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The World In The Life Of A Guy – Part 12 – Putting Two Together

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Before I start, I wanted to say that this series has been a great way to reflect on the various ways men and women are different, as well as how those differences really impact how we go through the world.  After this post, I want to take a bit of time away from this series as a means to collect myself and to try new regularized topics to write about, I will come back intermittently to post about these topics, but after a year I am ready to try something new. Thank you for following along with this, I have enjoyed it.

As I started, so shall I end.  With sex and relationships.

I’ve spent a long time asking women my age about their relationship experiences, what it is like to be with a guy, and for what they tell me, I’m surprised a lot of them keep wanting to be in one. Stories I’ve heard, go into great detail about the enormous breaches of personal trust and faith in the partners they were with.  Stories of being forced or compelled to do things they didn’t want to do, harassed or abused, or even worse.  The stories were not all doom and gloom, but the sheer regularity of these negative experiences among people I have talked to is disheartening.  With each stories told to me the list of things that haunted me.  Haunt me, telling me of what I could be, but compelling me to go out to heal and not to hurt.  I don’t shy away from these stories, and I am supremely grateful for those who have shared their experiences with me, it keeps me aware of how bad it could be. In the end what bothers me how people can people can think so little of others, or feel entitled to something that should be shared. The bar for relationships a lot of women is a lot lower than it should be.  Women aren’t perfect, women are just people, and should at least be treated with the decency of an ordinary person, and sometimes they fight to get that much.

It makes me fear my own missteps, vivid things I may have done better. Progress is all about learning from my mistakes, to be better but with people and keep moving forward. Through it all, I’ve got scars on my heart from it, scars that seem to be growing and I don’t know what to do.

I think I’m afraid of sex, that powerful act that like a void, never seems to be satiated completely.  I think I always have been.  I can give you every excuse in the book for this fear, my religious upbringing, my less than stellar early life experiences with girls, or just the world of cold videos of porn on the internet but each of these would just seem to be a contributor or symptom of a much bigger issue.

Expression.

My experiences have taught me to that care is to give, and what else is there to give but myself.  I gave up pieces of myself to appease people early on.  Destroyed bits of my heart and soul to be okay with it.  I remember in high school, among the many strange things that happened to me was a girl. I had liked her at some point, and she had liked me, but the only thing was that our timing or wanting to be with each other ended up being off.  In liking me, she wanted express that in some way, so she ended up sending naked pictures of herself to me.  This is where curiosity kills, this might sound weird, but the curious part of me wanted to know more, but my heart and soul weren’t in it resisting me, telling me to stop this, that doing this was hurting me and wasn’t right.  She knew that I didn’t want a relationship because I told her that I wasn’t interested but she kept on with it (though I should have been more active to stop it). I didn’t though, not directly because I had always been told this was a good thing and that I should savor it and enjoy it even though it killed me inside. At the end of it all, in some strange way, it felt like someone was at least expressing that they wanted me to be that person in my life which felt good and started me down this road.

The experience sticks with me because it was the first of a lot of experiences that felt just not right for me. I may go into detail another time but for now, the point is I’ve had my fair share of good bad experiences, and it’s what I learned though that matters. In some way, I think most guys see similarly to me, that sex and sexual things are a form of intimacy and expression.  It is about power, desire, and in the best of times love.  The little voice in our head whispering that the only way to feel the connection is through that expression of two bodies of self. That the negation of advances recounts itself as a rejection of this expression and a rejection of expression means a rejection of self.
This type of thinking is ridiculous, but when feeling and desire is only expressed through such limited avenues, how else is that to come off.

This is why I am so afraid of sex because to me, its a giving of myself, leaving myself open and yet it can so quickly be given and taken from you. It can become from meaningful to meaningless swiftly and easily. Why would I want to do that to myself, to satiate if not only temporarily the urges that my body afflicts upon me? Used as a mechanism to fill the void of lonely disregard of heart, a cry for help and a stopgap for meaning.  Each time disregarded, carves away at our heart so that less and less of it comes back to us.  I want something more because I know more is out there.  I want to be open to the love of a different kind and nature. Expression of which can comes in different types and forms still foreign and mysterious to me. I don’t want it to be only about sex, there should always be more to it.

We keep coming back to relationships though, after each of our experiences to try again.  I don’t know why, I don’t understand it and I know I won’t go for a while but we keep trying out there, hoping and working for change.  The world of girls and guys is different in a lot of ways but this one is the same, we want a better future and we are, if not slowly, moving towards it together. I hope it will be one we can be proud of.

A Loss Of Things To Do – Boredom​

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It feels like I am sleeping, my eyes feel heavy because there is nothing to rouse them awake.  I feel this need to pass my days quickly even though nothing is awaiting me on the other side of the morning.  It has begun, my body breaking down, my mind slowing and things become dreary.  It’s like the energy is sucked out of me, and I am empty. This is what boredom feels like to me, death.    I am fighting against this apathy, trying to find my way back from the quicksand that empty time is but what I find is a seductive force, that wants to keep you locked into that state of mind, locked into the nothing that comes with it.  I know that there is a time limit to my affliction, once I get back to school things will resume, but I must find the power to do the things need to accomplish between now and then.  I have a list of things to do, that will only get bigger if I decided just to lay around and think.  This corrosive force attacks my spirit and soul leaving me in a bad mood, and feeling worse. Like a disease of the mind, it may go into remission but is always waiting its chance to resurface with a vengeance.  What shall I do to combat this, how can I win? I provide structure, discipline but I am on shaky footing. These habits I create though useful act as though they are the stand-ins for my real habits. In this time period, without that structure, I can lose more than just time, but also my inertia to get through school the way I want to.
I need to fight and push past these barriers, kick this demotivation into next week, find the time and use it towards something I know at the end of the day will make me happy. This boredom can be used, turned around and worked.  I can use what I have been given to grow even stronger and move even faster.  Use this boredom as a blessing, to find strategies for the future, learn what makes me tick, and what I need to keep at it.
Soon enough my break will be over, and school will come once more. The way I see it, I can either find myself entering school, knowing I could have done more and accomplished much, or I can enter school knowing I acted upon these feelings and impulses that insist that I move, I go, I get out of bed and start working.  All I need to do is listen to that voice in my heart that is yelling at me to get out there and live the life I have always wanted to lead because what is better than doing things tomorrow, is doing them today.

A Challenge To The New Year

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I usually know the end of the month I usually devote talking what it’s like being a guy but I don’t want the miss the opportunity to talk about how the end of the year and the start of a new one gives up a time to reflect upon ourselves and change our lives, which the blog has spent so much time devoted to. So next month there will be a double post of the World In The Life Of A Guy bringing that series to its end of regular serialization after a year to pursue other topics. This has been a great year, full of ups and downs and but for now, I want to look forward, forward to the new year.

Why is the new year so synonymous with change? Not to be pedantic, but what do we feel happens between 11:59PM New Years Eve and 12:00AM New Years Day?  Is there some sort of magical moment where we metamorphize from our past selves to this new self that is much more capable than the one before.  From my experience, life rarely works that way.  What I do know is that we do not gain some sort of extra motivation or discipline from holidays.  Though I don’t doubt that the new year is a great moment to try new things especially with all the great deals that usually come along with the holiday season, planning for change, at least for me, doesn’t work.  It’s like buying an ice cream cone and waiting until you get home to eat it, chances are when you get there, the ice cream will have already melted. I know that taking advantage of the motivation as it comes as it is kindling to start something new and if I wait too long I won’t have the same strength to carry it through.

This doesn’t answer what I want from the new year.  Last year and the year before I had planted the seeds for a future I wanted, and this year is the year I take care of and prune those plants so they will grow.  This is not to say that new and unusual things aren’t on the docket, but I feel in learning to nurture progress, my investments will come to bear fruit.
There are things that I am dissatisfied with.  I have come a long way to fix and foster my relationships, but in some ways, I have fallen short.  I feel like I need to put myself out there and find a way to make sure the people who love me know I love them back.  I am dissatisfied with my eating and spending habits, though I put effort I am not where I want to be, and I want to change that. I am dissatisfied with my work ethic, though it has come a long way, I still find myself under the control of the whims of the day, throwing off what I intend to get done and the timing of how I want it to be done by.
These aside, there will always be dissatisfactions in my life, to strive is to live, and to live is to work.  This new year, I will take as a blessing and push myself to learn as much as I can, keeping an open mind and open heart to the way the world works and always working towards what I think is the right path and what is good. I am lucky, I have people around me who pursue their dreams, and who push back upon the void and create something beautiful from nothing.  I am fortunate to be frustrated and want more for myself. I am happy that when I look around, I feel like there is always more I can do, and that what I want do it if I only put my mind and spirit into to it.

2018 is a year to grow and change, feed and prune, to pursue and accomplish.  Goodbye 2017, you were good to me.  Hello 2018, I am coming for you.

Though I don’t say this every time, if anyone ever needs help or wants to talk I am here to listen, you are not alone there in the dark.

WORDS, MY ETERNAL STRUGGLE WITH LANGUAGE:​ Revisited 2

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People don’t believe me when I say I’m not good at English.  It was never the class I enjoyed going to, and I always felt like I never understood what the rules were for the great communication game.  See for me, words pour out of my mouth like a container full of liquid, with limited grace and an inability to separate one drop from the next. I speak in circles and talk continuously when I really should be listening but I can’t help it at times, its how I deal with at times persistent anxious feeling that arises from the sound of silence.
It wasn’t always like this, there was a time when I was younger when I didn’t speak, didn’t let my voice be heard or call out others. In my quiet, I felt that there was no reason to speak, people spoke for me, and that was good enough. That period of time continued until I was called to talk, to let my voice be heard, but all that came out were things I had learned because that’s all I felt people wanted.
So I talked and talked and all I would say were what I thought people wanted to get their way.  I didn’t feel like words were my own, they were just a ship to carry me closer to home. They were a way to keep me out of trouble or to deflect shame, if I kept speaking I wouldn’t feel the pain. All words were was a means to an end, but each time spoke the fewer ears people would lend.  I would answer questions, give my opinion, try to talk as much as I could but ultimate it didn’t fix anything under the hood. So they stopped calling on me, the teachers that be, because they felt it would be free, to stop speaking to me. So the silence grew deep, and my words became meek, I felt as though my voice itself was weak.
I couldn’t get out of this trouble, I wonder, it this trouble is the trouble to cause my heart to fall asunder. So I spoke and spoke, just as I speak and speak, to hopefully feel like my heart was not weak. I needed help with my words because regardless of what was said, there was never a feeling of feelings of being whole in my head.
So my words began pouring like a pitcher of water, learning how to speak so they would not be fodder.  So I learned the words that people would feel and repeated and repeated them just like a wheel. Every time I repeated, the words would change, until the words became words that would break from this cage.
The problem with the words that would say I said is that feels like a contract,  a contract with the dead.  I could speak and speak, and people would at times listen, but if there were not speaking, I wouldn’t feel the glisten. My heart would ache and ache in pain because without the glissen,  no frisson which means my vision would fission and leave a division. My mind was split, and these words would travel back until it felt like the words in my head were like an attack.
So I work on my words, day in and day out, to stop this addictive vindictive word spout.  I want to try and embrace the silence, let words be heard instead of defiance.  So I might speak now, and people might listen but to be honest, I would find something missing.  So here is where I digress, from the words, rhythm, and rhyme, because to be honest, I need to talk about real this time.

I realized at some point through all this writing, how beautiful words can be. When I craft a sentence, it feels like watching a tree.  It grows and changes as time passes. The winds move it and the season changes it, but they are there to remind me that giving it a little effort gives it all it needs to grow.  So I leave with this, another lesson another year’s folly, I want to become and change some more, because I have some more words to pour.  Thank you for listening to another year’s adventure, and here are some links of my past posts about words.

Year One : Year Two

Memory Flash

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It feels like it flows from my fingertips
The expression of memory and intimacy
Flashes of feeling and memory
A vividness that captures my attention
They are escaping me
Like as memory
Each time remembered becomes softer
More Distorted

If feels like the flash is the memories life
The feeling trying to resurface and live
Gasping for air, one last stand before being left behind
It’s too late now
I can’t go back to relive the memories
Can’t go back to make any more
So sit motionless waiting for them to pass
Hoping to capture those last moments

There they go.
Bittersweet.
Sorrowful.
Happy.

A Simple Plane Ride of Self Discovery

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I met a man on a plane recently.
A man on the way to his hometown of Nashville.  We sat next to each other, and even though I needed to get work done and put in earplugs, he wanted to start up a conversation. He was in his late twenties, with long hair pulled into a bun, and a scraggly beard to match.

He was nervous, about going home. Worried because he would be returning home after three and a half years being away from it.  He lived in Sydney at the moment, but he began recounting his tales of world travel.  This is what got me intrigued.  He had decided after completing his bachelors and was starting his masters that he wanted a different life for himself, and his girlfriend agreed, so they took off to teach English on the other side of the world.  Moving around from place to place, using the teaching gig as a mechanism to explore parts unknown.  To be honest, it sounded fun.  They lived a simple life, were able to afford what they wanted, but lived within their means, and they picked up skills along the way.  Thirty countries he mentioned, thirty countries he had traveled through hitting countless cities and villages along the way.  He had been able to experience all sorts of different cultures, and he told me how he had learned from each one of them.
I sat there sharing my own experiences but mostly listening to what he had to say.  We talked about the fact I am doing my masters and why he felt that his original dream to get his Ph.D. fell by the wayside for this new dream. It was an exciting talk, and once the flight was over, we went our separate ways.

The talk stuck with me, I thought about it the long ride to the place I would be staying for the wedding the next day.  I think the reason be, is that his life was my back up plan for if the whole academia thing didn’t work out.  What my life could be like if I had thought academia wasn’t for me or if academia thought I wasn’t for them.  I was the idea that I would go about the world, learning and growing from all the lessons it had to offer. Meeting new people and having new experiences and deciding where to be one month at a time. His life had a sort of appeal to it, an excitement, an adventurous spirit that I feel within myself too.  For a moment, I really wondered if I could still grasp it.

After our talk and the plane began to unload we went our separate ways, It was then I realized I never even knew his name, we hadn’t exchanged on the plane. Maybe that’s okay, be what he represents now is a different life, a different path for me.  This is not to say that this path might not converge with the path I am on but I found the path I will be following.  I still want to travel more and see the world, and my choice to go into academia isn’t going to change that. It was nice to see that either path I could have taken, I might have been happy, which is good enough for me.

So to the perfect stranger, I met on the plane, I hope you live a full and rewarding life, maybe I’ll see you again one day and find out how it turned out.

Reoccurant

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I keep having dreams of her
A being from my past life
With each time I close my eyes
I feel a bittersweet sorrow

They are all vivid
These visions of mine
Spurred on by a combination
of a small conversation
and the remnants of a connection that remains tangled

These dreams ask me to reach
To reach out and speak to her
To fulfill these feelings that have come welling up
Not of love
But to something else, I don’t understand

Is it connection lost
A comfort missed
A fear placated
Or some secret desire of my heart
I don’t understand and I don’t like not understanding

I’ve asked others for council
But there is not enough there
Only stabs in the dark
Not intention just guesses to the question
Why?

So I remain frozen here
Waiting for a sign
To clear up these unknowns
These feeling and actions are different than who I am
But then again these are all feelings from a past life
One where I knew her and didn’t need dreams to see.

Chasing A Dream, Where Ever It May Go

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“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

I know recently, I have been complaining a lot about the fact the I’ve been tired, but I want to take a moment to reflect on the reason I am exhausted in the first place.

I’ve been busy, busy with various new experiences life as seen to throw my way.  Mostly work, to be honest, but its weird, this is never the type of working experience that I have ever had.  It’s this thing where I almost crave it.  I work and act as if all myself want and needs to.  I’ve had a lot of jobs and been through a lot of schooling, and this is the first time I’ve really felt this way about all the things sitting in front of me. It’s like a high mountain to climb, and I’m mountain climber trying to traverse it.

My days have been filled with staying at school for more than 12 hours at a time.  I check each day what my home door to door time is and each day I realize its extending.  At these points, I would find that I would be tired of going, tired of continually having to push myself more to get done everything I want to do. Each opportunity feels as if it is a whetstone, sharpening my the tools I will use to push forward in my life.  It feels as if this moment, my body feels live so that it wants to keep pushing farther and further than I ever had before.

Maybe its perspective, the two years away from school has definitely changed how I approach education.  Though I always knew I would continue down this path, I feel more passionate about my choice to do so.  Unrestricted, more sure-footed about where I want to go and what I want to do.   It keeps me vigilant about my opportunities, keeps me actively striving for more, until I find myself staying up late, working long hours to complete something.

My body needs rest as it starts to ache all over.  My eyes begin to burn from all the monitors and from being awake so long during the day.  My mind sits in a fog by the time I get home, just trying to digest everything that just happened. I have no time, and yet I keep going in the hopes that I will catch up in the long run.  My belly runs empty, and I have to remind myself to eat enough for the amount I expend. And yet, I love these moments, because it feels like I am finally pushing myself to do something great.

There a danger to it, with the new feeling comes cautionary tales of both burn out and breaking.  If I push too hard too fast, I can break down my body and my health to the point where my body refuses me, and I have to stop the obsession. The second is set this fire for much for too long runs the risk of turning the subject I have fallen in love with into a bastion of resentment.  Begining to internalize the little things and grow tired of the subject and the place I am to work.  As always, it’s about the balance of these things, to keep my mind healthy and my ridiculous actions in check.

I want to push myself so I can grow strong under the opportunities that I have been presented. By the end of this short two years, I want to have the strength to tackle the next five and the knowledge of how to get stronger for the next 60 and beyond. Every day is a new challenged and all I want to do is live up to it.

An Investment In Self Depreciating Returns

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You believe you are who you say you are most of the time. It’s how we intercede with the world, and it’s subtle at times because things slip out we never really give much thought to.  That’s why in observing recently I found something I am not too happy with.  It’s this attitude that focuses on whenever I feel awkward or in the spotlight I resort to self-deprecation as a means of humor.  Which ordinarily isn’t an issue but its comes to mind now because I realize its a crutch I resort to when I find myself in a situation that might just be better suited with a pause.  I attack my self to attack my point to avoid conflict of any type.   To make sure I don’t look too big for my britches or arrogant.  All I am doing at the end is destroying both my self-value and smoothing out the potential nuances that never need smoothing.

I don’t know why I do this, its a relic of the past I’m certain but why does it still echo into the present with such volume.  I don’t like doing it, and when I catch myself in the act, I feel as if I am trying to keep myself in a particular negative state of equilibrium.  It’s silly and yet, it’s almost subconscious.  I wonder when this piece of myself started to grow, and give rise to such a nasty habit but I hope to change it.

The world is hard enough as it is without us bringing ourselves down.  It doesn’t stand in confidence, these lowly parts of ourselves, but it keeps us from having to fall when reality kicks us in the face.  That philosophy of keeping ourselves on the ground just because we are afraid it might hurt too much to flight doesn’t actually get us anywhere worth going.  I don’t want to be arrogant but I do want to know myself enough to be confident in my thoughts.  I want for who I am not to need to worry about putting in these words to into my statements to soften the blow.  I should be bold in my statements but also bold in my willingness to accept being wrong when I am.

Progress on ourselves in an ever increasing thing.  Today it’s this, not to depreciate myself, because ultimately it’s an investment in myself and who I will be in the future.

To: Halloween

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Dear Halloween,

I know it’s been a while, I see you every year as we pass by each other and we say hi and exchange small talk. It doesn’t feel real anymore, more like we’re just going through the motions
I know we used to be friends when I was little, I was excited to see you every time I got the chance, but the moment my teen years came around, my dad didn’t want me hanging around you anymore, so we stopped seeing each other.
By the time I finally saw you again I, never knew what to say, so much time had passed, and it felt like we’re in different places.
I want you to know I’ve never had a problem with you. Truth be told I rather like when you’re around, its a lot more lively, and it makes people happy. Though we really didn’t hang out, I knew somewhere deep down we were still on friendly terms.  I know I really dress up to your parties, but at least we always had fun.
As to what happened a couple years ago, I know it wasn’t your fault.  A lot of people get excited when they see you’re going to be around, and that excitement ended up becoming a fight.  It ruined the night and our small interactions.  I don’t want to admit that it still stings a bit, but as times goes on, it’s not as bad as it uses to be.
The reason why I’m writing this to you in the first place is that it’s time for us to get to know each other again. I feel like our relationship could be better.  A lot of people love you, and I can see why you are just enjoyable. People feel like at ease around you and allow themselves to let go, and I should embrace that.
I want to be able to enjoy your company more and even though I know we’re never going to have the same experiences we did in the past but nor should we. We are in different places and want different things.  The fun times we have together should be different too.  I think I’m ready for the next step forward, to start anew. Let me know if your still interested Halloween, I hope I’m not too late.

Sincerely,
Me