maybe the love of my life is not just one person. It is quite probable that I will experience heartbreak again in my life. And it will hurt. But I will be able to deal with it, and it will not overwhelm me anymore, of that I am convinced. And now I walk through life with a lighter step, with a new found happiness. 

 This is my story of heartbreak and how I overcame my chronical heartbreak. I am sure your situation is different, but maybe you recognise some of it in my story. I don't know how you should deal with it, but I do advice you to at least consider the possibility that your debilitating heartbreak is not just about the person you were in love with. And with that realisation lies the solution.

Onanie, wat doe je nu

dat stond niet op het menu

ook al heb je in eten niet zo'n trek

een sjiek restaurant is niet de plek

om jezelf zo aan te raken

oma moet er zelfs van braken.

A few first violin girls from my orchestra inquired me on the proper way to do a blow job. As someone who appreciates this fine art, I did some calculations, did some fieldwork and went through my lab notes and this manual is the result. The following observations are of course very subjective, are from my own experiences and preferences and might not be entirely compatible with your applications. Apologies if this manual seems hetero normative and cis male centric, although some principles are possibly universal for all genders and probably also apply to cunnilingus and to other sexual and counter-sexual topologies.

1. Lubrication. Although dry oral or manual stimulation of the penis can be pleasant for short periods of time, in general some sort of fluid lubrication is preferred. This can be sputum, pre seminal fluid, perspiration or a personal lubricant (mostly water based hydrogel or silicon based gels). We like it smooth. When there is no lubrication at all, or when the viscosity of the lubricant is too high (optimal viscosity is probably between 0.070 and .081 Pa·s at 293 Kelvin), the friction between mouth and penis gets very high, making it painful and increasing temperature to non optimal levels. In the worst case, structural integrity of the epidermis of the penis is compromised. Optimal friction should be less than 0.04 µs. Of course when friction is too low (< 0.01 µs) the tactile perception of the fellatio will be non significant.

2. Pace. Medical history shows that very often, people perform the fellatio very quickly as possible and try to finish it as quickly as possible. Pace is very important: like in music, phrasing and buildup are very important. If the fellatio is done from a recreational perspective, there should be no rush. A slow buildup, with long periods of very slow phrases is very pleasant. For some short phrases one could do an allargando, followed by meno mosso. In general, faster tempi should be kept for the finale, although short bursts of medium tempo can be applied. The preferred tempo envelope is very personal and differs per interpretation. To give an example of a possible phrasing and tempo envelope: starting with largo (mm around 40), some short phrases (4 bars in 4/4 measure) in larghetto, menno mosso to largo, larger phrases in andante (mm 76, 16 bars) to adagio, then back to largo with some larghetto (4 bar) phrases. After a few of these cycles, stringendo, accelerando to andante, allegretto, then stretto exponentially via allegretto and presto to the finale. After the finale, tempo should be very slow again, slower than Lento (mm < 30) and rallantando to zero. Be aware that tempo is very personal, what works for one person on the receiving end, might not work for another. The fellatist should allow plenty of rubato. This also depends on the amount of friction. When the friction is high (> 0.12 µs) higher tempos than andante will be painful. Also, for reaching the finale, it is often quite difficult for the receiving end to reach climax if the receiving subject can not determine the tempo himself. In many cases, that is the main reason why a lot of the fellated prefer to reach climax by themselves, or by determining the tempo by keeping the fellatist's head static and moving the pelvis in the by the fellated preferred frequency of the oscillation.

3. Distribution of attention. Some fellatists tend to concentrate the application of the labia on the corpus of the penis but it is good to divide the attention along the whole of genitals. Some attention on the radix of the penis, the glans, the frenulum, the corona etc is appreciated. Be aware that the glans, especially the corona, can be very sensitive, especially among males who have no prepuptium due to circumcision. Also some attention to the scrotum (con tenerezza) is very much appreciated. 

4. Distribution of force. Many people use only their (oral) labia for fellating, but the use of the lingua and hands is also very much appreciated. Properly combining all these in a creative and balanced way is one of the things that distinguishes the beginners from the advanced fellatio enthusiasts. It is however natural to have some emphasis on the use of the labia and then Gauss distributed on the radix of the penis. 

5. Cultural and personal insignificance of reaching climax. Although reaching climax through fellatio is extremely pleasant, it is not the most important part of the experience. The fellated can choose not to reach climax at all, or might interrupt the procedure and choose another variation from the sexual repertoire, for example, reciprocal oral simulation (cunnilingus) or penetration. Some fellated do not wish to come during fellatio, because reaching climax in the oral cavity can be something not every fellatist appreciates, or is of such an intimacy that either participant wish to refrain from it, either forever, or until a more intimate rapport is established between the participants. In some cases, ejaculation on the face is a preferred modus operandi for some, while in other cases, one would prefer ejaculation during penetration. The swallowing of the semen is another level of intimacy and is an acquired taste. 

6. Duration. Receiving fellatio is always appreciated if done by someone who is motivated and at least moderately skilled. If one of the persons involved lacks enthusiasm, then one should abstain rather than perform the task halfheartedly. Very often, the potential fellatist does not mind or actually enjoys the activity, but may not wish to pursue the activity for a very long time, or needs a break because of fatigue or muscular strain, or does not want to experience ejaculation in the oral cavity. It is very important that the parties involved know about each other's fellatio policy and establish a mutual fellatio protocol. In general, even a short moment of fellatio is appreciated. Taking breaks when doing fellatio when needed is also recommended. In some cases, a proper warming up, with stretching of the jaw muscles might be wise before starting a very long fellatio session. Like any other sport, a cooling down afterwards, with stretching and a protein shake help to prevent injury. Varying with other sexual or intimate activities, or not choosing the fellatio platform for ejaculation is also completely acceptable. 

 Above all: ask for feedback, and practice, practice, practice. The 10000 hours rule is equally applicable for this art. If you wish to become a fellatio virtuoso, there is no other way around it, practice 40 hours a day with a consenting partner. And if you need help practicing and need feedback and coaching, I might be able to help. For science!

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