learning

The World In The Life Of A Guy: Part 1 -Sex

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Written on my wall since high school is a simple question printed on a label maker. “What Makes A Man?” it says.  This ambiguous question, with no clear answer, is something that I come back to regularly as I contend with realities of the world. Hearing stories about what men are capable of both good and bad makes me question what type of person I want to be. Over the last several months I’ve been posing questions to people around me about their interactions with men. The answers I received were confusing and at points horrifying. I want to show you what it’s like for a regular guy out there in the world, one who doesn’t necessarily know if he is an outlier or the rule.

Sex, it always starts with sex. A stupid place to start but a grand motivator for most men.  Guys will usually have a story about something they do or have done because of girl. I among them found my love of running because of a girl in high school telling me she liked guys with runners bodies. As I get older, this departs from the much more innocent motivations of young; a desire to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible is found. Guys are motivated by sex.  I can’t honestly deny this, what changes is willingness fight against this all-consuming emotion to find a higher ground to stand on.  In our mind, sex it presses up against us, invading our thoughts and without strong mental fortitude it wins out the day. It whispers fantasies and delusions into our ear, denying that reality in which we are for one that could possibly be if you were to play the game right. That is no way to condemn us to being sex fiends, but something we must contend with.  That inner strength is what I find as being the man is all about.  The ability to put these thoughts and feelings aside for something that is much greater than the hedonistic vices of sex can provide me.

It’s that relationship, though, between guys and gals that so intertwined with this dynamic that it becomes bogged down but the tension between friendship and sexuality.  From When Harry Met Sally, a movie about a man and woman attempting to have a friendship that eventually turns into a romantic relationship, even the one of the protagonists clearly states that he doesn’t believe men and women can be friends because sex will get in the way. This idea was foreign to me, why can’t we foster and hold relationships with people of the opposite gender?  It’s within the expectations that are held, the way we picture things when I say I have a relationship with a guy friend versus a girl friend. Not to mention the amount of narratives I’ve heard from women of always having to be wary of ulterior motives when entering a friendship with a guy.  With all I’ve heard, the hesitation is warranted.  Love is a drug, and we are addicts, so if you need a fix, you’ll try to get it from anywhere. 

Do I believe we different from the previous generations of human beings in such a way that we can deviate from this cycle of sexual magnetism?
No, but I do believe in the human spirit, which can look create the world we want and I do believe in values and the ability to motivate ourselves to relationships that go beyond sexual attraction.

In this regard, I find to be the best way to end this conversation about being a guy in this sexual environment is talking about what I strive for. This comes from many hours thinking about the kinds of relationships I want to foster along with listening to troubled tales of the lost souls out there in the world. My truest goal is to find a place and strength to be able to say no to sex.  With the ability to wait and find a sense of truth beyond the physicality of it all. Don’t get me wrong intimacy has a place in every adult relationship, but I don’t want to be under the control of these feelings. It’s not to deny them,  but to find a way to curb them appropriately. The world does not revolve around sex and I shouldn’t either, I want to enjoy the world and people for who they are and not have this lingering thought in the back of my mind. It’s what I am working towards, and something I want for my relationships in the future…but hey, at the end of the day I’m “just a guy” right.

A Resolute Resolution

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What will I become in this new year?

I see a vividly a version of myself standing upon a hill with back faced to me.  A much larger more powerful person stands before me, confronted with the future, ready to take on the challenges of tomorrow.  He has a grin as if he knows what the future hold and how to move about it. This man standing at the other end of the year is challenging me to catch up.

Resolutions don’t work, at least no the majority of the time.  Trying to change yourself in so many ways all at once and expecting result immediately is only setting yourself up for failure. Anticipating the arrival of the new year to have some sort of bearing on how well you are able to do something is a bit silly. Moments should be grasped when the motivation is at hand, not when we feel like the motivation should come.

This is why I don’t have a resolution but a resolve. I want to be better, stronger, more compassionate and helpful. I want to be that man on the mountain I see before me, not just stuck staring at the back of what I could be.  I want to the one who is more of a man of action, one who is less hesitant and less likely to be paralyzed by fear and indecision. This might seem vague but what I am to do is eliminate the feeling of being able to do more by actually doing it.

In learning all I can, I came upon a concept of deliberate practice. The practice that you do to continue to push your ability and skills to the next level. This is the way you become an expert at something. This is something I must learn to do, deliberate practice of life.  To make it so I am constantly pushing the boundaries of what I can and can’t do. Learning how to get to each of the next stages in my own life.

This is my promise to myself that I will be that man I see on the hill, that man who is challenging me now, so by the time next year comes around, I will be able to challenge my past self too and welcome the next challenge with a smile.

This is my resolution, this is my resolve. I hope to all of you that we are all successful in our pursuits, but I have a back to catch up to, and I have to get started now!

One Small Jump Around The Sun

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Ahh… It’s been a year since this began, one hell of one to be honest.  At year’s end, it always brings us back to the beginning.  I stand now next to the person I was 12 short months ago and measure, hoping I have come far enough.

Things have changed, and the more they change, the more they stay the same.  Am I where I want to be? No. Is there more that I can do? Yes. In the seemingly infinite finite time I have, I never get to where I want to go.  I work and work, but the work seems to pile up more and more. It’s inescapable – or rather I can’t find a way to escape it without giving up too much.

How far have I come, how far have I gone? Questions that a loaded with no clear answer to them. Tangibly, there is only but small differences in my life. From the outset, my status may not look at all like it has changed. I still working a minimum wage job, living at home, working on getting into grad school. It frustrates me, these were three things I was attempting to change through the year, three points of contention, there losses.

Of course, it wasn’t all losses.  Socially I am surrounded by good people with whom I love and adore. Emotionally I pulled myself out of the depression episode and am better than I was before it started. Physically I am a lot more fit, eating healthier and working out whenever I get the chance. These are things I look to when I days get dark or time runs out.

There are still things I want, still things I am working on and don’t get me wrong, I am supremely grateful for all that I have. A year is not a long time but also an eternity. Whenever I need time, it passes too quickly, and whenever I need time to pass it seems to trudge on begrudgingly.  Time inevitably changes everything, moves us along without our consent, and make the most of it is to flow with it, accept we have less control than what we may want or would like and keep at it.

I continue to work on myself, making goals and plans.  If anything I learned a little bit more about tenacity and grit. I know what I want, and I know what I need. I set these goals to never return to the place I came, to rise above.

As a conclusion, I want to say that I have a lot more to go, the journey has yet to come to an end and I am still growing.  My memories and motivations may have changed with time, but my passion and spirit have only grown. This year last year was filled with dark days and even darker nights, and I was able to reignite my life and see the dawn. I may be filled with frustration, but I am better for it all.

This year beat me up, but I keep getting up for another round. I will win this fight and get to where I want to go because I am willing to do what needs to be done.

Thank you for reading, here’s to a new year. If you ever want to talk, I am here to listen.

 

WORDS, MY ETERNAL STRUGGLE WITH LANGUAGE : Revisited

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My father was a lector, and a good one. While I was in middle school, I always admired my dad each and every time he went up during mass to say the readings.  I saw the crowds of people so attentively listening to every word he said. I wanted that; I wanted for people to listen to me as they listened to him. I wanted to be that person whom people looked to whenever they needed something said.
It was during this time that the opportunity arose for my classmates and me to be lectors during the weekly student masses. At every opportunity they gave us I would attempt to volunteer, hoping in some ways to capture some of my dad’s ability.  Zeal, unfortunately, did not translate to talent, and I struggled each and every time I went up to speak. For reading was not my strong suit, and I can tell you that even in the low-pressure classroom setting  I would stumble over every word, piecing together phrases and seeming disconnected thoughts hoping no one noticed my trouble. For some reason I saw letters that weren’t there, always nervously mispronouncing words and inventing phrases that didn’t belong; even I knew I wasn’t good. That didn’t keep me from wanting it; it didn’t’ keep me from trying.
Eventually, I stopped being called on, and when no one wanted to volunteer except for me, they would assign the job to someone else. I got the message loud and clear, I wasn’t the one that they were looking for, my words were not good enough.  I could only watch others as they got to go up there and speak, go up there and do what it seemed I couldn’t, patiently waiting for my time to come.
Even to this day, it’s my dream to give a great speech to a stadium full of people. To speak words that touch the heart of everyone in the room, to have them listen to me as they did for my father before me.

A year is an awfully long time. In the span of a year, I started this blog to begin working on a lot of aspects of myself, first and foremost, to find my voice.  Twelve months, fifty-two weekly posts later, I want to demonstrate how far I’ve come and let you know that I still have a long to go.
My story hasn’t ended; my journey is still ongoing. My words flow faster and better than before but there is always more I want to say, and I find myself wanting to fall into the bad habits of yesterday.  I sit at the keys of my computer often now, contemplating the sentence structure, the way I want something to be phrased, how long it takes me to convey my message.  I look at words differently than I did before, and like learning to swim, I don’t feel like I am at risk to drowning in a sea of language anymore.

I realized this is going to be a life long journey.  As I develop my style, the prose doesn’t feel so distant from me anymore.  The words don’t feel cold and unfamiliar and each time I write they seem to take a life of their own and flow out of me as if they want to be said. Each character carries a little of myself with it, a little of my heart, a little of my mind. The strange thing is that no matter how much of myself I pour onto the page I never seem to run out. There is fulfillment I find from writing, and I don’t think I will ever find myself empty from it.

I have spent a lot of time now writing about the reflection I see in the mirror.  I want to continue this but also set my sights on things are beyond me. So for the next coming year, I want to expand my reach to the world around me, to writing about what I see and how I see it.  My hope is that I can learn to get closer to language and the words I write so that they will become a direct translation of what I mean to say.
So to everyone who has taken the time to read my posts, it means a lot to me that you have come on this adventure with me.
There is still a long way to grow and much more to say. So to all those who have been with me, let’s be on our way.
Thank you for reading all the words I’ve written, here’s to future, one that is smitten.

thank you.

P.s.
Here is a link to my first post, if you have time I would like to see how it compares to how I write now.
WORDS, MY ETERNAL STRUGGLE WITH LANGUAGE 

 

 

 

 

Thread and Binding

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Do you believe in fate or destiny? Do you believe that the world has some grand plan or all of what will happen is written in some book somewhere?  Do you believe that something is turning the cogs in the great machine of life, or do you perhaps we are all here by chance and change alone.

I can’t refute fate, it is something that I fight against frequently.  What is my fate and how does that reflect on the world. Does fate exist or does this grand narrative fall short because it’s what I want from the universe? That’s not what I want to talk about now. I want to speak of the fate that connects me unknowingly to those who are around me.

I have been fortunate to have great people surrounding me in my life.  Friends, family, peers, and acquaintances.  I have had the chance to develop relationships with people from all different backgrounds, creeds, cultures, nationalities, and ideologies. Each one is connecting to my personal story, each one helping to shape the narrative of my life.

Each chapter is filled with different interconnected strings, ones that may go off in strange directions but is all connected to me in some way. We are all an odd mix of connections for whom we are the catalyst. As my relationships grow so does the strength of the string, and eventually I find myself covered with them, which keeps me warm when the world is cold.

It’s the thread that I feel pulls me towards people in my life.  It connects me to them, sometimes by the hand, and other times by the heart.  These interconnected threads weave together the pages of my book of life, creating a coherent message from start to finish.

The threads always are pushing me to expand myself into a different area, and I wonder why these threads pull me from one place to another.  Each place I go I find out some more about the world, about others, and about myself.  This is what makes my relationships always worthwhile. Are these strings the ones I create or was the thread pulling me there beforehand. Was my book already written in or are these chapters something of my creation? What matters is that I have these relationships and I don’t take them for granted. Each one is important, and I should treat them as such.

Truth be told, everyone has these relationships in their lives, for better or for worse. Where would we be without them? I wanted to take this first week of December to highlight something I find much more valuable than any present in the world, my relationships.  Thank you for existing, each and every friendship and a familial relation have shaped me in some way, so you are all partially responsible for why I am the way I am. If that’s a good thing, thank you. If you feel it’s a bad thing, then it’s all your fault.

I want to continue to work at my relationships into the future, but I do need help, I am not perfect. I am always happy to talk with you, so feel free to reach out to me and remember in this holiday season how much these relationships mean to you.  Letting people know can make all the difference.

 

 

The Echos Of The Coming Cold

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Cold magnifies and multiplies this world.  The small silences become eerie calms, the sound of steps ring out across the air, frozen hand and fingers grasping and rubbing for the chance of once again being warm. This is my favorite season, not because of the cold for which I despise but because of the listless echo the everything emits. An echo that reverberates and multiplies across the hearts of all those there to experience it. It is the season where everyone hurts a bit more, feels a bit more, tries a bit more, and is a bit more aware of the world around them.  It’s that cold sting that never lets us drift into our fantasies.  The chill keeps us acutely aware of the present moment, forcing us to face the feelings we have inside.

It’s in these next couple months that the world makes way for change.   It’s a time for reflection as we slowly recluse ourselves into our spaces.  It’s what we fill these spaces with that make all the difference.  Even on the coldest day, a room full of happy people can feel as warm as the hot summer sun. Though the opposite is true, even on a mild day am empty room can freeze you on the spot.  It’s these contrasts that I like.  The cold and calm paints its picture with deep tones and dark shades to illustrate the heavy feeling that the chill can bring; the warm and welcoming shows up with an abundance of color presenting the vibrancy of life in the depths of this cold.

Now the main reason I like these things is that it allows me to reflect on and enjoy the times I have. It condenses the experiences and feelings like water, making it, so it’s easier to get more out of them seemingly less time. With all the holidays, and the longer nights there is so much to be felt in these next couple months.  I just hope that this year will be a more positive one than the last. Ultimately that is up to me, and what I bring to the table.  I am open and ready to knock winter out of the park, much more prepared than I was a year ago.  So, as December arrives, I will be ushering the new year with open arms with all the new things that the world can bring, and with a reflection on how far this year had taken me. A few short months and we will be away from this echo, this cold and after all the chaos of winter comes spring.  With new life, we are able to create the world we want to see inside and out.

So let’s enjoy this cold, this winter as it comes in because it too is essential to the process we call life.

The Meal

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This time of year people makes a big deal about a meal. Why can you have a holiday that revolves around the act of eating? The reason is that it brings us together to recognize what only a meal could, connection.
Now, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Before you say it’s just because I like food and to cook, that’s only part of the reason.  See unlike Chrismas, birthdays, Holloween, and other holidays it requires you to give time and effort with a fleeting return.  Thanksgiving is based around an idea of giving thanks for what we have instead of receiving something extra.  It’s a holiday the requires us to sit down together in unity and forces us to suffer through being in proximity of people we may only be able to handle in small doses.

It forces us unabatedly back together regardless of the state of being and distance.  For someone like myself who is keen on keeping a casual distance from most people and my head in the clouds, it’s an opportunity to ground myself and forces me to reconnect.  I find all the trials and tribulations of planning, getting people together, preparing the meal, and finally sitting down together soothing. With so many gears chugging away and all the ways things can go awry, I find it’s a perfect personification of life.  I find this perfect disaster the very reason I give thanks on that day.  It is in this chaos of moving parts that we are reminded that life has a lot of ordinary things that pass us by, significant roadblocks on the path, and small happiness along the way and they are all things we should be thankful for.  SO this is my message to life, thank you for being the beautiful, crazy, perfect disaster that you are.

The Election and What Matters

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I was initially going to spend my time to write about something other than the results of this election, but like many of you, I have been drawn into the whirlwind of reporting my thoughts and feelings.

This election has taken a lot of us by surprise. We are left with a country divided. This election has been one of the most derisive on record.  I can honestly say that the world won’t end in the next coming months, though things will change. What is most important is learning a lesson from the results of this election.

Some might be angry or sad, frustrated or uneasy, anxious or all of the above.  Others will be happy, excited, jubilant, and hopeful for the future. What matters is that we come together after this election.  We have to learn to understand our fellow American’s point of view. We can’t stay as a country so divided through any longer. I know it may not be your favorite thing to do, but we are a country together, we had the opportunity to vote for a leader, and we chose.  Why, and how it happened are confusing and puzzling. We can get into a flurry about it, throw up our arms, and never accept reality. It is here, and we have another choice to make. What do we do now?

My choice is to understand, to love, and to learn what it is that brought us here, so as to make my time-honored duty as a citizen possible. We need to fight the hate with love, and we fight the intolerance with understanding.  There are some battles that require us to do more than just talk but to stand up together as the country and speak with one voice.  We need to unite under a notion of the democratic system in which we live.

I hope that in the next coming months we can at least learn to become a country and work together once again.

Midnight Dancers

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one. two. three. four.

The ebb and flow, a contagious motion permeates across the room.   Without even speaking a crowd of people seems to be all connected. Through the rhythmic cadence that erupts from the speakers, I can tell, it’s a whole other world out there.

one. two. three. four.

I have to come out and say it; I don’t know how to dance.
I know, surprising.
This only comes up because I went out recently with my friends and found myself on one of these dance floors.  Trust me when I say, my relationships with that space is the same as two people who are introduced through a mutual friend and then are immediately left to their own devices, awkward and unfamiliar. This is not through a lack of desire to learn; it’s more that I never find myself in these situations, so I have never had the need to improve my non-existent skills.  I have a healthy appreciation for dancing, just no the wherewithal to do it.

one. two. three. four.

There is a larger lesson about letting myself be a beginner and look silly.  Instead of just sitting on the sidelines, unwilling to participate, I should let myself go. I can see it, in others, that ability to flow and feel the music, I want to learn to do that, but part of me doesn’t want to let it in. “What happens if I look stupid?”, Or “What happens if I make a mistake?” are usually the thoughts that roll through my mind. This unfamiliar territory scares me, highlights my awkward nature and inexperience, makes me freeze up.  It’s like banging on a glass between me and the rest of the world; I can see it, but I just can’t get there.

one. two. three. four.

Letting myself be free. I have trouble giving up the reigns, being out of control.  I built my whole life around bringing order to the chaos, but with dancing you have to be willing to add a little chaos back in.  I can learn all the steps and all the music cues in the world, but if I don’t let go it, then there is no passion which defeats the purpose of dancing.  It’s the love that I need, even with all the learning in the world I can still be wrong if I don’t provide the right ingredients.  It’s something that I put on the back burner; I trust that my knowledge and know how will see me through the day but my simmering passion is left to boil away unnoticed.  I need to trust in my heart as much as I believe in my head.

one. two. three. four.

At the end of the day, I admire dancing, this form of expression that for the moment seems lost on me. I have seen it, and I at least enjoy watching people do it.  Eventually, this full-bodied manifestation of feelings will be another outlet for me to connect with other people and allow me to travel to another world right along with them.

one. two. three. four.

Death.

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In the spirit of the holiday of Halloween, I wanted to turn my attention to the topic of death. Know this will be a bit darker than normal.

Death.  I’ve honestly been thinking about it lately.  The idea of death, what it would mean to die.  Now, I’ve never seriously entertained the thought of speeding up the process; I’m too Catholic for that. I have felt, though, as if I have wanted to die.  As if I wanted my existence to end,  and the suffering involved with pressing on to cease. Those moments, where it seems as if I’ve already messed up too much and it’s not going to get any better from here.  Where the world just looks like it’s against me, death becomes a choice.

Death is a self-involved choice, something that would be done without anyone else in mind, because the results of death effects not only but the people around you. The only reason I would do it to add a bookend to my life, to see the culmination of my life put together.   I would love to attend my funeral; it’s in the way to get the review of the book  that authors put on the back cover,  taking who I am and compressing it into something that some that understandable. The only problem with that plan is that I would have to be alive, and you can’t have a funeral for someone who hasn’t died yet. The question stands, when do we really die.  Is it when we give up on our last breath or is when we give up on our last dream.  Is it when our brain stops functioning or when we stop being remembered.

Whatever happens after death is for the living.  Funerals, burials, and rituals all stand to give that closure to those who are left behind.  Each culture giving some credence and someway to remember those who have come before us.  It’s then, on the day after Halloween, All Saints and All Souls day that we take a moment to remember all those who have perished. We all have our own way, but is something calls to be dealt with whether we like it or not.

What does death mean then, as it has no intrinsic meaning to it, it can only be given meaning. Unfortunately, the people around you can only really give you the answer.  With each different belief, we can only speculate as why someone lived and died in the first place.  Whether or not you believe in an afterlife or sorts, death is a very final act on show that is your life.

As of now, I can only say that death is a motivator to make sure the book of my life has a happy ending, and that it may be worth a read along the way.