Mindless Blather and Inane Twaddle, Redux

Being alive and aware of oneself as a living thing, having to interact with all sorts of other living things, really doesn't ever get less strange. In a lot of ways it actually becomes stranger. I can only speak (or write, in this case) for myself but the desire is to have more simplicity and directness, but as time marches on and the newer generations assume primacy, things make less and less sense to my old brain. As I've stated before I don't see this as bad, I just see it as an evolution. I think there's a time for each of us, whether it's a narrow window or a span of years, where things make sense and we have a place in the world. I also believe that time passes, no matter what we want or choose.

As a musician I've seen things move from analog and human to digital and largely dehumanized. Where we praised artists for their personalities and quirks, which equated to originality, to glory in imperfection, the drive for decades has been to produce increasingly marketable product and things which have less of all those qualities we once sought out. At the same time the empire created by record labels is all but gone. But its impact is still felt in the fact that now an artist's look is the first standard by which he or she is judged. It's ridiculous. Can you imagine someone like Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa or the Beatles trying to launch a career now?

It's all moot, though. Time marches on. The standards of the day pass with a new day. What's viable today means nothing tomorrow. One of my stranger exchanges was not too many years ago, asking about who I thought was the greatest _________ of all time. When I started describing those musicians who created something new and allowed for the development of entire new vocabularies and genres, the response was "But they couldn't shred."

Surreal.

Obsolescence happens. It's an inevitability. But it's nothing one can be prepared for. When I left social media it was because I felt an increasing disconnect with technology and with those who rely on it for everything. Means of communication were changing in ways I didn't grasp, both in terms of the interface and in the language used to navigate it. Once a friend of mine wrote to tell me she was tired of my swanning about it I knew it was time to remove myself from things, from any kind of a public light.

What's funny is that I embraced social media in its early days. I loved it. Connecting with people all over the world on any number of levels, exchanging all kinds of things and getting new input as well as distraction. It was glorious. Most of my friends at the time didn't understand and wanted no part of it. By the time most of them joined MySpace and later Facebook, I was networked to tens of thousands of people all over the planet. When those connections became too much to negotiate while having a regular life, my friends were all at the point where I was ten or more years earlier. Consequently when I jumped ship, no one got it.

And no one uses much else for communication anymore. Texting is preferable to calling. Email is a thing of the past. Letters are an idea from another century. The last women who wanted to date me gave me phone numbers and told me never to call; text only.

But I am from another century. I adore letters, both reading and writing them. The phone allows me something a text won't provide. And I can't keep up with technology. The idea of changing all my communications tools every few months is beyond me. Changing the operating system on a computer several times a year makes no sense to me.

Then again, the vast majority of the adult experience makes no sense to me. Everyone wants sex and love but no one wants to talk. New and exciting is somehow better than what's fulfilling and meaningful. Moving on to a new person with whom one has no real connection is preferable to fixing the problems that exist in a relationship and maintaining a friendship.

I have never grasped how someone can be central in a person's life, but after the romantic relationship is done all contact must be severed. That just levels me. But as I've written previously, I never learned how to fall out of love with someone.

These days it almost makes more sense not to connect with people, not to bring them into my world, if they're just going to disappear without warning or explanation. I think I'd rather simmer in the cauldron of my own brain than be left stranded and cold over and over.

Don't get me wrong: I do in fact miss society and people. But I miss basic civility more. Simple considerations. Living in a time where people hang up the phone without saying goodbye or walk away from receiving a gift without acknowledging thanks is not for me. I can't be someone other than who I am and who I am is no longer someone welcomed by society.

A friend asked not long ago if being alone was better than being surrounded by people who want a part of me. The answer was yes. I shared too much of me for too long with those who didn't actually care or even want to know who I am. I'd rather keep contact with the tiny handful of people who are friends now. It is wholly possible that the future will bring wonders I can't imagine at this moment, but for someone rapidly closing in on codgerdom, actual reality is a better choice than virtual reality.

Except here.

Damn it.

The Inevitability of Bafflement

"Be careful what you wish for," I was told, "you will surely get it."

"Pain stems from desire," the Buddha cautioned.

Why don't we ever believe what we're told?

I have seen dreams and desires come to pass. Not a few of them. But like a tale where the devil is making deals, these things are seldom what we think. Which, if there is a plan, is probably why we get what we think we want.

At the same time, things I never imagined have been my reality, too. Marriage. Divorce. A May-December romance. Maybe more than one. Solitude. 15 minutes of fame. Becoming a part of an industry that was the stuff of childhood fantasy. Seen friends die.

So maybe it's not so surprising that I'm in a semi-permanent state of befuddlement.

We want. Not just for ourselves but for those we hold dear. Happiness, love, validation, success, joy, money, sex, chocolate, a new car... we just want. It isn't about the reality of something, it's about gratification.

And we get what we want. Only when we get it, it turns out to be different than what it was supposed to be.

I really will write about the conditional tense, as well as my gripe with the words 'weird' and 'normal.'

Back to the pointlessness at hand: desire and fulfillment.

Whether it's a big house or the hottie on the other side of the bar, we crave. It's always about something outside of ourselves that will bring something to our lives, our sense of self. Is it really about enrichment or completion?

Not usually. It's a momentary lust. An infatuation. A passing fancy.

I'm more guilty of this than a lot of people I know. At the same time I had a brief window of my life where I knew contentment. It had grown out of a series of crushing defeats and losses, a conscious choice to step back and away from what I normally pursued. I hadn't been able to identify why every relationship, particularly since I thought I was learning from each, would fail. There was something, a pattern, I couldn't see. So I began a process of brutal self-interrogation and introspection. Don't know that it brought wisdom or enlightenment but there was definitely some clarity. And I was able to step away from my traditional idiocy.

It was glorious. Peaceful. Calm. A state of gratitude and appreciation. Finally able to see just how much I had, that in fact I live with an obscenity of riches, that I am surrounded by beauty.

Which meant its end was inevitable. I hadn't learned everything I needed to.

I don't think learning comes for most of us as satori, as an all at once with clarity and acceptance proposition. In my experience we learn in steps, in stages, and we often need to relearn things. Sort of like the difference between intellectually grasping something and accepting the reality of it on an emotional, psychological and maybe even spiritual level.

We are flawed creatures. Imperfect. And I think that's also a part of our glory.

Yes, I wrote that. Cynical, sarcastic, griping me put that into print.

Imperfection is our strength. We may strive for ideal, but we live in something else. I don't think perfect is beautiful. I don't. It's not human. And I love humanity. Not the shitbag collective among which we walk, but that state of being that is a glorious bundle of contradictions while wanting to do good.

Make more sense?

When I was a boy, I fell in love with someone. But we were both damaged and scared so we became friends. It doesn't mean I fell out of love with her. Actually, I'm not sure that I know how to fall out of love with anyone, but that's another blather for another time. But when we finally did become a couple, when she fell in love with me, it was magic. It was unreal. Until she left me the way she did.

I am not blaming. I actually, had I ever stepped back from my feelings (desire),  knew it was coming. Not because she didn't love me or because I was a failure, but because as her friend for years had seen it again and again.

But I'm human. "It would be different with me," I thought. And it was. Well, it was and it wasn't. None of this takes away from the aforementioned mystical nature of the thing. It really was magic. That doesn't change the fact that I'm me and she's her. Even together as the thing that was us, we couldn't get away from ourselves. In some ways, because of what the pairing was, we may have even been more our essential selves. That's for good and for bad.

It was an episode. A time. A chapter in a story. The point is that I knew her and she knew me but there was so much we chose not to see. I looked at photos of us for the first time in a long time this week. It was nice to see the happiness, the unfiltered nature of what was our relationship. I wish there were more photos of when we got together, or when we met as kids. I wish there weren't so many of our last year together.

But that's desire and not reality.

The reality is that we both got what we wanted. The reality is that we weren't enough for each other. We weren't right for each other. I could never give her the thing that would bring contentment and she, even when she finally realized it, didn't have the heart to tell me. That's just life.

And it's fine. There was magic. Good stuff. Now there are memories and some of them are the stuff of books and movies.

The point is that wanting something is rarely wanting the right thing. It's the difference between seeing an onion and craving a burger with carmelized tasties atop it.

Years after that relationship, after I was convinced I had learned so much and was so much wiser, I wound up in another romance. Again, the stuff of dreams.

Have I ever mentioned my weakness for brilliant women? No? I'll babble about it someday, I'm sure.

Anyway, this new romance was just all kinds of unexpected. We got to do and be and say things we'd both wanted for so long. We talked openly and candidly, about what we wanted and what we hoped. After a year of this we decided to make a go of it, as a trial run, and I moved in with her.

Within a matter of days it was clear that we'd made a mistake. Neither of us realized what we actually wanted. We wanted each other, yes. We wanted love and a partnership. But neither of us realized that we couldn't have it with the other. She needed someone I was not, and I needed someone she was not. Not that there wasn't a lot we could share and a lot we could learn, but we were wrong about that damn first thing: the want.

So now I'm brutal. With others who may be interested in getting to know me or get close to me, but much more with myself. When the pangs of desire first manifest as yearning aches, I allow myself to feel them but they kick in a sort of internal Inquisition now. Is the desire for something momentary? Is it lust? Voyeurism? What do I really want? If it's a relationship, I generally just shut down the whole process. I'm not in a place where I can be in a relationship. I have nothing to bring to the table. Sex, love and romance, sure. But right now I can't be a friend to a lover or a lover to a friend. Most women want a complex combination of things, many of which they haven't articulated to themselves. Maybe it's a blend of danger and stability, or empathy and distance. Whatever it is, I'm not that. Not now. And I don't sugarcoat who or what I am on those rare occasions where someone broaches something more than simply conversational.

Does that mean I'm successful in dealing with this stuff?

I wish. But I'm (barely) smart enough not to lead anyone on, to give the indication that I have anything to offer more than my mind or my body. I got a decent heart but it's tied to one quirky, damaged mind. Can't tell anyone I have anything else to offer. I won't.

But I still want.

Damn it.

Turning and Returning (or Further into the Twaddle)

As I've stated I believe that humans can learn, grow and change. I have to believe that. At the same time I think that there are certain aspects of us that are not only fundamental to our characters, but the more we learn and grow the sharper into focus these things are drawn. I do not see this as bad.

When we're children we see the world with great clarity but at the same time we're forming and so that clarity is clouded and convoluted over the course of years as we experience and try to process as we go. This isn't easy and yet we slam ourselves and others for 'not knowing better' when we are constantly bombarded with contradictory input. And that's only living in one country, exposed to the limited cultural palette there.

We talk about love and relationships all the time, lamenting how we want something or how being part of one particular couple didn't allow for something. But have you ever looked at the arc of a relationship? I mean really tried to look at it over the full course with some dispassion and from both sides? It's so easy to see it as we felt things without allowing for another viewpoint or anything approximating objectivity. We're human, though: that's what we do.

But think about what you've fallen for in someone. Think about what that person fell for in you. Remember that infatuation and chemistry at the beginning, how you couldn't wait to see one another and how there were butterflies and idiot grins when you saw each other every time. Now think about the end and the things that you said to each other just before you split. That rancor. The resentment. Blaming. Hostility. Maybe there were feelings of betrayal. Maybe things just ran their course and the passion died.

There was a lot that happened in the middle. And I'm almost willing to bet there was as much left unsaid on both sides. This is the way things generally play out between two people. We all change but we rarely change in the same ways or at the same rates. And while the change is happening it's almost never the case that there are frank discussions between two people. After all, the feelings are magic at the beginning. Why would we bring things down to the concrete and dust of every day life and spoil whatever's left of the mystique?

So relationships end. Partners go their separate ways. We take some things from those pairings and we leave others. But we are more and more ourselves with each breath we take, with every step into the future. Every setback and triumph, every challenge met or not, helps to define us both to ourselves and to this mish-mash we call society.

I think people who knew me when I was a boy might describe me as shy and sweet. As I grew older some might have called me mellow while others would have gone with intense. Somewhere in my later teens or early adulthood sarcasm, pessimism and cynicism found their way in. Yet, for all that and as I've mentioned previously, I was a romantic. I have always believed in the mystical and transcendent. Even when I've been bitter and self-destructive. Now that I'm a hair's breadth from being universally acknowledged as a hermit, even as I've lost faith in human nature and given up trusting women with love, I'm a romantic. I may no longer throw myself headlong into The Great Unknown or define my existence with the sweeping gestures of earlier days, but I believe more and more that love is about the only thing truly worthwhile humans have brought to the world. Everything elevated in us or because of us has grown out of love, as far as I can tell.

But there are few who would describe me now as who I was 5 or 10 or 25 years ago. Time has worn on me as much as learning and loss have taken their tolls. But I think I am more myself, and more true to those founding (foundling?) characteristics, than ever.

It's a conundrum. A paradox. As mysterious as it is obvious. We are such strange critters, clinging to dreams and beliefs while ignoring reality at every turn. We pine for what we don't have and are oblivious to what's right before us. We confuse luck with accomplishment and deny so many of the reasons we're alive. And we just keep on going.

That's something, ain't it?

Sometimes It Isn't Loss, It's Being Left Behind

I've lost two I love in the last week and gotten crushing news on two more. I start with something uncharacteristically heavy because you should know my frame of mind is not what it normally is.

Someday I'll write a rant about the words normal and weird, but not today.

For someone who never expected to see 30 it's surreal to be within spitting distance of 50. I've learned a lot (little of which merits sharing/broadcasting), but one of the things that sticks is this: a huge chunk of what we call loss is a kind of selfishness.

That likely reads harsh. Good.

Humans are not my favorite creatures. We are capable of wonderful things. Immense kindness. Self-sacrifice. Giving selflessly and unexpectedly. Charity is, as far as I know, an uniquely human expression.

That written, there are reasons we write books and make movies about the people who exhibit these qualities and practice any of these things. For the most part humans suck. We cut each other off in traffic, talk shit behind one another's back, spread gossip, judge, prejudge and generally do little to endear ourselves to each other. We're killing our planet. For all our technology and advancements, this is in many ways a new Dark Age.

Most of what we do that isn't reprehensible is saved for our loved ones. It's possible to be good to one person or to a few. Some of us are good to our friends. Few of us have any kind of humanity to offer strangers. In fact I see more anonymous hostility and aggression than anything else. Not even the basic respect of common courtesy has survived this far into the 21st century any more than common sense has.

Yes, I'm old. No I don't think things were better when I was younger. But there were fewer days when I made it home livid after having to be in the world.

Granted, as I've stated before, my life is odd and I'm an odd dude. Maybe this is just a rant, but I think some of this can spill outward from me. This is not all neurosis.

I've lost two I love and fear two more are shuffling off this mortal coil soon. I am hurting. A lot of people are hurting. I remember a time when people reached out to one another when a friend or a family member died. I don't see much of that anymore. There is some, sure, but I see a lot more people waiting for others to tell them how sad it is that they've lost someone. What the fuck is that?

We live. We die. We're carbon based lifeforms. That's how it works. But it's what happens in between that makes a difference. That's what makes some of us noteworthy and some of us footnotes.

Do I think we can all be Mother Teresa? No. Not by any stretch. But it isn't hard to be giving. Not in the small human ways that make a difference. Why is it so many scowl when a smile is actually a more pleasant thing for the one who does it and the one who sees it? We're all of us alone in so many ways but we do almost NOTHING to make life better for each other. We're so busy scrambling around in hopes that someone will coddle us, tell us it's alright and acknowledge that we're special that we do NONE of these things for the people in our lives.

We certainly do none of this for the people we don't know.

Do you ever think about the person who sells you coffee or delivers your mail? Have you ever spoken to the homeless individual you see in town who occasionally makes eye contact with you?

I'm not saying (writing) I'm a good person, but I want to be a better one. I have been a better one. I can be a better one.

I look at the two who are gone. One was a good friend, a great mom and a hell of a wife. She made a point of maintaining connections BETWEEN OTHERS. Really. She regularly reached out to say hello and to ask if people knew how to get in touch with other people. We have scarcely seen one another in the last 30 years, but I heard from her a few times a year. Every year. Were we the same friends we'd been as kids? No. Our lives had taken us in very different directions and we'd become our own people. She, thankfully, didn't have to go through trauma and got to build a family. That's a family that's suffering powerfully now.

The other was a great friend and a talented craftsman whose creations have allowed dozens of individuals to make great music and tens of thousands to experience great music. He was absolutely uncompromising in who he was and what he did. He did not suffer fools gladly and he always had a good word for those in his life. He was as real a person as I've ever met. In the community of instrument builders he was semi-legendary.

And they're dead. Gone.

We aren't celebrating their lives we're feeling sorry for ourselves.

Part of that is normal. Of course. We don't get to have conversations or hear them laugh. They won't call or send funny emails. They won't be teaching others or setting an example. We're hurting.

But we're being selfish. What they gave us, THEY GAVE US. We still carry that. It has added color and depth to our lives. We're changed for having known them. They made life a little more real for us. And now they're gone. Does that mean we're less real? Did they take those colors when they left us? Are we back to the people we were before we knew them and were changed?

Fuck no!

This is not belittling anyone's grief or grieving. Loss is loss. But I'm so tired of people getting up and talking and hearing it be about them, not about the one who's died.

We're all alone in so many ways. We can do more for each other.

Take into account, too, that there's a certain level of hypocrisy in my stating that after having decided to leave society and put this in a blog. I know I'm not making new connections and I do little to let anyone close. But I try not to alienate those left in my life. I do what I can to be decent. I don't succeed often. But I try. My solitude is nothing exciting to read and I've already written too much about it. As subject matter I'm far less entertaining than my diatribes.

I dunno. I lost two I love and I'm about to lose two more. I'll quote a character in an anime film:

"Being forgotten is... a lonely thing."

Maybe what I'm trying to say is that we don't have to forget the living. We reminisce after someone's gone. We make occasion to share stories. We don't always appreciate them when we have them.

Or maybe I'm crazy and my perceptions are wrong. But I don't think so.

The Cruelty of Expectation & Promise, The Wisdom of Snoopy

I learn slowly. In come cases really slowly. But I always try to learn. Being a damaged person and not as smart as I think I am, I have learned a lot of things that were wrong and needed unlearning. But I try. It's taken a really long time to understand that my wiring is not like a lot of people. Most of my friends are artists, whether musicians, actors, writers, painters or combinations of them. Consequently, I've been around a lot of people who are not wholly dissimilar to me. None of these people have employed me or been in relationships with me, so... well, you can see where that would go.

But I'm not gonna write about that. Ha! Gotcha!

Nope. I want to yammer about what it means to tell people they have promise or that a lot is expected of them, and what it means to go into any situation with expectations. Almost all of us do these things and we do it far more than we think. These things are inflicted on us, too. Again, it ain't fair; it's human.

Fuck.

I have no way to gauge this but I believe most people think I'm smarter than I am. I assert this because I have been told since long before I can remember that I have such great potential. At this point I would like to quote Snoopy in hopes that a parent will read this someday and think before saying that to a child: 'There is no heavier burden than great potential.'

It's fucking awful. This is tantamount to telling a child, "Be great or disappoint me." Suffice it to say that I've been told a lot that I'm a disappointment. Does that mean I'm not smart or talented? I hope not. But I have rarely lived up to anyone's expectations. Maybe it's because I didn't learn fast enough or shine bright enough. I didn't outstrip others or wasn't a leader.

Why do we do this? We do it to our children, our lovers, our parents, our friends and even those we don't like. One of the things I loathe about the internet these days is that there are always these ads and links that pop up no matter what I'm doing that read 'You Won't Believe How They Look Now!' or something equally harsh. Have you ever followed one of these links? Photos of celebrities in old age are placed side by side with others at their peak, invariably captioned cruelly. Or maybe it's an image of someone from the silver screen coming out of rehab, or a rock star shopping with family. How dare we allow our heroes to be human!!

But we do it to each other all the time. I watch marriages fall apart because people stop talking, or because a partner changes and doesn't explain what's going on, or because both partners change and rather than bring it to light they just grow cold, resentful and bitter. And they split. Usually afterward blame is heaped on the other one. This occurs in very enlightened people.

Of course sometimes there is blame deserved. Cheating? Not cool. Any violation of trust or legality falls under the not cool heading.

But think about dating. Two people meet or are introduced. They get excited and nervous. They hope. They second guess. By the time they meet again for the actual getting together and getting to know one another, they're each carrying a freaking suitcase of thoughts, worries, concerns and EXPECTATIONS.

Human. It's human. We're all fucking human.

But we don't have to bring these things to the table. Or, if we do, we can express them. We can say what we think and feel. Really. It's actually not hard to do. It may be nerve-wracking the first few times, but it's actually liberating to speak one's mind and admit to having doubts, fears, anxieties, previous bad experiences or any number of things.

'There is no heavier burden than great potential.'

There is nothing worse than having that burden dumped surreptitiously upon one. Or wielding unspoken thoughts like a weapon. It's like performing witch testing. It's metaphorically binding someone and throwing him or her into the water: if they float or swim, they're witches; if they sink they're innocent... and dead.

Admittedly, this plays into why I stepped away from dating and romance. I love all wrong. I fail witch tests. Being an artist means having powerful emotions, living by instinct and speaking freely. Most people are happier with mystery. Most people also expect a partner to be telepathic.

I got into the habit early of saying "I'm sorry." I said it so much in fact that I didn't realize it was coming out of my mouth so much that people were joking about it. But I felt I was constantly disappointing people and they regularly told me that I was not living up to their expectations. This changed when I was in couple's therapy and our shrink, a brilliant individual, made us bow to one another when the phrase was used for something that didn't require it. For a week we were bowing to each other a lot. And sometimes in public.

I learn slowly. But I try.

I still talk too much and I still don't always say the things I should. (I really will write about the conditional tense.) But I'm working on it. I don't want to be guilty of those things I felt were done unfairly to me. I don't want to hunt witches. I want people to get a chance and get by on their own merit. I want to see people learn.

But I know we have a long way to go.

Wonderful & Horrifying

Solitude is not what most people think. I won't tell you it's not great because there are aspects of it that are spectacular and liberating, but at the same time I'm not going to sugarcoat it. The downside is dark. 

There are a lot of people who can and do appreciate not having to answer to someone or keep a set schedule. Being able to up and do whatever at the drop of a hat is pretty cool. Yet most of the people who've spoken to me about isolation in glowing terms are the people who don't have any, those whose lives are filled with others making demands and wanting their time. They're people who don't get a moment's silence. So I think they may have a tendency to romanticize this life of mine.

It's not romantic.

It's cold. I can count on one hand the number of times in a year that I have physical contact with another human. That includes shaking hands. Getting sick is challenging. Sometimes getting out of bed is a less than sunny prospect. Similarly, going to bed alone every night is not always a blast. It's not even necessarily a sexual thing (although I remember that being cool). Just curling up with someone, wrapping around someone before falling asleep, is one of the most human things. People who get to do that every night forget that. 

On the other side, I can stay up as late as I want, sleep in if I'm inclined, ignore my chores and blow off the entire planet. No one notices and no one carps. If I have an idea for a song or a story at 2:00am, no one's there to ask what the hell I'm doing or when I'm coming back to bed. 

The funny thing is that having a life geared toward selfish impulses is kind of odd for someone who's not fundamentally selfish. I'm not denying that I enjoy treating myself, but as a friend pointed out, humans are not built to be alone. Since the earliest recorded history we define everything by duality. The struggle between good and evil. The necessity of challenge to achieve success. Light and dark. Day and night. Man and woman. Even the idea of The Lone Hero is someone who faces struggle and makes sacrifice for the better of others.

So why do I live this way?

Because it's the best solution for me and for everyone else. I don't get the 21st century, not really. I am too easily disappointed and I am invariably a disappointment to those few people who've wanted me in their lives. I'm a simple person at the root of me and that seems to piss women off. If I'm not complicated, scheming, duplicitous or playing games, the women who've been attracted to me get bored and angry. Sex, love and romance aren't enough. Good conversation only goes so far. They like conflict and complication. I don't. 

Am I saying this is bad? Fuck no. My life is whatever I want to make it. On weekends I rise before the sun and make breakfast to watch it crest the horizon, to feel those first rays hit my skin. Sometimes I play it into the day, selfishly making a tiny soundtrack for the dawn. I don't have to make my bed or I can, in the words of the last one I dated, live like an old woman. If the urge is to research mythology or wax nostalgic, I can unreservedly. 

But I'd be lying if I said I don't miss conversation or smelling a woman in my sheets, having a hand softly touch my back. Being unexpectedly kissed. Hearing laughter when someone catches me dancing. Making breakfast in bed for someone. Another presence.

I guess one of my meanders is always gonna be a mixed bag. I don't write this with a tone of regret, I'm just trying to get at some king of honesty, some personal truth. And that's rarely a thing with only one side. I could just as easily write of my experiences in relationships. My temptation would be to wax poetic and go on about the lyrical qualities of the women I've known. But there are reasons that none of those partnerships endured. And I don't by any means imply that there is only culpability for one party. I have been a nightmare in those pairings.

But that can be another post.

More of the Nothing

Rereading the previous installment I see that editing would be a good thing. As an improvising musician that's not so much my way. As a writer I know this makes me more than simply lazy. At the same time I'm not the one who heaped either title on my little pointed head.

And so I start the meander with whatever that was. On to the aforementioned nothing!

Reclusion. Isolation and solitude. I think for some the ideas are romantic or even comedic, but I came to them purely as a means of survival. We don't, as far as I know, have a choice in being born. Instigating one's own demise is both criminal and seen as a breach of morality. Most take it as a character flaw or a sign of weakness. But anyone who denies that life is hard is a liar or has never suffered. I've known a lot of the former and, sadly, a few of the latter, too. What a strange world we've made for ourselves.

Does this mean I want to die? Of course it doesn't. I love life. But the living of it can be a motherfucker. A lot of the reason for that is simply being human, but probably a bigger part comes from having to interact with one another and the fact that we're all so different, that we have to function within the construct of society as we've made it.

Further, both in terms of biology and social programming, men and women might as well be cats and dogs. We're drawn to one another but as strongly vexed by each other. Men are predominantly linear, changing slowly and preferring to stay focused on a goal but also governed in no small part by testosterone and aggression. Women are physiologically in a near constant state of flux and this colors  so much of a their lives. Women also, in my experience, don't believe men are as simple in their orientation as we in fact are.

So how the hell do we reconcile this?

We don't. We acknowledge that these differences exist and, should we opt for real relationships, do all we can to make communication possible and forgive often when we lose sight of those difference.

Anyone who's been in a relationship knows that this returns to that whole not easy business I brought up before.

I can't write much about men. I'm told that I'm not like a lot of men. Don't know if that's true and really I don't know that it makes much difference. I'm just me, whatever that is. I do know that my experience isn't common and that's shaped me, so possibly my perspective is different, skewed, interesting, ridiculous or worth your time. I guess one of us will find out before long.

What the hell was I writing about?

Women! Right.

In the previous post I described myself as a grudging romantic. That's only today. Previously I'd have called myself wildly romantic. Some might have used the hopeless or eternal labels. Lately I realize that no matter how cynical, sarcastic, angry, vexed or anything else I become, that frigging romantic streak will not die. It's a cockroach of a character trait. No metaphoric or metaphysical microwave or decapitation will do it in. I've tried.

But where I lived my earlier life for women and for the wooing of them, I am changed and so are my views. I still love women but after about a half century on this spinning marble I have seen and endured a lot. I know that a lot of what I was taught about women -- and chose to believe -- was more than wrong: a lot of it was lies. Maybe it's what we as men would like to believe of women, but...

We're taught women are weak. Women are strong. We're taught women are emotional. Women can be emotional, but women can also cut off their emotions in a heartbeat to deal with something completely dispassionately if they feel they need to. We're taught women are sweet and I believe there is powerful sweetness to most women, but women can be mean, ornery, malicious and straight evil.

None of this is to say men aren't the same or worse. I repeat at this point I know little of men. I know me some and if I'm not like most men then I'm hardly going to write about men.

At the same time, I'm not generalizing about women. I'm writing about the women in my experience. More specifically the women in my romantic experience.

It's possible to know a woman for years or even decades and not really know her at all. I became involved with two of my deepest friends after long periods, 15 or 16 years in one case and 30 in the other. What I knew about them for all those years before we got together sexually and romantically was a lot, I thought, but women are wildly more multifaceted than men, I think. Or in my experience.

I remember one of the most powerful exchanges I ever had with a woman. As a musician and writer I'm always trying to get at some truth. I think I've always been this way. But I can't forget when I finally managed to meet and get to know a woman I'd been intrigued by for some time. We connected well and shared some incredible conversations. When I told her about my philosophy and approach to things her response was,

"I believe everyone is lying all the time."

Stopped me in my tracks. Stunned me. I was angry, chagrined and indignant.

Then I realized, as I sometimes remember to do, that we're different people with different lives and different histories. I knew nothing about her at that point, including how she grew up or anything else. But I did know she was an actor and as part of her craft that belief was central. To get at the heart of a character it was essential to grasp that the surface and the core may be wildly different things.

But this was the beginning of a journey. Last year I was talking with one of my favorite people. I was in a lousy mood and she was bubbly. She commented on my snarkiness and I pointed out that I was sick of the ways women choose to talk to me, how they treat me. She smiled and her eyes were laughing.

"Lying to you, huh?"

"Yes!" I blurted.

"Women lie all the time. Sometimes we don't even realize we're doing it."

Again, stopped me cold. Stymied me.

But I'm a man. I don't have to put up with any of what a woman has to deal with constantly. Not in any real way. Whatever condescension or objectification I'm dealt are a fraction of what any woman has to deal with most of her waking hours. Rape is not the same thing in my mind or in my life. I haven't had to learn from the first how to deal with slimy looks, attitudes, characters or behaviors in at least 50% of the people around me at any time. Threat is not a looming presence in my world. Not really. And it's not convoluted with media images telling me constantly what I'm supposed to be, with everything tied up in my looks and my sexuality. Bitch, slut and whore are rarely things I'm going to be called, to my face or behind my back. They won't be screamed by strangers or casually uttered by my friends.

For all that, for all the confusion of being a man and dealing with women, I'm told I should not carry baggage into every exchange. I need to treat every woman as an individual.

That's fair. Difficult. Challenging. But fair.

At the same time I know I'm constantly being compared to everyone from a woman's father to her ex to the one that got away. And after knowing women some, these comparisons are done in a VERY different way than how the men I know do it.

None of it's fair. All of it's human.

Hmm...

This is getting a lot longer than I'd intended and it's not really going much of anywhere, is it?

I'll need to go into my diatribe on the conditional tense at some point.

I don't know. At the end of the day what I get back to is that I don't know.

We're all of us limited creatures. We change and grow, if we're lucky, but we can only see and know so much. Sometimes when we think we're being open we really aren't. We're blind to so much in ourselves. And as my friend pointed out, we may not even know we're lying.

Yes, I just expanded that to include men.

But honestly I don't think it's a hopeless thing. Not an easy thing, but not hopeless. We're drawn to each other and if it's gonna be more than making babies, we owe it to ourselves and each other to try and be more, to be better. And I think we can be. If my own life has taught me anything it's that we impose more limitations on ourselves than anyone puts on us. We rankle when we're told what we can't do and we rail against it. But we seem just fine with the things we tell ourselves we can't do. How bizarre is that??

I guess I should wind up for now. Tune in again for more of this idiotic ranking and dribble that passes for brain fodder!

And if you made it this far, thanks for taking the time. Really.

Returning Anon

Imagine my surprise at finding the little note I'd written myself more than a decade ago listing the web addresses for my various blogs. At the time I was a powerfully damaged individual with little filter between my pained thoughts and choosing to launch them into the ether.

Now imagine my delight in finding they were all gone, absorbed into the abyss of Things Ignored On The Internet.

It is a good day.

So why am I doing this now?

Probably vanity one one level, but these last years have been a hell of a ride. Much learned, many disappointments and heap of idiocy and some real peace along the way. Not bad stuff.

Am I posting this so someone will read it? Not really. That may happen. This is a strange world and there's no predicting much of anything. But really it's more a place to post ruminations and revisit them. Or not.

But who knows? I may even take the time to make this presentable and appealing. Or I may let it lapse into nothing again. But for now, for today, I'm content to know that this is here and I can futz with it.

So... greetings!

Who am I?

Ignoring the metaphysical aspects of the question (many of which have no answer), I'm a semi-retired musician and a columnist for an international music magazine, a grudging romantic, a massive nerd, a borderline recluse and a believer in magic and miracles.

What does that mean for you? Not a damn thing. For you, assuming there's a you out there reading this, I'm just the one hurling words into the 'net. I won't promise they'll be good or even that there will be anything like a through line, but they'll be honest. For whatever that's worth.

I'm not trying to change the world in big sweeping ways, but I hope to make it a better place in some ways before I kick off. Don't know that I have what it takes to do that anymore, but I can try.

So begins the new foray into sharing a facet or two of me with the world 'out there.' Or am I the one who's out there? Worse, does anyone care or does it make any difference?

Only time will tell.