Shadows of the Passing Year

The final hours of the year are drawing in and with them go another calendar. It’s always been a bit of an irony to me that most everyone looks to the New Year as some kind of rebirth, some token landmark that will grant them a reprieve from their troubles and somehow endow them with the wisdom to fix every ill they encounter. I say it’s ironic because wisdom by definition predisposes that this line of thinking is, for lack of a better term, retarded. Sound minded, reasonable people clamor together as the clock strikes midnight and the calendar changes and all anyone can think of is how the New Year will be the one, the one that will see them married, or off to a job they really like. They seem to think that a calendar needs to change in order for them to accomplish anything of value.

I’m not averse to the idea of using a symbolic milestone as a watermark for new life. Hell, I’ve met many people that say their life really began when they became a parent or when they found true love (I’m guilty of that last one), so the idea of beginning a new chapter in life is something I have no problem with. It’s the concept of leaving behind all the woes and misery of life with the passing of a year. It doesn’t mean anything, really. Taking a hard line approach to it, time in itself is a manmade construct and it doesn’t really amount to much in the grand scheme of the universe. The calendar we subscribe to is actually a Christian invention and thus an indirect buy out of some measure of Christianity (take that Atheists) so it’s all arbitrary when you really sit and analyze it.

All of that having been said, I actually find myself looking forward to the coming year. I will, come hell, high water, Armageddon, or the apocalypse, finally lay to rest once and for all what I’ve termed The Long Saga with Nicole. I’m also going to get my book published and stop sitting on it (almost five years in production and to be honest I haven’t done very much with it in terms of development since I penned the last words to it on December 28^th 2007. Those are my main two goals and really the only things I actually give a damn about accomplishing in the New Year. Both of them are easily attainable goals so I see no reason I can’t get it done.

The passing year for me was a bit interesting to say the least. I awoke New Year’s Day to dim lighting and my best friend passed out on my floor gripping a Hefty bag with all his might. I knew then it was going to be a year out of The Twilight Zone. I was working Karaoke at the Brass, having a ball and still miring away in the same job. I move mid-January into my current apartment, and found a new object for my affection in mid-February. That last bit turned out to be a horrid decision. I opted to pursue a sycophantic bartender that ended up spelling my doom instead of bringing me happiness. When the dust settled in early June from that debacle I found myself reaching out to the only person I trusted to give me an honest answer to the only question I felt really mattered right then, “Was anything about me genuine?” Nicole was honest and said quite possibly the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard “You were the only honest thing about our relationship”. From the ashes of a failed endeavor and old one sprang forth, and I set back on the path to what I’ve always felt has been my destiny. I made the journey to see Tool in San Diego and it was then that the Long Saga began again. A late night text advising me to be careful and expressing love (we hadn’t even seen each other) was all it took to send my elation at seeing my favorite band into over drive and leave me on a plateau of happiness I hadn’t fathomed. The end of July I found myself on the receiving end of a show of vitriol that would have turned Hitler’s stomach. The Sunday following, a year to the day since Nicole had walked out of my life; she was back in my arms. Funny how life works out.

The middle of September found the flood gates of my emotion reopened, leaving me feeling and dealing with everything I thought I’d left behind and also sprawled on a blanket in the cemetery having lunch and reveling in the beauty of my love. I knew happiness again. A week after that and I was barred from entering the bar I’d called my own since before I could drink or even buy tobacco. John had given me the death knell and axed me, citing too much drama with the psychotic whore bartender (she accused me of stalking her) and too much grief from the owner (who has now sold the shit hole, or so I’m told). So I bid farewell to my friends, and closed a chapter in my life. Two months later I found myself stuck in a choice of whether I wanted to indulge in what most would see as self-destructive behavior or realize a dream. I took the former but told most everyone I did the latter. Such are the choices we make in life.

2010 began with no great fanfare and it’s ending better than I’d thought but not as well as I’d have liked. At midnight tonight my thoughts will be elsewhere, lost in the ether and drifting on the currents of something beyond us all. But I will smile, I will revel and I will do my best to embrace the warmth and camaraderie of my peers. Every day that passes from now until my last is a testament to what the human spirit can accomplish. I was told I’d become a failure when I was younger, and I proved that to be untrue. I was removed from my high school and left to the whim, of fate and I managed to find a silver lining. I was once told that the love I sought was beyond me and I fought against all odds to make it my own. I have done the impossible, and that makes me mighty, but we all have. We have all conquered our obstacles, we have persevered through the hardships of our life and made the best of whatever hand we’ve been dealt. It is by the tides of time, the ever present passing moment and the inescapable urge to capture and hold onto what we have, what we know, and to attempt to see the realization of what others say can never be that make us mighty. We are all stronger than we know, capable of so much more than we ever thought possible, and no matter what is to come in the next year, the one following, or the one that lies distantly ahead, I have no doubt that I’ll still be here, walking the planet, making life difficult for at least one other person, and still sharing my insights, my thoughts, and doing my best to eke out a life that is not just content but also happy.

I wish you all, the very best that the universe has to offer. May you all keep the love you’ve found and find innumerable ways to make it better. To those that have yet to find love, I wish the winds of fate to bring you the greatest happiness a person can know. The world is a beautiful place, full of wonder, joy, and love. My most fervent wish, aside from having Nicole in my arms, and calling her my own, is that each and every one of you find within you the capability and the compulsion to recognize the wonders of the world and how integral you are in it. I love you all my friends, and I hope the New Year is not just better than the last but that it sees the realization of our dreams and brings all the blessings of pleasure and bliss we ever fathomed.

"What is this burden of love, but the trials of a soul proving its own worth for the blessings bestowed by embrace of another..."

            Disillusionment is not something I do easily. For most things I find the worst case scenario and act on the precept that said scenario is a certainty, most things, that is, except love. For whatever reason I’ve seen fit to toil, wallow, and mire in a seemingly endless misery that would make even Bob Flanagan wince and take pause. It’s usually around this time of year that a tried and true pattern occurs and I find myself spiraling into a descent that I only just manage to escape after the New Year.

            The insipid holiday cheer that seems to permeate most every facet of the populace in the final months of the year is like glass in my brain. The plastic smiles, the token niceties that people doll out on demand, the screaming brats, and the same mindless soundtrack year after year all combine to drive me to the edge of insanity. Couple it with my normal disconnection from the masses this time of year, and you have recipe for disaster. Now in recent years it has played out with my going quiet, spitting bile at those that would seek to reach out, and my own venomous tongue shooting darts at even the most genuine of the perceived mindless drones.

            It’s no secret that the majority of my dissatisfaction has time and again been attributed to the implied obligation for gift giving and the pretense that people are really only genuine and nice to one another during the last months before the calendar change. While I won’t deny that those things do play a rather monumental part in my overall salty demeanor, the bigger part of it comes out of being and feeling alone and isolated this time of year. I steer away from the term jealousy mainly because it doesn’t apply. I don’t envy anyone their companionship or counterpart this time of year…well almost anyone. Unlike Valentine ’s Day where most people try to find someone in the hopes of getting laid (see Previous Post), the holidays usually intone a time for people to come together and connect.

            Now I promote and encourage connection with others, despite the all too real and bitter taste of the vulnerability it engenders. However, in taking a long hard look at my situation and the options open to me this time of year, for perhaps the first time in my adult life really taking a hard and analytically objective look at the facets of my life that combine to engender this misanthropy, I find that really it’s kind of circular.

            I’m miserable because I’m alone, but I’m alone because the only person I really want to spend this time of year with is the one person I absolutely can’t. I know by now it’s no secret to anyone that Nicole and I are talking again and relatively speaking we’ve come to accept that once more we’ve managed to eke out some semblance of a relationship. In taking things from an objective viewpoint I’ve realized that the most of you who have been along for the ride for any part of this ongoing saga have attested to, the only reason she and I work is because of me and my refusal to demand decent treatment at her hands. In addition my blind obsession with her (to be honest not just with you but myself, the vast majority of the past four years have been drenched in obsession disguised as love and defined by lust [take a second to let the meaning sink in]) has made it near impossible for me to simply walk away. The fear of being completely alone, of having to start all over again with someone else, to have to break down and burrow my way into someone’s inner circle of self and find that place of vulnerability…well the cynic in me knows all too well the amount of effort and reasons, somewhat justifiably, that it’s just not worth it.

            As social creatures in an era of mass dissemination of information we guard ourselves and our true feelings. Absolute vulnerability is something just too terrifying for most and it makes us put up walls that sometimes end up leaving us outside ourselves. One of my readers I speak to on a semi regular basis and she finds it both comforting and disturbing just how well I know her at times. The idea that someone can get beyond the armor, find their way to the soft inner core of our true selves, and do it all without ever really being around of making a truly concerted effort, well it’s not only daunting but also very unsettling. For most of us we spend the majority of our waking moments of interpersonal interaction gauging how much is too much. Should we tell the whole story or omit certain details? Is being completely honest always the best policy? Do we really benefit from being completely open?

            To remove some of the ambiguity of the questions above, think of it this way. People you’ve known your whole life, you’re fairly well comfortable around. Yet with certain things you invest a conscious effort to limit what is said or decide on the fly, just how much you should omit. A guy I’ve known since we were kids, at one point being thick as thieves and closer to brothers than friends, exhibited and demonstrated all too devastatingly a couple years back that my trust in him was sorely misplaced He completely disregarded my feelings and decided to deride my endeavors as being useless and without viable means of fruition. The definition of love I had found didn’t mesh with his perception of what love should be, and thus we had a schism. I still see the guy, I still interact with him, but outside of discussing general knowledge information, I find it hard to open up, to trust, or to divulge any real personal details.

            That being said, I think that all of us, myself included (hell I’m leading the charge), live in a near constant state of fear. Fear of being judged, of being alone, of being isolated or misunderstood. We go with the grain because the alternative is just too horrifying. We accept what people are willing to share, see what we’re shown and never endeavor to move beyond the veneer. I’m a terrible exception to it because I analyze everything and for me people are the ultimate puzzles.

            So circling back around, I find that it’s the time of year when I’m miserable because I’m disconnected. I interact with people, but I’m just outside that fuzzy warm zone where everyone gets to belong. Families come together, friends spend more time with each other, and I’m just too far out on the fringe of the whole system. Truth-be-told I’d love nothing better than to spend the holidays wrapped in Nicole’s arms, or just coming home to her every night. Instead I find myself struggling to accept that the best I can hope for right now is a fifteen minute phone call on her way home from work each night of the work week. Am I happy with it? Not by a long shot! Do I want more? No question. But I’m also a realist and I recognize that while it’s easy for my fan base (you guys) to criticize her and disparage her for the negative and selfish way she treats me (due in no small part to my own lambasting of her in a negative light [i.e., I “whine” to you guys instead of addressing the issue with her outright, come what may]) there’s a lot of layers to the dynamic I don’t share.

            The happiness I feel in her arms, the softness of her kiss on my lips and the way it makes my heart race (yes even after four years), or the tingle up my spine as her hands grip my back and she pulls herself into me, it all adds up to something that outweighs the seemingly overwhelming detriment of the dynamic. I won’t lie and say I don’t see it for it is, I recognize that I’ve had my life summarily on hold for the past four years. I’ve passed up many potential relationships, let go of many an interested woman (that no doubt would have treated me better and been better for me) but that’s the way love works. It drives you to do things that defy logic and complete fly in the face of rationality. I remain emotionally committed and convicted to the idea that given enough time she might come around. The downside is that the isolation I feel from having to remain so guarded around so many to keep the harsh tongues and wagging fingers at bay, leaves me with precious little solace for the loneliness that infects me in overwhelming abundance. I make no pretense as to whose burden it is that I carry, who is to blame for the decision to remain in such an obviously one sided “relationship”, or even that I’m not due the clacking of tongues and sometimes harsh admonitions I receive from those that care most about me. But by the same token, I feel no real obligation to defend said choices, outside of someone asking with genuine interest to understand, why I choose what I do.

            Love is the ultimate ambiguity because it comes in a unique flavor for everyone. The woman that stays with her husband even though she’s habitually beaten in his drunken stupors can still find some semblance of true love with the man. It’s just her flavor of the emotion. Likewise an old billionaire that recognizes something right and wonderful in the arms of a woman half his age, is no more wrong in his choice than a couple that finds each other across a crowded room and set about making a life amid a myriad of hardships.

            Now I will concede that my often touted definition and relation to the idea of romantic love being something that drives you to defy the Jiminy Cricket on your shoulder and whole heartedly engage in behavior and choices that make most outsiders opt for super gluing their palms to their foreheads just to save themselves the trouble of having to raise their arm so often. I see love as the ultimate no holds barred dynamic in which we can exist; a truly unconditional association of affection, peace, tranquility, adoration, and respect that super cedes all other possible constructs of behavior.  It is with that definition in mind that I have been able to endure, fight, suffer, bleed (emotionally), battle, and sacrifice all that I have. My personal conviction to what she and I could be, is enough of a driving force to keep me moving ahead with hope in my heart…or it was.

            It would seem that like all things in the universe, including the universe itself, my tolerance and understanding is finite. The dynamic this time around has been more taxing, due in large part to distance, but also because of the limitations that distance imposes. No weekend trysts, no long late night discussions as in days long past, hell in the five months we’ve been “back together” I’ve only seen her six times, and all of it is colluding together to test my resolve. Now I will admit that pride has played a significant role in my decisions of late. Somewhere in the back of my mind the warped conclusion that if I can manage to hold on to the pursuit, find the strength within to keep going, manage to muster enough hope and believe (no matter how naïve it’s seen to be) to ride this out until it’s last and final conclusion, I’ll prove once and for all that the kind of love I’ve espoused for so long does actually exist and that it is worth fighting for.

            Here’s where the breakdown occurs though. I’ve spent so much time, invested so much of myself, and let down so many walls within my sphere of self that she is one of the very few (perhaps the only one) that can really see through to the real me instead of what I project or willingly show. So I’m left to consider if I really am strong enough to walk away from this and leave the last four years of my life as little more than a blight of time that I had the pause button on. I know the sentiments will vary regarding what I should do, but ultimately remember it’s about my choices (that’s not to say that your thoughts and ideas won’t be considered though).

            Finally with all of this having been laid out, my disillusionment with the dynamic I’ve fought so hard to cultivate, defend, and attain comes into focus. I just really don’t know how much further I can go, what else I’m capable of doing. I’ve made off handed comments to some and even discussed with a couple of others, regarding my passion extinguishing itself due to emotional fatigue. I wake up most mornings and lack the resolve to approach the world with the same tenacity I once did, even the act of making love seems a bit forced at the outset. The raging inferno of my once untamable inner conflagration seems to have dwindled to little more than a weak and fragile flame on a tea candle struggling to maintain ignition through the torrid winds of a blizzard in the Antarctic.

            Those that know me best will no doubt have mixed feelings in their responses to this (does anyone still read?), struggling to support my decisions but wrestling with the anger of what they feel for my having given so much to someone they see as so undeserving. But it is to them, to those few that have peeled away the outer layers, seen behind the Wizard’s curtain, gazed into the abyss of who and what I am behind the shtick and wit, that I ask, very plainly, “How much more do you think I have in me, or for that matter how do you think I can reignite that almost doused spark within and return it to the vibrant almost violent firestorm it once was?”

            As a final note, I’m curious, more out of morbid fascination than anything else, for those of you that have ever been in love, those that currently are, and those that hope to be, consider your current mate, best previous, or ideal future one, and consider just how far you’d be willing to go. How much would you be willing to sacrifice, how much misery would you endure to spare them an ounce, exactly what are the limits to the burden you would endure in order to realize even the briefest moment of happiness behind their eyes? Think long and hard about the true measure of your love and devotion for the person you call your beloved, take into account all the things you wish you could change, all the things that once made your heart soar and your voice go dry, take note of what it was that first drew you to them and if it’s still there, and then answer the question, “Just how far would [you] go for love?”

Day 1 - The Journey Begins

Day started at 4AM. Up to shower, pack up the last minute bits of stuff and then off to Mark's. Boarded the flight, albeit with a slight embarrassment for Mark (he didn't read the Google Wave reminded everyone that TSA guidelines prohibit liquids in excess of 3.4oz as carry-on), then spent the entire 5.5 hours engaged in a wonderful conversation with a woman and her family from Australia. Covered a lot of topics, but met a very pleasant family. Found the hotel after a bit of mucking about, ran by Wal-Mart for some water and sunscreen, then back to the hotel. So far not a bad day, had a brief reminder of affection from her and enjoyed the mention. Can't wait to see her again. Oh, listen to me prattling on, closing for now as we're off to get good and smashed, tune in tomorrow for the next bit of fun and excitement on this.

From somewhere deep inside...

In recent days and weeks, the return of a situation that has provided more emotional impetus than any other has found its way back into my mind and occupied my thoughts. The few that are aware of the goings on, and the day to day ups and downs, have done their best to empathize, to understand, and to accept. To those few I commend you all. But in providing such open mindedness, some of them have come to see me in a new light. I’ve somehow come to be seen in a way that suggests others think me the bearer of an indomitable and unflinching conviction for personal commitment that surpasses and far exceeds the limits of others.

The phrase “I don’t know how you do it” has become a refrain I’m hearing all too often. The disbelief of my patience, understanding, accommodation, and willing acceptance of circumstances in a situation that far from fair, is espoused at length by more than a few. A kind of staggering bewilderment that one such as myself would so blindly or willingly commit to a dynamic or situation so clouded, sordid, and capable of such wide sweeping destruction has infected those closest to me. Please don’t take this to suggest that people think me stupid or foolish (I do enough of that myself), but rather that the day to day endurance of the situation with not so much as a major meltdown or severe loss of self, has come to be recognized as a feat outside the capabilities of most everyone.

I can’t say where the strength or resolve to go on comes from. I don’t know what deep and seemingly endless pool inside of me I draw from to power my unyielding frame of mind. I don’t think its super human or anything of the sort, but a facet of human interaction that is dying fast. There are too many superficial dynamics, fair-weather friendships, and lackluster relationships that die out too quickly and are seen as little more than a natural progression of life. The kind of openness and resolve I’ve come to share is far too foreign in today’s society to be understood by those around me.

I’ve contemplated a great deal about what makes the relationships of others fizzle out and what makes others succeed. As near as I can narrow it down, it would seem that the only real motivation for attempting to cultivate a relationship of any kind with someone else these days is for sex. Sex itself has become the primary impetus for any kind of connection between two peoples of the opposite sex. It’s no longer a facet to express love or trust; it’s simply the “logical” endpoint for all relationships.

It’s no longer boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, boy woos girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl live happily ever after. Instead it’s become boy sees girl, boy gets girl drunk and has a conversation consisting of idly complimenting her shoes or hair, girl gets drunk, boy takes girl home, boy and girl hook up, boy and girl continue talking but build a relationship based on sex, boy wants anal, girl says no, boy and girl break up. I’m over simplifying of course, but the point stands that the relationships become about sex. When the sex gets boring the relationship dies. No anal, no Italian Chandelier (it helps if you’re really limber or do Yoga), no real experimentation or connection because the sex doesn’t engender trust. So when the action goes from carnal pleasure and indulgence to senseless rutting with little more emotional response than wiping your nose, the relationship dies.

So it is with this realization in mind, the truth of what dating, courtship, and relationships of a romantic sort have become, that I find little surprise in the acknowledgment of others in regards to my deep and profound commitment to someone else. For me, the sex is a facet of expressing the depths of love, the expanse of trust, and the overall indulgence in the unspoken bond of affection with another person. The sex is not the end point goal, or the over riding intention of my relationships, but just another way of saying “I love you”. Since it was never, and has never been about sex for me, I have no issue staying true to myself and my convictions for the person. I’m invested, not just on a superficial level, but on a deep level of connection. It’s something elusive and ambiguous to most everyone else. It’s a practice of a bygone era and time. Seeing human companionship as the ultimate way to feel complete and happy, instead of pursuing useless idle pursuits of indulgence of the flesh is a practice that has set me far apart from my peers.

I don’t expect any grandiose epiphany or awakening in anyone from this, I’m sure the ambiguity I’ve made sure to maintain regarding certain details, and the overall lack of solid discourse for being able to identify with the feelings and viewpoints I’ve discussed make it a bit hard to find solid ground upon which to stand with this one, but let me see if I can sum it up a bit. Sex is a by product of emotional feeling, it should always be secondary to the pleasure of being in one’s company instead of the primary aim. If you embrace the attachment, make the investment, and allow personal conviction and commitment to something greater than just mindless rutting to empower you, anyone can do as I have done, and remain committed to ideal, no matter how hopeless it seems at time, that true love is waiting. 

Things Worth Fighting For...

I’ve been embroiled in a great number of useless and ultimately futile endeavors in my time. I’ve fought tooth and nail for things that most people would regard as little more than a pittance. Most that knew me in the more hot headed days of my youth would agree that I had a very short temper and was quick to react with raw emotion should the situation prove to me that it was merited. In all I can’t deny that I’ve let my passion consume me more than once, but I’d be lying if I said the things I battled for hadn’t meant something deep and immeasurable to me. I fought ravenously to have others in my life accept my choices regarding Nicole, and fought even harder to make her mine. Sadly I failed in both regards, but as Malcolm Reynolds says, “I was on the losing side, still not convinced it was the wrong one.”

I’ve fought to control my emotions for my family as we’ve stared death in the face more times than I’d care to count. All of my fights have been for something personal, cost me greatly, and most I’ve not come out holding any great riches or fame from. But despite the petty squabbles, the quarrels that ultimately amount to little more than pissing contests, one thing remains constant. The things we fight for mean something to us. They drive us, they fill us, and they compel us to great things and remarkable deeds. But what is the universal constant that unites me with you? Love. Almost everything we do, we do because of some feeling of love. Compassion, sympathy, protection, or just a feeling of safety and connection drive us to do the things we would otherwise feel unable or unwilling to.

I’d be lying if I said that that the vast majority of the things I’ve done in my life that could be seen as redeeming have not been for love. As a Scorpio I love a bit more expressively and more deeply than most others allow themselves to. I have felt the pangs of joy and completion holding my special someone in my arms. I have felt the gaping expanse of nothingness that needles at my mind when I’m without her. I have been overwhelmed by a single kiss and left to contemplate how someone seen as so strong in the face of unfathomable adversity can be brought to his knees with such a simple and common action. I have seen love, the essence of it, not the feeling itself, but the universal constant, as immutable as gravity or the sensation of experience, and I have seen the beauty behind her eyes. Let me tell you that as skilled as I am in being able to construct prose, I falter immeasurably when I attempt to truly describe exactly what I’ve seen.

A loud and raucous cacophony of emotion, truth and beauty mixed together in a maelstrom of chaos and anarchy that comes through as a whisper of perfection. The eyes are the gateway to the soul and I have stared deeply at a few, but none as deeply as I did at hers. To actually see into someone, to look at them see no secrets, no pretense, nothing hidden or veiled, to see the naked uninhibited truth of a person is a life changing experience. I stared into her eyes and what I felt, what I saw, all of it cobbled together, and meshed in an endless and complex web of unending and absolute truth, it is a beauty most will never know. All of that came and went, I saw it the first month of knowing her, and it impelled me to rise to heights of personal excellence I thought beyond me. But I found resolve and strength I thought out of my reach and spent the next two years fighting, sacrificing, and agonizing in a seemingly endless sea of want and need. And while the final chapter to that saga has been written, the outcome purposed completely by the fates and as unarguable as fire consumes all it touches; I came out of it with a greater sense of understanding and a better sense of myself.

All of that energy could be seen to have been wasted, or as little more than an exercise in futility. But it emboldened me. So now I’m left knowing exactly what I was once willing and ready to give all of myself for. I know my limits and my capabilities, and I’m left wondering, and questioning what else is really worth fighting for. 

Cosmic balance is a concept I originated some four years ago and counting, and at the time it seemed a worthwhile explanation for all of the trauma I’d been subjected to in life that didn’t involve the normal decrying of a god that is more than likely no more malicious than a small child wanting to be left to his own devices. I wrote a book based on the concept and I’m still in the final stages of getting that off and out, but the concept itself seems universal and unifying. This could all be seen as just another trial to bring happiness into the world, another grand machination by the Fates to maintain the fragile balance of the cosmos. So with my appetite for retribution and vengeance so ravenous in the past, why does my hand stay in this instance? Is it evolution or maturity that gives me pause? Or simply the realization that order will be maintained by the ethereal forces of the universe by way of natural progression seeing fit to poetically punish those that sought to make me a victim of their delusions and psychosis?

I’m sure this post seems a bit harried in the sense that it draws parallels to my love life with my thirst for revenge, but the heart of the matter is that the things we care about most, people, places, things, or ideas, push us to do things or act in ways we would not ordinarily even contemplate. Sometimes that push is in a positive direction, for the better, and sometimes it’s in a darker more shrouded place where few dare to spend any time at all. But ultimately we need to acknowledge that the things in life we hold dearest, care most about, or effect the deepest are the things that make us who we are and determine our course in life. The only thing in life worth fighting for isn’t ideology, religion, land, resources, or territory on some map because none of that matters. Not the deadlines, the phone calls, the meetings, the text messages, the Facebook updates, or the forum flames; all of it is little more than idle minutia to fill the day until we get back to what really matters, the only thing that is ever worth giving a damn about: love.

Pride goeth before the fall...

Strong as I am, as self aware as I am, as powerful, cunning, clever, and analytical and in touch with myself as I might be, I am still not in a position to control of inhibit the baser impulses of my inherent human nature. I find that I am still susceptible to the most basic and intrinsic foibles of my species and unable to rise beyond or above, despite my numerous talents and abilities. A pawn all too easily moved about the bored and made to provide fodder and diversion for the more able upon the board. Such is the plight of this poet. So easily ensnared and beguiled, so simply influenced and by little else than a dancing light of smoldering passion. Oh how grandiose it would be if I could easily and shamelessly embrace the most basic and demure inclinations of my kind, to succumb and allow seduction by all that is against my better instincts. To ignore a lifetime of eye opening and temperance of self, and simply follow blindly the whims of subversion that blow me toward what they hope is inevitability. My pride stings, my analysis is reawakened in full force and unwavering in it's accuracy, following a level of sophistocation and unrivalled ability that has been developed almost zealously over a lifetime of hardship and necessity. It is my resolute and unwavering acumen that brings me solace at all times when emotional sentiment is abhorred, and it is from this mechanism of sorts that I have been lucky and insightful enough to garner some of the most astute and impressive deductions of my time. Despite the almost trite, cliched, and hackneyed mention of it, the truth is that there is immeasurable point of fact in the rhetoric so often extoled by yours truly: Systematic detachment from emotional reaction. Break free of the bonds of emotional servitude that bind you to a behavior you despise and embrace the independence that comes from absolute freedom. Stop finding happiness in slavery, start seeking release and lasting solace in something within yourself and outside the arms of a being only truly capable of betrayal when the opportunity arises. Stop capitulating with the part of you that lusts for satisfaction in emotional fulfillment and start allowing the more logical and rational side of your better nature to influence you. Too often I find the humanity within me too hard to extinguish and unwilling to give up it's compulsion to both nurture and encourage that which the logical side of me screams against in abject agony, the ideation of blind feeling over rational thinking. Cold, calculating, methodical thinking is so often villified because it allows for unspeakable atrocities to be committed but it I feel it is only through such self realization that we can ascend. Forty-six & 2 just ahead of me.

Ideation, expectation, disappointment

It seems to be an nearly inexorable cycle that compels me toward the vestment of hope and in turn leads to overt disappointment. There is an innate and seemingly inherent stipulation toward any measure of faith that it be tested, negated, and ultimately provide punishment for the blind belief. More on this story as it develops

Emotional Enema, Table 2?

The days keep ticking by and with every passing second I find a myriad of emotions to sort through. Things I’d thought sufficiently stuffed down and reasonably well enough forgotten. Instead I’m left to manage my way through overwhelming guilt for actions I undertook and set in motion while blinded by immutable hate and disdain. In addition I’m left deciding if I’m capable of connecting with anyone. The great practical joke being that while espouse the importance of cultivating and making long lasting relationships work by investing yourself in the people you encounter. I’m left burying myself behind layer after layer of emotional armor as a means of staving off the hurt that I find inevitably comes from my investment in people.

Too often it becomes far too convenient for those I let in, those chosen few who have become confidants, to simply pack up and leave when the association proves slightly more taxing than simply offering passing acknowledgements. The self absorbed, lackadaisical behavior so easily exhibited by so many is sickening. I think I’ve finally reached the paramount of my disgust with the dregs of humanity. People too concerned with their agendas and furthering of events to accomplish their goals that they ignorantly destroy others to see their will done. I’m guilty of the sin in a way. My arrogance and pain mixed and blended to destroy the only thing in my life I ever genuinely cared about.

It’s always a bit humorous to me to hear people question my emotional investment in things. Friends, family, acquaintances, you name it there’s been an expectation that I assign some emotional attachment or meaning to it, but sadly I don’t feel invested in anyone or anything. Trinkets that once held great importance are nothing more now than idle objects, devoid of any inherent meaning. My bonds with people aren’t anywhere near what they once were. I’ve become hollow, an actor playing the part of what I should be.

The rationalization begins and ends that I’m simply reacting to a change in emotional stability brought on by my sleep patterns being cast into massive upheaval. Sadly though, I’ve been inclined to examine the true standing of it all and I think I’ve found the true cause of my issue. I’m wracked with guilt at having so much figurative blood on my hands that I’m now beginning to punish myself by pushing away and tainting any and all prospects for meaningful relationships. It’s a popular fact that I’m a force of chaos in the world, my sheer presence can make one guilty by association no matter the medium of contact and serve as an almost surefire way to complicate life. Sadly it doesn’t stop there either, I’ve noticed my analytical acumen slipping and I think it’s because so much of it was tied to who I was then that I don’t feel I deserve to have the talent any longer. Where once it was something innate and automatic, I find now that I miss the most obvious and worse yet, can’t draw conclusions anywhere near as well as I once did. It’s like my brains running on mute.

I’ll admit that a large part of it is most likely the breakneck speeds at which my life has run since the old dynamic came to a close, but I don’t buy for a second that it’s the whole story. I’m realizing that I’ve got to systematically deal with dynamics that I’ve recently begun because they’re based around false ideas. I’m not reaching out for the reasons I should be, to invest myself in someone else, to feel happy, or be connected; to benefit from all that another person has to offer. Rather I’m producing these dynamics en masse because they serve to punish me for all that I’ve failed at. It’s idle, it’s sick, it’s reprehensible and honestly no sane person would do it. But I do, freely, self aware, and reveling in all the madness and negativity that will come flowing from it.

I don’t deserve to be happy, not from where I sit. I ruined something that wasn’t mine to be a part of to begin with. The social contract dictates that my feelings are spared for the most part aside from the acknowledgment and clarification of the dynamic, but it doesn’t exculpate me from guilt. I took it a step further and actually put fire to the stake. I torched the whole thing and danced in the rain of ashes. I’m a deplorable human being, capable of the worst transgressions and vile actions imaginable in someone. Serial killers may torture, maim, rape, or taunt their captives but ultimately death is a release and a solace for those tortured souls. I afford my victims no such courtesy, choosing to allow them their lives, and watching idly from the shadows, my tendrils still snaking about as they’re left to piece their lives back together in the aftermath of my involvement in it.

I’m rambling and don’t have a point, well aside from now I’m back to whiny bullshit. Oh well hopefully my readership is down enough that this one will be glazed over and nothing more need be said.

Brace yourself for the Brit invasion! Well, maybe....

            It seems a levee of sorts has broken. A kind of emotional wall that dammed up all of the free floating emotions that once fueled and propelled my ramblings has been torn down and now the stream of thoughts that once permeated my consciousness is again being laid to words. Two posts in just as many days, you guys are going to get spoiled.

            I’m wrestling right now with the demons of the past, the hope of the future, and the wisdom to balance both without sacrificing or endangering either. Temperance is my word of the day, not only because somewhere along the line a playwright decided it’d make a nifty name for their lead character, but also because in this society full of excesses and overt indulgence it’s far too easy to get lost in the pursuit of what we believe will make us feel good.

            Now I get, and I’ve even extolled as such, that there is a biological imperative that dictates that we gravitate instinctively toward feeling good and avoid pain as much as is possible. But when you become so blinded by the pursuit that you lose sight of the intention, or worse begin to sacrifice and prioritize irrationally, it becomes hedonism. I bring this up because for two and a half years I toiled and fought for my own gratification and was heedless of the cost I paid as a result. Looking back, the “death toll” is easy to see, but at the time it counted for virtually nothing.

            More than anything I find myself overwhelmed with a new sense of amorous intention, and I’m unsure how to proceed. It should seem fairly plain and more or less obvious what I should do, but fear, trepidation, and too many phantasms of botched gambits refuse to let things unfold. It’s made even worse by the balancing act that must be undertaken in order to preserve discretion.

            I’ll admit, I’m severely over thinking the entirety of the situation, but I feel it necessary to devote every ounce of cerebral processing ability to it as the feeling speaks of something greater. Only admitted within the strictest confidence, there is an intention to make this count for something more than just an idle indulgence of rutting. That said, the ideation that it could be as grandiose as hoped for, is staggering if for no other reason than because it’s such a massive admission and an invalidation of previous sentiments.

            Okay by now I’m fairly sure a lot of you are wondering what the hell it is I’m talking about. I imagine a lot of you have given up referencing the dictionary and are resigned to the fact this post is more of a mindless rant of some deep seated emotional quarrel, as opposed to a widely approachable topic of discussion. That’s true to an extent. The issue I have with full disclosure at this juncture is that while the situation is more than obvious to those that care to pay attention, I’d prefer not to completely tip my hand is it’s at all avoidable. Should a full explanation be desired, feel free to contact me privately and I’ll be happy to discuss things, and even get ideas.

            Back to the point, it’s an awe inspiring thing to realize that the better parts of your nature you once thought only elicited by the interactions of a specific stimulus are actually innate and immutable. I’m being forced to recognize that the more admirable attributes of my character are not relegated to memory or simply the result of an isolated influence. For all my posturing at being an irredeemable, sin filled deviant, it would seem that I’m actually more decent than I give myself credit for.

            At this point the course of action is unclear, the future is gaseous and intangible in any form, and I’m bumbling blindly into it, hoping to find something solid to hold onto. To feel the completion once more, to revel in the exhilaration of being whole, it’s a pursuit I’m inclined to undertake with close minded devotion, but temperance is key, and caution is paramount. I fear botching the endeavor before it begins and can’t bear the thought. As such, I’m learning a new behavior as I simply let the universe unfold and am mindful of my impulses and inclinations; wrangling them into submission and finding contentment in going with the flow instead of forcing my own agenda to be satisfied.

            Only time will tell what is to come, but for the first time in a long time, I’m actually filled with a sense of hope, happiness, and anticipation that isn’t tainted by the worst case scenario I’m usually so quick to adopt, and inadvertently enact. Wish me the best, and of course for the astute of you out there, feel free to put the pieces together and comment freely. 

The reports of my death....are probably pretty accurate

So it’s been way too long since I’ve posted anything up and I’m pretty sure most, if not all, of you probably thought me dead, dying, or kidnapped by angry bookies. But I have returned, like a phoenix from the ashes, I’m back. I can’t speak to the quality of this post because I’m unsure of what it will become (I’m not really writing with a clear topic or idea in mind, just more reassuring my audience that I’m alive after 2 months).

To put your mind at ease it has not actually been any aliens or the like that kept me away but rather a lack of impulse to write. It struck me some time ago that I may very well have murdered my muse. I know that sounds a bit melodramatic but let me explain. The final chapter of the Nicole saga has been written. On her three year wedding anniversary I decided to embrace the darker side of myself, the little bit that had been hiding in the shadows for oh so long, and when I did I found the strength I needed to force her into admitting to her husband that she’d had an affair. As to the extent of the aftermath and fallout from that, who knows, but I did it. In doing so a part of me died.

The impulse I had harnessed for so long, the driving force behind my better writing that was done more for catharsis than anything else was snuffed out in that singular action. So dealing with the truth of what I’d become, what I’d found myself capable of, was both sobering a bit disconcerting. It’s annoying as can be to find that you can’t trust yourself. But I’ve since realized that while the action may have been the most depraved and vicious act I’ve ever undertaken, I did invest some of the most pure and intense emotions of love, affections, trust, and honesty to this woman while we were together. So in that regard I don’t feel like such a cad, just more like a man who had reached his breaking point.

Think of it like a drug addict who finds that his drug of choice no longer affects him the way it used to. So off he goes to find a greater high. I had been releasing torrents of raw emotion in such a way as to make them palatable to you, and still managing to find my own catharsis, but it got to a point where it wasn’t enough. I needed to bleed (figuratively) and cut away the last lingering tendons of that failed dynamic and move on to something better. What I didn’t expect was getting so much release that I’d end up contentedly numb. Thus, the site has since sat here collecting dust and remaining silent. I’ve got cleaning crew coming to dust and repaint. Hopefully they’ll be here before the week is out.

So with all of that out in the open, I’m sure the question has become, what has brought me back? What or who has stirred the creativity within me in such a way that I’m back here to deliver a heaping helping of my bathtub mixed fuck sauce? Oh wait you guys are here for the blog, not my fuck sauce. My bad. Nikki, put the bottle down! We’ll have them on sale in the lobby after the show for the low price of only $9.99. Anyway, to answer the question, the thing that’s brought me back isn’t so much anything concrete but rather the return of a great feeling.

When any of us enters a new dynamic or relationship with someone we really adore, even if it’s someone we’ve admired from afar for a while, there’s generally a sense of anticipation and hopefulness. A kind of trepidation that things will work better, will be better than before. A kind of unspoken promise that the universe has altered the rules ever so slightly and we’re not doomed to repeat the same mistakes. For most of us, the feeling comes and goes almost as quickly as it shows up. We embrace the feeling, most often without realizing it, and then fall into the grind of day to day living, our significant other chasing away the feelings of loneliness and isolation, and slowly but surely we begin to reconnect with the world. Before long we’ve got a permanent plastic grin on our face, and we’re reveling in all of the innate beauty of the world, farting rainbows, shitting unicorns, and unable to be less than six inches off the ground at any time. But when the feeling, the novelty if you will, passes, the world begins to return to the normal luster and intensity of the attraction is gone. Life is no more harsh that it once was, but because we’re making the trek with someone it seems less vicious and only when the dynamic ceases to be does the universe begin to seem like it’s singling you out for condemnation and retaliation. Almost as though a penance for your happiness is due and the universe has decided to foreclose on you.

The reason I bring it up is because right now I’m assailed with those who’ve been in relationships for any length of time, bemoaning how they want to break out and live their lives. See the world, find fulfillment, be unchained or unburdened by the expectations of what it is to be attached. And on the other end of the spectrum I’m bombarded with those who’ve lived the single life for so long that they’ve begun to actively pursue, almost desperately, anything they can get their hands on to fill the void.

Now it wouldn’t be so bad, but it seems that on both ends of the spectrum the issue is that everyone is looking for what’s been lost, the passion and the fire that comes from a new relationship dynamic. We’re barely aware of what it is when we have it and once it’s gone, we can’t work feverishly enough to get it back. So we mire away in the discontent, masking it with the joy we feel in the relationship, reveling in the happiness of the other person, but our hearts slowly begin to want more and more for that feeling.

Now I’m not saying that all relationships get like this, just that an implied understanding for the ones that do work, is that the passion eventually goes away. Nicole told me once that my passion for her would burn out eventually and that we’d end up in the same rut she was in with her husband, because nothing lasts forever. But my counter then, and now, is that unbridled conviction, devotion, and unwavering passion in the face of all obstacles can and will maintain if there is understanding of where it comes from.

From where I sit, the primary issue facing most relationships is that the love within is based on the ideal of who the people are, not the reality of who they are. All the honesty, disclosure, and confiding will only serve to show a measure of trust, but it doesn’t truly convey who they are. To bare one’s soul, to lay everything out on the table and express all feelings in that moment, everything from lust, discontent, satisfaction, want, affection, joy, disillusionment, betrayal, you name it, the feeling should be conveyed regardless of the detriment to the other person’s feelings. Not brutally, but honestly. Too often the kid gloves go on for fear of losing what you have, so many fights, discussions, arguments, and disagreements are choked away before they begin and then explode into massive episodes when the boiling point is reached.

Telling someone about Nicole is great for disclosure. Relaying all of the things I did, the lengths I went to in order to keep her happy and make it work, is testament to my feelings for her, but to truly show what kind of person I am it’s the things I do every day, and not just for her, but for others. Gestures that have no expectation of recompense or compensation, advice offered without judgment, and a genuine intuitiveness and understanding of the nuances that makes the person you’re with feel that they truly are the most important thing in the world to you. I know first hand that it’s not hard to produce this kind of behavior. Just listen, pay attention and respond with honesty about what you think, feel, or believe.

I know a lot of this probably wishful thinking, clouded reasoning, or even just a pipedream behavioral expectation, but it does work. I’m testament to that fact. So really I think it just boils down to the simple fact that if you’re miserable do something to better your situation and if you’re content take a second to realize and make note of it so that if the feeling begins to slip you know what to fix. 

Break the bonds of servitude to thyself

Emotion, it’s capable of giving us the strongest senses of happiness, or the most overwhelming depths of sadness and despair. Most of us spend a lifetime trying to control the emotions that drive us, reeling in our anger, or discarding our fears as irrational responses to things, but for some we reach a point of being so in control of our emotions that we lose touch with the very thing that makes us human.

Driven, soulless and incapable of feeling anything even on superficial levels we regard all life with a passing fascination but no appreciation. On the other hand we allow certain emotions to overwhelm us for a myriad of reasons and the impetus’ that are responsible become either infamous or glorified for what they do. Depraved venerations for things so sick or vile that the mind reels at how such a travesty can exist.

But it is a sick world we live in, home to things and people, actions and ideas that can lift or compel us to the highest levels of achievement or bring us to the darkest reaches of the abyss we all hide from within ourselves.  The most jaded among us seem immune to the agony of having our dreams crushed, but then there are those who cling to the innocence of naivety and, either by choice or inability to see anything else, continue to see the world with eyes that color it as something wondrous and beautiful. It is those poor ignorant souls that find enjoyment, contentment, and revel in happiness afforded to only a select few. For far too long, so many of us have toiled in jobs we are unsatisfied with, relationships that have long ago grown stale or unfulfilling, friends that no longer complement us as people and do nothing to help us grow, familial ties that we maintain out of some warped ideation of duty or honor, and lives that hold no sense of intrinsic value.

We wear plastic smiles, sport clothes we dislike, say things we don’t believe or understand, drink or eat things from places we have no stake in, and stare down the barrel of immeasurable scrutiny should we cast off any of these behaviors, and all because group thinking dictates that all of this is good. We start out life as blank slates, clean and pure of all sin and taint but as we grow up and collect one experience after another, the instinct for acceptance coupled with the hedonistic pursuit of pleasure demands that we mold and adapt to what others ask of us, and before we know it, a single compromise has become millions, a mild conceit has degenerated into countless vices, and when we look in the mirror we have no true sense of who stares back at us behind the eyes we see.

They say that the eyes are the gateway to the soul. There’s a measure of skill involved in being able to reading someone’s eyes, to look at a person and see the who they really are. A good sales person can read body language without realizing they are doing it, but someone who can read the eyes knows so much more than what someone will buy. They know hopes, dreams, wants, misery, discontent, joy, happiness, fear, trepidation, passion, remorse, and a slew of other things, but too often lately my penchant for reading people has left me disheartened and disenfranchised with the human race. I look at the people around me, the people I’ve known for years, and I see dying fires of passion. Somehow these people who’ve not necessarily had great lives, but most of them having lived in far better times than I, have become withered soulless husks of what they were. I look at the people, these individuals that I’ve bestowed the title of “Friend” upon, and from their actions, their words, their behavior, and behind their eyes, I see people too consumed by a world that cares nothing for them, too crippled by their petty unfounded fears to connect or relate, and I feel a great deal of sadness for what our world has become.

Someone I held very close once told me that the best thing about me is also the worst. I have an unrivaled passion and that passion is overwhelming to others. But to see so many who have not just less passion, but more often than not, no passion at all is depressing. People so afraid of their emotions, of the things that drive them, compel them, touch them, the very things that remind them they’re alive exist as affront to everything we have the potential to be. A woman trapped in a relationship she’s too afraid to leave, too apprehensive to commit herself to emotionally, indulges in one sacrement after another to convince herself she's happy and committed. But her quiet discord causes her to reach out to someone else, rationalized as nothing more than an attempt to feel alive and contented, she accidentally produces an emotional attachment. The fear of having to admit not only to everyone else but mainly to herself that the relationship she’s in publicly is crafted on empty sentiment becomes so debilitating that she tries to turn off everything she’s feeling and move blindly through life, hoping to never have to face the demons she’s created by living the lie. But try as she might, she remains inexorably bound to the only man she’s ever known capable of touching her heart and her sol (not a typo).

A woman having made the investment in a relationship of everything she has to give, unwaveringly loyal to her love. The impetus for this behavior and blind allegiance stemming from a previous act of betrayal that she works feverishly to atone for and in so doing she trivializes an unexpected dynamic she inadvertently cultivates with someone besides her lover and the connection she shares with this person she sees as dirty, dark, and shameful choosing to ignore the emotions, to refuse acknowledgement in any form of the emotions she feels all in the hope that it will go away. Espousing hopes of platonic contact but each attempt is made little more than drivel and Again she remains a slave to the emotions she believes herself to be in control of.

A woman who finds happiness for the first time in her life and in that moment sees the world for something other the bleak and dreary existence that has encased her for so long in recent memory. It begins as nothing more than mindless rutting, two bodies conjoined at the hips in hopes of finding the next plateau of pleasure and release. Slowly it changes, a fluid dynamic made solid and volatile by the introduction of something too powerful to control, love. A silent acknowledgement made for what she feels, a verbal expression with wanton hope and anxiety behind every word, and the response that is all too devastating to keep her eyes dry. But she tries to remain strong, holding to hope as her life raft, making every second count toward the day when those feelings would be reciprocated. And then the silent death knell of finality as those hope are choked away, but a strong spirit is not so easily killed and love doesn’t die, it consumes and controls, it makes slaves of us all.

A man, too far jaded and embittered with a lifetime or torment, anguish, disappointment, and the burden of having grown up too fast, finds miring in silent pursuits of pure intellect to be the only thing close to fulfilling. Isolated from everyone and everything, he finds emotional solitude to be in his best interest and seeks virtually nothing in the way of connection or attachment. Lost in his thoughts, blinded by the persona he portrays to the world as a means of guarding against the scars that run far too deep, he awakes one day to find that his single minded endeavors have landed him in a position where a bold new world stretches out into the infinite before him. But he tries at first to control the emotions he’s still attempting to identify and process, his entire being having been awoken with the touch of this new creature, this angelic being that suspends a halo with horns. Choosing to embrace the emotions, to revel in them, to experience everything they offer, he foolishly makes decisions that will haunt him long after the glow of the halo has faded. For far too long, immutable misery is colored as just suffering for unrivalled happiness, the textbook mindset of the insane. For every deplorable action there is a logical explanation that requires not so much a leap of logic but a level of analysis that would seem to imply that this man knows more of the woman to whom he’s attached that she knows of herself. The sad part is that it might be true. But he suffers unimaginably, toiling in an agony that can only be described as making hell seem like heaven, and all because the emotions he once pushed away, once ignored and controlled, have returned. Ignited by a passionate fire that burns more brightly and powerfully than the sun, those passions overwhelm and consume him, exerting an inescapable control that refuses to let go and only tightens it’s grip the more ferociously he fights to escape it. He is made a willing slave to his own feelings, forced to balance his love for a woman too confounded by her own emotions to think clearly, and the man’s own ideations of love and affection.

We are all at the whim and mercy of our emotional selves, unable to break loose, get free, or even act outside of our sentimental natures. We fight too savagely to control what we feel and end up being slain by the feelings we combat. None of us is truly ever in command, ever able to truly let go, to escape the haunting feelings that linger long after the apex of tangibility for our emotions has gone. But our ham handed machinations to subdue those ghastly reminders of things felt before, lead us to addiction, to alcohol, to perversions of atonement, to rationalizations too weak to hold up under analysis, and to unyielding subjugation to the part of us that remains unwilling to forget.  To all of you, I posit this challenge; take control of your emotions by being honest about what they are and why you struggle so fiercely to contain them. Catharsis is only an admission away. 

A day late and a dollar sh...wait I have exact change!

So I’m a couple days late with this, but I promise you it will have been worth the wait. For those of you like who were more inclined to pay homage to Singles Awareness Day instead of V-Day, I’m guessing that Sunday was a massive shit storm of the popular media, society, and almost everyone around you (if you went out in public) flaunting how miserable and single you are. As always I’ve prepared a not so conventional analysis of the day, its meanings, customs, and the people who partake in them.

So February 14^th has somehow become synonymous with romance. I should amend that and say that it’s been proselytized as being synonymous with romance. It’s the one day of the year when even the most macho and chauvinistic men on the planet can lower their guard and shower their special lady friend with love and lavish gifts. The singular day of the whole year when love blooms and couples grow closer together, partaking in romantic outings, dining on exquisite meals at fancy places, doting upon one another, sharing in the company of just being a couple…or so the story goes.

From my perspective, the entire holiday is a manufactured pile. It’s the one day of the year when any asshole with a platinum card and five minutes can come across as Don Juan by showing up with flowers and chocolates. I’m sorry to say, but from where I sit, making dinner reservations, having flowers delivered, and having an actual conversation should not require the pretense of a Hallmark holiday. Valentine’s Day is a complete indictment of the decent treatment that guys like me dish out at every turn. It’s a day when the cheesiest and lamest plays in the book become something more than a Hail Mary pass and the women that date these insensitive pricks eat it up wholesale.

I’m sorry, I know the shit works, but it’s cliché. It’s a standard of the holiday and the behavior that you’re supposed to do something nice and romantic. This in itself I have no issue with because I’m all for people exercising an excuse to make a grandiose gesture of love or affection. Hell I use to actively seek them out. I use to relish any opportunity to endear myself further to my love and show just how thoughtful I could be. Now don’t get me wrong, I know that some of you out there feel you’ve got the perfect man. But do me a favor, before you go decrying me for insulting people or things I supposedly know nothing about, ask yourself this question, did you do something with your significant other that you would not or could not have been able to do on any other Sunday of the year?

If the answer is no, then you have no case. And just so we’re clear here discounts, coupons, offers, deals, and bonuses don’t count. My stance is simple, if the guy you’re with is truly a romantic and you as a woman gravitate toward that kind of behavior, then you either need to find someone who does it in different ways every year and just count the days from one V-Day to the next, or find someone who will do it on a whim and in new and exciting ways. You might love the guy you’re with but if he’s an insensitive dick that’s more out of touch with your feelings than Glenn Beck is with reality, odds are your relationship is on life support and you need to start looking for a donor.

The entire ideation of a single day set aside to be a romantic, caring, nurturing, and loving individual is a slap in the face to the men that do it every day. The rationale behind it all is maddening too, because the preconceived idea is that if I a guy goes all out for his lady, makes her feel romantic, loved, tender, cared for, valued, and safe she’ll sleep with him the minute hormones take over. I know at this point most of you women are preparing to argue steadfastly about the men you’re with being worthwhile human beings, but let’s cut the crap and just get to it here. The guy you’re with is, most likely, a shill. He follows the same play book everyone else does. If you don’t believe me, perhaps I can prove it mathematically.

Now I’ll grant you this is really the way it works for men, and woman freely welcome the feelings that these ham handed gestures engender because they actually seek out the treatment. Men and women are wired very differently in that MOST men, equate almost everything to how likely is the action to get them laid, fast cars, big houses, good jobs, alcohol tolerance, flashy clothes, reliable friends, I mean the list goes on, but really if you boil down all of the pretenses and the stories, you begin to find that it’s all really an image that is constructed in a way to make the man seem way more attractive. MOST women, on the other hand, want to feel safe, secure, wanted, coveted, and sexy. Even these very blunt and thoughtless gestures of dinner for two with wine and roses, while very trite and cliché do little, if anything to actually bring two people closer together.

I mean the chocolates are a staple of V-Day and really what purpose do they serve? Most men by this time of year are just starting to feel more amorous toward their women, as the pounds they packed on over the holidays are finally beginning to shed as a result of New Year’s resolutions. In addition, most women are always planning months ahead and have already begun to note the calendar as to when beach season starts and they’re aiming to fit into a bikini one size smaller than they could the year before. Now we add the sex factor. The guy hasn’t had any good tail in months, the Super Bowl is over, his lady is losing pounds, and he thinks he just might be in the mood for an all night cram session, with a little help from some blue pills mind you. So he takes it upon himself to anything and everything he can to make his lady feel as horned up and wanton as possible.

The tried and true staples of the holiday come out with full force. Chocolates for their euphoric effects (dollar says most of you didn’t know they did that), flowers with a shallow message about love or beauty and making abstract comparisons to her, and then a dinner at a restaurant with a sweet deal for two people, an open table in the right time slot, and just close enough to your place where you can be a couple glasses of wine to the wind before the night’s festivities begin. All completely unoriginal, and sadly, almost guaranteed to work.

Well the morning after it goes back to business as usual. The guy wants to be woken up via blowjob, his lady is expecting him to remain a sweet caring guy, and by 9AM they’ve come to the realization that she is neither a sex kitten, nor is he the Casanova she took him to be. So my question is, why go through all the trouble of putting on the song and dance if nothing changes. If a relationship is stale, it’s stale. Gifts, dinners, and even the most romantic gestures of jewelry, horse drawn carriage rides, walks in the surf of the beach, and even moonlight poetry all come down to useless actions with little meaning behind them, if they’re only done because of the holiday. It’s like making it a point to contact lost friends around the holiday season, it doesn’t mean anything if you’re only doing it because of the holiday.

Amid riding out the obligations and imposed expectations of the holiday, most couples are no better for it, and that is what is truly sad, it’s like wedding anniversaries. They don’t mean dick unless the things you’re doing to honor them are bigger than anything you could do on any other given day. Taking her to dinner is one thing for V-Day or anniversary, but pick a random Wednesday, send a limo to her office with a dress she mentioned she liked and shoes to match (don’t be afraid to get her friends in on it for sizing and style help, trust me they’ll jump at it) and take her to a romantic dinner, followed by a beach trip or a carriage ride and instead of going home to have sex just spend the night holding each other. To most men it might sound gay but let me tell you that this kind of thing, being done with no outside impetus aside from just general want, is the quickest way in the world to not only bond very deeply with the woman you profess to love, but also to break yourself of the habit of behavior where every action is intended to lead to sex.  

The best laid plans...

It seems there was more truth in the admonitions and warnings espoused by our forebears than any of us would have like to acknowledge or admit. For twelve years of our lives, during one of the most influential periods of our lives, we sit in crowded classrooms and toil in near faceless anonymity completing one assignment after the next on the belief that somehow that knowledge will serve us in our future. The irony is that the workload is despised but the youth and the revelry shared with our peers is the only thing making it bearable. We endure harsh words, humiliation, and the angst of adolescence with a grin because we know we are not alone in our tribulations.

But somewhere along the way something happens. We sacrifice something to gain something else. We give up a social life to focus on studies in the hopes of accessing a top shelf college and giving us a leg up on our peers. Others relegate their scholastic pursuits to a trunk bound cargo and instead relish every visceral moment of their young teens with a ferocious intensity.

Regardless of which path is chosen, there is one thing that remains a constant for every person, the want for it to all be over. A fervent wish to be done with the dramas, workloads, expectations, droning of teachers, and mindless reinforcement exercises that consume the years of our scholastic careers is the driving force behind our need to be done with it all. Summers cut short give way to autumn days that are far too hot and attention spans barely capable of receiving information let alone assimilating it. But everyday we endure brings us closer to the bright lights of our futures.

During those days we have a feeling of invincibility. Drinking before our time, indulging in drug use and rationalizing that we’ve got a life time to kick the habit or resolve the ill effects, staying out past curfew, lying to authority, defying any kind of established order, adopting promiscuous habits, and a myriad of other forms of rebellion form the hallmarks of our behavior. We seek out an identity crafted from experience and action, all of it, serving to define us.

All too soon though, we find the days of high school fading away and the years take a toll not previously felt. We have no more summers of care free fun and adventure, the promiscuous habits of before give way to pregnancy or disease, relationships get serious or end, friends drift away, college plans are dashed to the ground or bear fruit from years of labor, and an entire world we thought full of possibility and opportunity comes crashing in with almost none of its previous grandeur. Good grades mean little in the grand scheme, a scoreboard of who had the most boyfriends or girlfriends is deemed repugnant, and a litany of yearbook well wishing comes down to obligatory sentiment with very little meaning.

Despite all of the somber repercussions we press on, hopeful that the bleakness of impending debt from student loans, a life of responsibility we’re just not ready for, and a loss of our social standing within a dynamic that didn’t really matter much to begin with, is less traumatizing than it actually seems. We carry on, hoping to blend into the herd and follow blindly in the footsteps of those who’ve gone before us, praying that the road is littered with fewer broken dreams that the trailblazers ahead of us.

And the fulcrum upon which we turn is our continued associations with those that made the trek with us. We call them friend, share all of our lives with them, depend and rely on them for support and camaraderie, but really most of us remain far too guarded and closed off to connect on any real or serious level. But the delusion is a welcome respite from the truth that most of us made the journey alone.

So the question to all of this is, do we really ever make friends? Do any of us truly find someone to come with us on our journey of life? We swap out people we claim are our best friends for life partners and the whole dynamic breaks down when we realize that we’ve never been fulfilled. Perhaps we need to take a second and really evaluate what keeps us bound to the people we call friend. I say take a piece of paper and list five unique attributes that apply to the people closest to you that you admire in them. Not qualities like, “He’s nice” or “She’s sweet” everybody embodies those things to a degree, I want you all to really take a good hard look at the people closest to you and determine, perhaps for the first time, why you allow them to be so close. 

Tell your girlfriend to stop raping me with her eyes!

Ladies and gentlemen, it is with great pleasure that I welcome you all to the Asylum. As I am constantly trying to cultivate my empire into something worthwhile and valuable I announce that from here out I will no longer descend into self deprecating rants of soliloquies of emotionally laden laments, but rather provide topical discussions of things a bit more approachable to the masses.
The requisite disclaimer out of the way, let’s dispense into a follow up of the previous entry with a more poignant question. While I have talked quite extensively about relationships and all they entail, everything from preferred terminology to dynamics of interaction and definition, an interesting query has presented itself. Hours after posting the previous entry it dawned on me that while most of my readers are female, and in truth most of my Facebook connections are female as well, the majority of the women I deal with do not actually have the issue I mentioned. So the puzzle begins to construct itself a piece at a time as I realize that there are very few people that must limit their contact with me, I begin to evaluate the reasons suggested as explanation by those that are subject to such limits.
Jealousy is an ugly monster. It infects and poisons the mind, leaving little more than unfounded suspicions and removing trust as the most implicit facet of any interpersonal dynamic. However we as a society have somehow allowed a mindset of ownership to permeate the landscape of romantic liaisons. Jealous men who request that their women have virtually zero contact with other men outside of their presence, women who willingly cow down to this treatment, and relationships built around the fear of infidelity.
Now I do understand that there do exist certain circumstances where it is prudent for one or the other party to be wary, but completely severing all measure of contact with friends is something I don’t comprehend. Perhaps I’ve been lucky in that I’ve never been asked to give up my friends in favor of my beloved, and I never would. But the double standard does lend itself to an interesting question. With a society where half of all marriages end in divorce, men are twice as likely to cheat as women, and female empowerment has become something engrained instead of something learned our culture still adheres to the norms of women being treated like property in terms of their interactions. Whether or not the fear of infidelity can be justified, the presence of that fear still makes itself known in a way that limits and influences the interactions perceived as acceptable behavior within the relationship.
In an age where independence is seen as the ultimate strength, why then would anyone willingly subject themselves to these rules? In my experience, the rhetoric of most people supports this, relationships are about mutual commitment toward collective betterment, yet inevitably romantic entanglements more often than not give way to a dominant and a submissive. Platitudes like “I wear the pants” “She makes all the decisions” “It’s just the way he was raised” and even “I know I could do better, but I love him” serve to illustrate the roles of each person involved in the relationship and in my opinion, once you’re done that, it’s not a partnership anymore.
Typically, the only facet that balances the relationship is the sex factor, in that men are more vocal about their sexual urges and women are more in control of them allowing for sex to be used a kind of weapon. However, the weakness in women is the emotional attachment they assign to their respective mates and thus men prey upon that in subtle ways as a means of dominating and satisfying their own sexual needs.

So in a society that nurtures the natural progression of dominant/submissive relationships, sex being used as a weapon, and somehow one party or the other having the authority to dictate allowable platonic association, why would anyone want to get into a relationship of any kind? The logic doesn’t add up. I mean I’ll be the first to admit that being in love is great. Being able to make yourself so incredibly vulnerable and trust someone completely is a wonderful feeling. Sadly the majority of relationships exist for years at a time, seemingly lost in unrivalled bliss, and then someone enters the dynamic that is unexpected and creates a tension and shows sides of people not previously seen. Such a dramatic change can alter or taint the relationship and raise fears previously absent.
But what happens when one person makes the decision to victimize their current other half for the mistakes of the previous one? For instance, a guy is has his relationship, it goes along great and then, BAM!, he finds out that the woman he’s trusted and loves has been cheating on him. So he’s heartbroken, dejected, and feeling stupid. I get all of that, it’s a normal emotional response, but then the guy gets into another relationship. Now this would be fine except that because his ex cheated on him, he now assumes that his current girlfriend is going to do the same. So he begins to request that she limit her contact with other guys, curtail “Girl’s Nights” with single women, makes a conscious and oftentimes heavy handed effort to integrate his friends into her social circle to the point of supplanting her own friends, and even insists that she go out with him and his buddies where she is summarily ignored. Now while most reading this description will scoff that they would never be cowed into this kind of behavior, take a moment and really look at your situation, maybe it’s not as extreme as I’ve said, but I’m sure there are areas where compromise has given way to subjugation.
For those that have made it this far, I’m sure the puzzle has begun to assemble itself. It’s not just the requests of limited contact but rather the expectation that it be adhered to, by both parties. It seems that when truthfully analyzed, there is no balanced relationship. Those around during my tenure with Nicole will announce firmly that I was mistreated in spite of my devotion. Countless other women are asked to sever contact with their male friends or made to feel guilt for having them. Men are harassed about any measure of communication with their exes or even good female friends. Yet we allow it to go on, perpetuating the behavior by doing little to stop it, by sheepishly complying with the demands, overt or otherwise, of our lovers, and actively seek out people to be in relationships with, all the while wholly ignorant of the behavior and badly crippling it really is.
With S.A.D. less than a month away, it’s no wonder that people are clamoring to hook up and find connection. Not a day goes by that I don’t see someone changing their status or flaunting their new relationship like a cheap pair of shoes. Actively searching out a means of feeling connected but at the same time giving up some of the most innate liberties we enjoy and all of it in the name of emotional completion.
Now I know this entire thing paints a very bleak picture of relationships, but the point I’m getting at, is that any romantic dynamic should make life better not worse. No sacrifice of friends, family, or connection should have to severed in order to placate your partner. Relationships are about growth not interdependency and the longer that we allow our culture to engender feelings of guilt or fear instead of love and acceptance, the more that we will propagate and nurture generations of people too spoiled to work at their relationships, and others who are too scared to fight for what they want.

Unexpected Response

So for the last three weeks or so I've allowed myself to play host to the delusion that I could woo a woman far out of my league. While the initial interaction proved somewhat fruitful, at least insofar as it seemed to convey a mutual attraction, it has now come to light that, like so many other wonderous chapters of my life, I'm a day late and a dollar short.
She was nice enough to let me down easy, and in all honesty seemed somewhat dejected that I chose not to pursue even conversation with her, after the admission. As a few unlucky readers have experienced, platonic relations with me are strained when the female is in a relationship. For some reason I'm unable to extricate myself from any measure of analysis regarding actions, words, and decisions, which causes me to form a deeper bond and inevitably cause friction. While this may seem like serendipity in that it allows me to satisfy my initial agenda, following my debacle with Nicole and the recent fiascos with not just one, but a total of three women whom I'd had any kind of connection with, beyond simple once a week communication, I'm forced to reason that I actually did the woman a favor.
The true irony though, is that I've realized, perhaps for the first time in true appreciation, just how complex an individual I really am. I embody a dangerous dichotomy of being not only able to understand the most minute and seemingly insignificant clues to someone's true feelings, but I function as an emotional extremist, feeling the true uncontained forces of primal emotional energy in their rawest form, regardless of connotation. Given my abilities it fits to reason that any contact with me is simply an invitation for undue complexity and stress. My seemingly inescapable, albeit innate, penchant for in depth analysis of human social behaviors and interactions has caused me to become a bigger burden than a boon when my observations are not altogether actively pursued or sought out by the receiving party. I'm capable of providing remarkable insight on complex situations in a way that leaves people, even twice my age, questioning their own powers of reasoning and yet marvelling at my deductive prowess. However, as I said, it is a double edged sword. My talent is put to extraordinary use when employed for the purpose of providing perspective to those in need, but it quickly becomes a curse when used to point out something I perceive to be obvious but ultimately is a fulcrum upon which a dynamic turns.
So while my initial reaction to her admission of no longer being available was no where close to being crestfallen, it does raise the very interesting question of just where exactly I fit into the lives of those women whose romantic liasons disallow for interpersonal dynamics such as those propogated by my association? While I will concede that I am perhaps dramatizing the effect of my involvment, I do feel it pertinent to point out that it is more the reaction to my insight, rather than the analysis itself that causes the issue. To put it another way, my insight usually catalyzes long needed but identified change which is turn elicits a question of impetus from the uninformed party. The explanation that follows is somewhat demoralizing because while my contact with the effected might be brief, my observations are poingnant and once listed, they are all but dumbfounded by how innately obvious everything truly was.
More and more I find myself becoming a remarkable and noteworthy anamoly among my peers. I purposely engendered a life of stability and reliability as a means of winning Nicole away from her husband, I actively seek to keep busy and perpetually occupied (lest my demons find a way to permeate the forefront of my thoughts) instead of whiling away countless hours in pursuit of hedonistic pleasures, I shy away from superficial relations in all forms, and have made an active and vocal commitment to decry excesses and extraneous trappings as unneeded. Yet still I spread the seeds of my complex nature like a plague, bringing insight, rational thinking, and a greater sense of self awareness to those unlucky enough to be targeted by my high powered perception, or worse, those that find themselves in the wake of my finely honed skills. Suddenly I feel very much like Wobbly-Headed-Bob.
It seems that, as always and much to the chagrin of those who've gone from my sphere of influence, with me there is never such a thing as an easy answer. Ever a deep and thought provoking idealist, my innate abilities make it almost impossible for me to simply take anything at face value. While it could be argued that if properly used it is a virtue, my stance is that I am inexorably driven to provide my (more often) accurate and deep observations even when forcibly trying not to, the action in itself creating an interesting duality of warring selves and being wholly aware and actively working toward resolution.
So the question becomes whether or not you, my readers, would agree that I am in point of fact the impetus of complication and complexity that I have professed to be, or if I serve as something more than a voice of reason catalyzed and villified by own need to comment on the unaddressed and misunderstood. Your thoughts?

Remind me again where the jumper cables go...

“Systematic detachment from emotional reaction, terrifying to realize how easy it is to be affected.” If I had a nickel for how many times I’ve said those words as rhetoric, I’d be able to buy an island, balance the world economy and finance deep space exploration well into the next five centuries. The irony at this particular juncture is that words meant to indicate a lack of meaning or comment on how easily we assign meaning, have, at this particular point in time, no meaning at all for me. I’ve become remarkably numb and isolated from those around me, disconnected from the world. Even more interesting is the current propensity I seem to have been given for romantic interludes. Relationships in general have long been a primary focus of my works. I’ve had a billion and one pieces of commentary on them. I’ve given you all my insight, my brooding, my lurching rationalization on why certain things aren’t nearly as bad as they might be, but ultimately I fail to ask the underlying questions that can provoke more in depth thought. Recently it has occurred to me, that while I have several amorous pursuits at my disposal, some I’m even entertaining and devoting a considerable amount of time to developing, it’s all simply hollow endeavors, as I don’t seek the emotional pay off or truthfully even the physical intimacy that is so often the driving force behind these sorts of things. I’m not looking for a cheap hook up or even a relationship.

I find that despite the ease with which I can accomplish the above goals isn’t the deterrent for me, meaning I’m not bored with the lack of challenge, but rather that I’m unsure if I will find any kind of real satisfaction with winning out. The mindset seems to have devolved to a point where failure is truly the intended outcome and so that failure is assured through careful subversion of my own actions before the game is even put in play. I’m rekindling old connections and treading new ground with uncharacteristic fervor that makes for intimidating interpersonal climates if analyzed. Where once timidity and trepidation were espoused en masse as a kind of defense mechanism they’ve been replaced with brazen disregard for perception and now a proliferation of almost heretical rhetoric flows freely. To the firmly acquainted the change in behavior will come as a shock, while to others the brash affirmation of confidence serves more as a sign of genuine attitude. The ultimate commentary though is on the holder, in that I recognize the change from one school of behavior to another, and can’t say that I wholly like one over the other. To reignite and establish former silent channels provides excitement and interest but at the cost of being burned again, how long before the clock runs out and I have again run afoul of the implied and imposed rules? Further more, how long before the useless trappings of coveted flesh, intended promiscuity, and vapid personality does little more except further the spiral down this drain of disconnection and solitary movement? Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not depressed, woefully reflective or even miserably pining away in hopes of finding someone, but rather I’m all to aware of the irony of being content and yet feeling nothing at all for the potential excesses. A near army of women at my disposal for sexual satisfaction, even some for emotional contentment, and yet despite myself, I want none of it, not because I’ve gone gay or anything, but I think I’ve actually become afraid of women in true interpersonal relationships. This of course puts me at odds with the fact that while some part of me does feel a genuine loneliness that I want filled, I’m mentally and emotionally incapable of bridging the gap between my own introversion and my in born need to feel connected to another human being. So for now I’m an island, devoid of women, attachment, feeling, or even misery. I just am.

And so the question becomes, to you my dear readers, when the people meant to fill that vacuous void in the heart and mind are present but unwanted by the heart and mind yet the hole remains, what is left to fill it with? Why does anyone seek out companionship or connection with others? Why strive to forge a meaningful relationship when more often than not the trust we place in others is misused or abused? Why is it so easy for us as a society (sadly I’m finding it more and more often) that we make connections with people and then do little, if anything to maintain them, and further we openly acknowledge and apologize for our low involvement with others yet do little if anything to make a more committed investment in the people we haphazardly call friend. The word itself, friend, what does it mean. To most it’s an empty term used to denote someone with whom enough common ground is shared as to engender mutual feelings of enjoyment when in the others company. To me a friend is more than that. A friend is someone reliable, dependent, someone open minded not just like minded, someone willing to listen to an explanation or concerned enough to offer one of their own, and someone that is invested in the dynamic and not just aware of its existence. Sadly, and let me stress that word, SADLY, I find that far too few of the people I have in my life are worthy of the title of friend when that particular definition is used.

I’ve used words like connection to denote the dynamics between people, and with good reason. If you are friends with someone, you have made a connection, you connected to another human being, you shared yourself with them and they with you, yet far too many people are willfully disconnected from the people they facetiously call friend. At the risk of letting my sin dictate the next few observations, I’ve been told numerous times that I’m a better friend than (insert name) deserves. I am loyal to a fault, invested to the point of my own peril, and unyieldingly understanding of circumstances and behaviors that are painfully and obviously condemnable. I count the people I call my friends among the most trusted and revered in my social circle, as further evidence I have only taken one Best Friend at a time, a title that for me holds the meaning the words suggest, the first among all. The one person that no matter the time of night, the location or circumstance will be trusted to do everything within reason and ability to help me in my time of need. For far too many I am taken for granted, a useful tool for fixing computers, a plethora of encyclopedic information when needed, but not a viable human interest for interpersonal connection. The further irony is that for an alarmingly high number, and I do mean alarmingly high, of people in my life, some of you readers included, have become estranged, intimidated, afraid, or concerned when I invest myself in my relation to you. It’s not alien behavior, it’s human decency to want to listen and offer advice, or at least I thought it was at some point. But I have been impugned for my connected, my investment in others, and ultimately I’m left to feel as though my endeavor to maintain a friendship with someone I find worthwhile is something overt or unnecessary.
So again, I put it to you, my readers, do me a favor and define friendship. Not for me, but for yourself. What criteria do you put in place to know your friends from just people you know? Once you’re figured out how to know friend from acquaintance, decide if those friends are worth the time energy to maintain your connections or if you really owe nothing more than a phone call of need when you require their assistance.