humanity

The World In The Life Of A Guy: Part 4 – Hair

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In a way to stray from the normally serious and at times heavy nature of this blog I decided to cover something a little bit lighter this month. Hair, and it’s not just because I have beautiful flowing locks of brown/black hair, but its just something that people honestly don’t think about all too often and yet it takes up so much of our lives.

You see, just like for girls, puberty is a very strange time for us.  Other the hormonal cocktail coursing through our veins, hair, and body growth are two things we have to face.  Now growing taller, getting deeper voices was never something I felt self-conscious over, quite the opposite, I enjoyed every second of it.  The hair, on the other hand, was a very different issue.  For guys, hair becomes thicker and more noticeable. This is usually when things start to change depending on your genes and a bit of luck. I still remember vividly when this began to happen.  Changing in a locker room and looking down at my chest to see darker more pronounced hairs take root.  Before I knew it, it was everywhere, and for the most part, I was the only one who had it in spades. It was very strange, and for a while I was a bit embarrassed of it.  Even now, its at times a very funny thing to me.  If I wanted to go through the regular effor to remove it (which I have done with shaving and an attempt with my friends at some amature waxing (don’t ask, and yes it was as painful as it sounds)) it seems as time goes on it gets more difficult and time consuming.  It took a while not to feel uncomfortable with my shirt off, and its not like hollywood is known for having hairy actors.

But that’s not even the half of it. Learning to shave my face at first was a very exciting time, though it was nothing more than peach fuzz, by the time I was a junior in high school I was doing it regularly enough for it to become an inconvenience. This is given the fact that since it comes in patches, its like a jigsaw puzzle of epic purportions hoping the right pieces come together so you can actually make something cool out of it. I was lucky, I had more complete hair than guys my age but it also came with the price of having to shave more. So I grew out a goatee, and like all the other subsequent times I have grown out my facial hair, more guys comment on it then women.  Not to say that it isn’t nice to hear you have nice facial hair from a dude, but it isn’t exactly what I was going for when I decided to stop shaving for a while.  Doing it regularly is bothersome but necessary, but I count the minutes as I take in front of the mirror doing this repeatative task.

Lastly, its always strange, how many different styles of hair guys can have, depending on how the hair on their head compliments the hair on their face. A stereotype is that guy can have one hair style that lasts him a lifetime. Now the current generation has a little bit more fluidity of hair style but the traditional cuts are seen as more professional or clean.   I have to say though it really comes into perspective when there is a chance you could lose your hair, hair becomes very important.  Now, it’s something I have thought about, my dad is partially bald, and no matter how much I look I can never get a definitive answer as to which side of the family tree that gene comes from and to be honest, unless its good news I don’t want to know.  So I take the time to have a variety of different types of hair styles and types to make the most of what I have.  Who knows where it will end up but I realized that embracing what you have is really the way to go.

A lot of our lives are devoted to some form of hair management, and it show when there isn’t a lot of effort we put in.  I know guys don’t take as long or use as much product as girls but there is still there is a lot of hair in being a man, trust me, a little too much sometimes.

It’s Okay To Be Grey

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I don’t remember what compelled to take a thread and tie it around my wrists four years ago, but I’ve had them ever since. For me, they are a constant reminder to remain balanced. Left and right hand, black and white band, left is black because it is is the hand that I write with, the one that knows my thoughts and does its deeds. My right is white, because its the one I take action with, that knows my feelings and offers a helping hand.
Ever year, when one of the breaks, I spend the time to consider how my life fairs on the grand scales.  This might seem strange from the outset, but there is a great solace in knowing that I am a mixture of both.

I realize anytime I look down at my wrists is that I am as equally capable of doing good as doing bad, but it is up to me to make a choice as to what I do. Left or right, black or white, wrong or right is the choice I know I must make. I am then the gray, the piece of the puzzle that can see the intricacies of the two decisions at hand. The one who must make a choice and has done the best we can with it.

I don’t think people are made innately for balance, there are some people are more sure-footed than others, but it takes an effort to get to a place where this balance can exist.  Each day we can decide to break with this structure, throw ourselves to one side and hope not to tip the scales too much out of our favor. It takes energy to continue to fight for it and the whole universe is conspiring to bring about the grand entropy of life, to break down the systems we put in place.  Life takes a sense of effort, a sense of work to be able to support it the way we do and yet we throw ourselves into situations that are lopsided, unbalanced because of how it makes us feel.

This world we live in is getting better and better at giving us weights that take away our balance, compelling us to keep weighing ourselves down to compensate.  Forces push us to let go, let our world return to disorder because it’s so much easier not to care and let ourselves lean to one side.  It does this quietly, easily, through the messages of pleasure and avoidance.   There can be too much of a good thing when it starts to take away from us being functional.  It’s a hard line to draw, having fun but also knowing when to sit down and work.

We are all capable of finding balance in our lives, and it’s almost essential if we want to be healthy. It’s a life long struggle, and at times I don’t even realize things are off kilter. I think it’s important to take a second and reevaluate where we are, realize that we are capable of both right and wrong and it’s okay to be somewhere in the middle.

Depression

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A cacophony of chemical course through the cords connecting your mind at any one moment.  At a slight imbalance our mood, perceptions, and lifestyle can be irrevocably disrupted.   We find ourselves in an endemic epidemic of the first world.  More than ever are being diagnosed with the potentially fatal condition to which there is no consensus about the proper treatment and cure. This is depression, and it’s a problem.

What you need to know is that depression not fully understood.  The brain remains a large mystery that we are still working to uncover.  It is in some ways believed that depression is linked to certain brain chemicals such as serotonin reuptake in the brain. The lack of serotonin receptors in the hippocampus (the part of the brain which helps regulate mood) making it harder to control negative moods though this is just a working theory.   The question remains why this happens in the first place. It could be life stress, an unfortunate batch of genetics, medication, chronic pain, or chronic disease. There are many other reasons as well, but it’s said that everyone in the modern world is likely to have three bouts of major depression in their lifetime.
How can something that affects so many of us not be understood?

Mental illness such as depression has plagued humanity for as long as we’ve had the words to write about it.  The problem is, the science of psychology is under 150 years old making it a relatively young science, and the biological study of the brain, neuroscience, is even younger than that.  It’s only in the last 50 years that we started to develop the technology to map the living brain.  The ability to pinpoint depression is difficult and to find a singular cause is almost impossible with the knowledge and technology we have today. Each day people are pushing forward towards the understanding depression completely and curing it quickly.

One of the big issues with studying depression and other mental illnesses starts with the diagnosis. The symptoms of depression include:

  • Loss of interest or pleasure in your activities
  • Weight loss or gain
  • Trouble getting to sleep or feeling sleepy during the day
  • Feelings restless and agitated, or else very sluggish and slowed down physically or mentally
  • Being tired and without energy
  • Feeling worthless or guilty
  • Trouble concentrating or making decisions
  • Thoughts of suicide

One of the most telling signs I’ve heard is a loss of vibrancy in the world, everything is just clouded by some sort of fog that keeps you in this negative space. From the outset, these symptoms are hard to identify in passing, which makes it even harder for people to get help.   Mostly internal feelings that have to be spoken or they will go unnoticed. This leads to fewer people being diagnosed. You may ask yourself how do you solve a problem that stems from emotions and doesn’t have a common cause?

There are some widely used methods of managing depression.If going to see a Doctor, they may prescribe you antidepressants.  Antidepressants act on the brain to increase the amount of serotonin and other brain chemicals that are diminished during depression.  They do not work immediately but taking the over the course of many days and weeks they can lead to improvement and disappearance of symptoms.  These medicines don’t work forever and should be used in conjunction with other types of therapy.  In the cases of severe depression, they may attempt to use electroconvulsive therapy as a means to reset your brain and the chemical production within.

Other less invasive methods such as cognitive behavioral therapy and psychotherapies concentrate on relieving people of life stressors and working to reframe moods and life events.  They work by allowing people to redefine and re-engage with life in a different way and are useful to finding the linchpins that keep you in this depressed state of mind.  Each different type of therapy comes with a different approach to the problem and finding the method and tactic that works well for you is important because it’s you who has to follow through with the changes.

These types of therapies are by no means miracles cures, they take time and effort but are ultimately still the best way of curing depression over the long hall. Each person needs something different to manage their depression so it’s important to choose the method or methods that works best for them.

I’ve made it no secret that I have experienced some form of depression in my life.  For me it came it came in the guise of a constant feeling of tired and desire to sleep all the time, a feeling of a loss of control over my environment, and feeling negative emotions (sadness, anxiety, feeling numb to life events, and crushing self-doubt) almost continuously.  Depression is not something that happens overnight but is a well you fall into over the course of many days and weeks.  The problem with mental states like these are that they change so slowly we start to accept depression as the new norm without knowing any better.  By the time we realize something may be wrong we are might be in the middle of it. It’s like having flu-like symptoms and not going to the doctor, sure you still might suffer through the flu but if you get help earlier chances are it will be shorter and not as bad in the long run.  By the time I have my second bout with depression I knew the symptoms so it was easier to recognize and make an effort to avoid the worst of it. The problem with depression is at times it takes away the motivation to act upon your life.

Like with all mental illness, there is always a social and personal stigma that people associate with having the condition. A lot of misinformation and lack of understanding has fed that fire.  There are significant efforts to destigmatize, but there is a still a ways to go.   The way I see it, if something is preventing you from being all you can be, and every day you wake up and feel worse about life there may be a problem, and regardless of how you feel about it, you should seek help, because it’s not the ‘you’ of right now but the future ‘you’ who can finally live their life outside of the cloud of depression that will thank you.  It’s okay to ask for help, no one is perfect and that’s okay, your health is more important.

If you or someone you know might be suffering from depression, reach out, sometimes it can mean the difference between life and death.  If you don’t know where you can get help, start with the basics, go to a doctor or trained licensed psychologist for a consultation. If those options are not readily available, consider.
Talk Space or Better Help: These services offer online and mobile messaging of therapists allowing you to get in contact with help at any time of the day.

If you are having thoughts of suicide, thoughts of doing something drastic or know someone who does call the national or a local suicide hotline or visit their website.

National Suicide Prevention Hotline:  1-800-273-8255
Crisis Text Line
National Suicide Prevention Website
International Suicide Prevention Website

Depression is not a life sentence, it can be helped, it can be managed, and it can be cured. You have the power, you can make that change, you can beat this. Good Luck.

Night Tour

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There is something night, the calm coalescing of the late hours that extend seemingly forever.  It’s in the stories of great thinkers and artists, in the modern fairy tales of entrepreneurs and innovators. It’s a symbol of both frustration and hard work. The image of a team sitting around a table tired and overworked, squeezing out ever last drop of thought in hope it brings some sort or revelation has a kind of romantic twinge to it. The lonely soul walking the empty byways illuminated with the amber streetlamps and neon signs searching for some sort of solace has a sweetness to it. Truth be told, passion is just not as dramatic at 8 am.

I find myself wandering the night more regularly now, be it in my mind or in my car.  The night allows me to wander in a sort of anonymity.  The constraints I would have around my thoughts weaken, the tasks I had to do are all but done. So it then falls to me to let my mind saunter into the imaginary, to blur the lines of what is acceptable. There is something about the state of mind, that is so tired that it decides to focus solely on the one thing before you.
The unfolding nature of night strips away these waking selves which we so carefully prune  ], it allows us to interact with these quiet mental forces that would normally never have a voice. All the thoughts unfolding and opening into a much larger scope and view. All the questions and discussions that happen after a certain time of night, without fear of reprocussions. In thought, we find purpose, we find motivated frustration, a swell of emotion, a connection and destruction of relationships, and a time for truth from within and without.   When driving down those dark roads, the world becomes tangable metaphore for life. Seeming endless roads with hundreds of avenues to travel down but can only happen one at a time, much like our choices.  There is an ease to it, no expectation of making the right choice, and when you find youself face to face with a dead end, you just turn around and start again.

When I find myself behind the wheel there is a sort of serenity to it.  Seeing the city lights pass me by, the neon signs lit up into the night even after the stores and buisnesses have all been closed. The people walking about, all trying to get somewhere but taking their own time to do it.  We can observe the autonomy that continues to exist in the night without anyone around.  The way the lights sometime change for no one. There are endless reason to escape into the night every once in a while to free yourself.
I am fortunate enough to live in a city driving is a way of life, so I learned to enjoy the countless hours I may have spent behind the wheel going somewhere I don’t know yet.

Sometimes we need these moments, these moments when all things deconstruct and we are left facing ourselves. The moments where we can let off the burdens and find a sense of peace. The moments where two people can really connect and go beyond the facade of our lives. The night isn’t a miracle cure but it’s something that ushers in the new dawn and another chance in the form of a new day.  Perhaps all you need to change is a night tour.

Convert To Humanity

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I’ve gone to church for all of my life.  Mass after mass every Sunday,  learning about what to do, how to do it, and what is the righteous path. Growing up in the church makes people a bit apathetic, less responsive, and less zealous. I can remember sitting in the pews when I was younger, dosing off as the something akin to muscle memory took me through the motions.  Responses and prayers at that point just become words and empty ritual that your hearts not into (not the best way to practice religion).
It was in these brief periods of dozing that I realized there were a group of people who had all the love and faith to put into the mass, who hung on every word. They would sit in anticipation for the next lesson, and always have a distinct reverence for God, and be the loudest voices when it came to singing and praying.  These people I would find out later usually converted to the religion. People who ultimately chose to be there, not because of some familial obligation or routine, but because they found exactly what they were looking for. As I got older, I had always had a great deal of respect for them, because it’s their zeal that I aspire to.

It was around age 7 when if you wanted to find me I would be in one of two places, staring at a screen in the living room, or watching a screen in my bedroom.  It’s not that I was particularly antisocial, but I had always felt more comfortable with a monitor in front of me.  If I wasn’t at school or with friends that was what I was doing.  Video games and cartoons were my life, a consistency that I sought, and for some time, the only consistency I had.  I wasn’t much for humanity, people were fun to be around, but I always guarded myself against them. For a while there I didn’t understand the appeal of people, though at times I enjoy being around them, I always defaulted back to that life in front of the screen. People and I seemed to be on a very different wavelength so when was playing video games it was my home, it was my haven, where I would go to escape into the world I felt like I might actually belong to.
As I grew older, the feeling of something missing within me began to grow.  Though video games and anime were fun, they ultimately could only provide a mostly superficial experience.  No matter how far I delved to fill this part of myself, I was never really satisfied completely.  I doubled down, how can something that had sustained me for this long suddenly be lacking. Hundreds of episodes, countless games, and hours staring at the backlit screen of a laptop, I needed something to change, but for a while nothing did.
It was much later when I started to see the value in those types of relationships we foster. It took a while for that desire to spread root within me. It was then that my love of humanity began to grow because it was something I realized I wanted to be a part of, something I knew would make me feel more complete and alive. I wanted to know as much as I could about this group that I seemed strangely distant from. I wanted to be apart humanity because I finally accepted I was human.

When I think about why I believe in humanity so much, in the goodness of man, the greatness of our capability.  I realize, I chose to be part of this miraculous people and have fallen in love with our antics.  It’s a zeal I find reminiscent to those converts to religion. I sing out praised of humanity and acknowledge their shortfalls. I find that I love people because doing so makes me feel whole. It birthed a passion that I can’t live without.

At the end of it, I believe in how great people can be.  I have always been a lover of history, and it has always been enough evidence to show me how much we can accomplish if we really push ourselves. Within the last century athletes, academics and activists have pushed the boundary and advanced our society beyond people hundreds of years ago would be able to fathom.  Though there are times in which we follow a misguided or evil path, we always show a high capability to learn and grow.  Our greatest strength is to adapt and teach others a better way and strive for a better future. I am a convert to humanity, a believer in our purpose, I will sing our songs to the heavens and hang on every lesson.