On girls and boys and being married.

It seems to me, at least from talking with my friends, and from my own observations, that today's 20-somethings have it harder than ever in the dating and relationship world.  I was talking with a female co-worker of mine today about her dabbles in the dating realm.  It sounded like she was having a rough time, which didn't make sense to me because she is a lovely and smart girl.    She's just looking for a cute-normal hard working guy, who wants to care for her.  Should be easy enough to find right? 

It's not though, and maybe it never was.  But is seems more complicated now than ever.  We have apps like Tinder muddling things even further by suggesting what in reality are terrible matches.  But when girls and boys are too busy on their phones to look around and see what is right in front of them, strange results will ensue.   Girls will forget their ability to judge character, which is almost fundamental to them.  Boys will distrust girls as they become less sure about what they are looking for.  This causes girls to become skeptical of boys.  All of a sudden the whole thing is a mess.  Noone trusts anyone else.  As the unspoken rules guiding dating become evermore entrenched and ingrained in expectation, the situation becomes even more tangled.  Sadly, I don't see things getting much better.  Both the male and female sub cultures are growing further apart.  It's damn near a miracle anyone can find a soul-mate in this love economy. 

Fortunately, or maybe not, I am a contrarian.  I was born to march to the beat of my own drum.  To put things less euphemistically, this pretty much means I firmly believe in doing whatever the hell I think is right, even if its crazy.  This allowed me to avoid this culture, as much as a cultured person can. I did the crazy thing and married the first girl I made love to.  I trusted her, and she trusted me.  To be fair to those my age, it is easier to do this at age 18 than in the mid 20's.  It would be harder now, mostly because I'm more cautious.  But this caution just might be toxic.  I think this caution, this skepticism, is the root of the problem I described above.  This skepticism,this fear of commitment, is what has driven the evolution of the male and female counter-cultures.

Now, I want to try to connect these seemingly disparate subjects, of me being married and my experiences, with my perspective on modern dating in your 20's. 

Being married is hard.  Everyone know that (right??).... Maybe, or maybe not.

I was listening to NPR this morning and they were talking with a young author of a book called "Landline".  It is the story of a couple who falls apart, and then how (in the mind of the female protagonist) they reconnect.  They fall apart after a few years of marriage, a few dry, chafy years.  It wasn't what they expected.  Then, they reconnect over by talking over a landline, like they did when they were much younger and newly in love.  There was none of the delay or modulation of a cell phone.  Just the faithful truth of an analog receiver and speaker.   Anyway, the important part of the story is not the phone, or the imaginariness or not of the resolution.  It is really a story about marriage, and how it falls apart and can get put back together.  It is a story about the richness of "analog" connection.  A story of success coming through trial in marriage.  It is, at its core, a sort of modernist love story.  It is not the traditional romantic story.  It is a real one, full of the real struggles that occur.  And man are they hard.  These struggles, and our ignorance of them before they hit are evidenced by the high divorce rate.   But they are there, whether we ignore them at first or not.  And in every marriage I know of, they come.  The author, in her interview, said that marriage really isn't promising to love one another forever, but committing to change next to each other.   I find this to be a wise and true analysis.  So my point is, we are being lied to in the media and maybe even by our parents about marriage.  It is hard.  It is the fucking hardest thing you'll ever do.  Harder than a marathon, or a triathlon, or med school, or even golf.  I daresay I'm a better golfer than husband.  It is so hard, you'll want to give up.  That will happen, and if it doesn't, you're either a saint, or very lucky. Probably though, your just lying to yourself.   I think its high time we start telling the truth about things, and maybe this is my attempt to do so. To share what I have learned.

So how does this relate, marriage being hard, and men and women are on different pages about dating.  I believe the connection is expectation.  Specifically, expectation which is wrong.  This whole confarction (yes I made that up), is about people expecting the worst from the get go.  And why should we blame them, for if they were to expect the promised idea of a "great marriage".  They would fail too.  No wonder people are distraught with marriage.  The whole fucking classic concept is a lie. Or maybe that is the modern one... Fuck it.  Maybe back a long time ago, they had it partly right, not the forced marriage part.  But that marriage was a commitment, it isn't always a feeling, in fact, maybe it never is. It probably wasn't for them lol.   We get the benefit of choosing, if we do choose marriage, who we commit to change beside.  And we do have that feeling at first, which maybe makes it harder when it goes away.   But the whole situation is complicated by the fact that that is not the expectation.  We sugar-coat what it means to be married.  Perhaps somebody thought this would entice people to be married, but this is ruining the whole idea of marriage.  Marriage is carnal, beautiful, unique, incredibly difficult, rewarding, and fun.  Somehow, when we tell our children about it, we leave out all the bad parts.  They are left out of most stories.  Even in more rogue stories, like 50 shades of grey, she finds "love" in the end.  Mind you this love makes me want to throw up out of every orifice.  Out of vulgarity but mostly out or outright falsity.  Maybe I just haven't found that sort of passion, but neither have most people I know....It is a lie.  Not the passion for another, but the nature of it.  It doesn't ever stay that intuitive. 

Yet we let these stories and their implications diffuse in our society and misguide our fellow 20-somethings.  Understandably, they are dismayed.  The girls don't know what they want.  The boys grasp at this moving target, but miss with an even great error.  And then WTF.  That leaves us AFU.  But I for one, want to change this.  I believe in the profound power of people to connect, in REAL painful, beautiful ways.  It is the mess that makes it beautiful. If every bite of your peanut butter sandwich was the same, that would just be weird.  It is variable, and wild, but you resolve to eat it.  All of it, except for the small part you give to your dog....

Disclaimer:  I am not that good of a husband, I express myself better on paper than with my mouth.  But it's still not that good.

Disclaimer 2:  This is just my opinion.  It doesn't really mean a whole lot in the end, but if someone likes it, then it was worth me writing.  I enjoyed writing it anyway.

all the best!

Dejection, a Modern Epidemic

Dejection, is similar to rejection, but comes from within, sort of.  Dejection is a complicated phenomenon.  It is similar in character to despair, but dejection contains a more active or social element than despair does. It is almost like deliberately displaying despair so as to engender a change in your peers' behaviors.  You might think of a Mom saying to an upset teen, "Don't look so dejected....you can go out with your friends next time."  I think the idea of dejection is predicated on this idea of a "next time."  Additionally, its utility depends on a social environment which responds to it.  Which is why I think it is quite different from despair or rejection.  To me, it has quite a bit in common with rebellion.  It is almost like a passive type of rebellion.  (//disclaimer: this is probably not a surprise to anyone who has spent any length of time with me...)

Now that what I mean when I say "dejection" is clear, we can move on.  I had the idea for this post when I was riding bikes with my friend Jake.  We were riding down Westheimer and came to a light.  It was red for the vehicles like us travelling down Westheimer even though there was little to no cross traffic.  I saw it, and saw cars near by and though, I want to change their idea of who biker's are.  We are not a bunch of lawless hooligans.  He rolled through even though right before that we had been talking about cycling and how to better its reputation and popularity.  It is not that it was dangerous that made me think.  It was his disregard for reputation.  Now, I may have been looking too far into things.  But I hope you're getting the idea.  I think it was dejection that motivated his behavior.  Or maybe it was despair.  I think the line is thin between the two.  Maybe he thinks cars are never going to respect us, so fuck 'em.   I'll ride how I want.   I think what was interesting is that we clearly had two very different perspectives.  We come from two very different backgrounds.  Jake from low SES and me from a relatively high SES.  How much of a role that played I'm not sure.  Also, I am fundamentally an optimist, so I would lean more towards the idea that car drivers will come around to love (or at least cooperate with) cyclists and cycling.  Jake's behavior to me is a form of dejection, or at least a reaction to it.  This is not to imply that Jake ever does go or would go around jumping ahead of cars on his bike or running lights or stop signs when cross traffic is there.  Quite the contrary, he is very respectful as far as I have seen.    So one can imagine that this idea did not jump into my head on its own.  Again to the contrary, I have been experiencing dejection quite a bit myself lately.

I think my first idea of it came from my current work.  I won't give the name of my company here, but I will tell you it is a large residential construction company, and I build 500k to 1m semi-custom semi-production homes.  I work mostly with people who are good, well-intentioned people but who sadly have long-since grown weary of the idea that one could do something meaningful in a career or to truly help the people they work for or with.  I can't blame them for growing weary, construction is a wearing industry unless you are the boss.  I do blame them for forgetting there coworkers are people.  It seems that the only time they relate at all is to engage in what could most optimistically be viewed as venting but is most realistically just whining.  They share little about their families or lives.  It would be un-manly.  The most cheery they get is when talking about things like hunting.  Alas, I ramble, but I hope you get the picture of the world.  Well, in come I, a murse-carrying, coffee-drinking metrosexual.  My job, assistant superintendent.  My task, to clean up the tattered relationships and mostly built structures we call customers and houses.  Best yet, I get bitched at by the customers who already hate my company.  Then I get bitched at by my bosses for not cleaning up other peoples' messes fast enough.  But I have literally an entire neighborhood worth of houses to fix.  It is from this frustration that I first came to know dejection.  Dejection, to me, is just frustration made into a habit. Typically for frustration to develop into this it must be compounded by continual disregard to the conflict, abuse of some variety, and isolation.  This is most often then compounded by poor conflict resolution between the frustrated party and those causing the frustration and responsible for resolving their irksome habits.   Needless to say, I have very little motivation to maintain my current position, except that I need the money.  And while I give a good effort to my customers out of principle and follow the reasonable policies, I blatantly and tauntingly violate company policy.  Sometimes because I have to to make a customer happy.  Other times because I just don't like wearing khakis every day.   I categorize this behavior as dejection.  I really am hoping to show them something.  That their oppressive, old-school man's man mentality is dumb.  Or maybe I'm just despairing about a crappy job.  Again the line is thin.  But despair doesn't prompt behavior.  Maybe what I'm calling dejection is my passive social display of my despair.  But why show it.  It would be better for me, if I toted the line and followed the rules.  After all, I start graduate school as the first step to my dream job in August.  Who knows?? But I hope you feel my frustration.  What should one do when faced with such droll policies and bosses?  My answer is dejection...

Which brings me to what I think is the crux of the matter.  I read an article earlier last week about a inner city blacks in America, and what they face.  I strongly advise reading it. 

http://m.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/the-secret-lives-of-inner-city-black-males/284454/

Now, I will not begin to speak about what black people face, especially in inner cities.  I would most assuredly make a fool of myself.  But what I can do is try to understand.  Try to understand why they act the way they do.  And try to understand why I act the way I do.  And to change it to better allow them to pursue what we all agree is good and healthy.   My suspicion is that it is dejection that motivates them to be permissive to most of the behaviors we all agree are not good.  And quite frankly, I can't blame them.  I can see why they don't care, and I can see why they would feel like they are not going to change the perception of them among the public.  It i maddening to be in that position.   And while sure, it is easy to say,  "Pick yourselves up by your bootstraps"  To say that is neither realistic nor helpful.

I have long believed that the key to all problems between people is to understand why people feel the way they do.  I think if we all did that, we could quite quickly solve the dejection epidemic. 

Anxiety as Disruption

I always find traditional descriptions of anxiety as dissatisfying.  Despite this, I do feel that I have a genuine disorder.  I remember clearly not having.  I remember the painful slip into disorder.  It is a weird thing to watch your thoughts degrade into fears repeating themselves over and over again.  It is because of this very clear memory of the falling into anxiety that I have, that I feel so certain that anxiety is a real disorder.  Based on my experience, it is quite clearly thought based, but chemically and neurally sustained.  The process of climbing out is an odd one.  It is the process of modifying thoughts with intentionality so as to reverse the chemical changes that have occurred.  It almost feels as if you are lying to yourself at times.  Fortunately, you have the memory of 24 years of clear thinking to help you recall what truth actually is, and the thing that is lying or dishonest, is your fear-based calculations.  Unfortunately, it is a slow process, but headway is made, bit by bit.  Little bit at a time. 

But I wanted to write today not about my progress but instead about the phenomenology of anxiety, what it feels like to have anxiety.   Most people don't know, except for those who have it.  I am unsure how general this experience is, so I will disclaim this by stating that this is what I feel, and it how anxiety appears to me.  It might have a different appearance and modality in others' minds. 

For me, I experience anxiety as a disruption.  It is like sitting at dinner with your wife at your favorite restaurant, but having a nagging ringing in your ear that prevents you from focusing on her.  Most often when I catch myself in anxiety, I find myself with my eyes focused on nothing in particular, adrift among the scenery as my mind turns inward.  Questioning some aspect of itself mostly.  It is weird to have your eyes not focus on anything.  I sort of clench my teeth too at the same time.  It is a weird feeling.  Generally accompanied by this feeling of crawling emptiness in my stomach.  Usually I sort of find stumble upon myself in this state..... The self analyzing part of my brain catches itself analyzing itself doing it and says,  this is anxiety.... then the rational part says, "stop!".  Then the moral part usually feels slightly guilty for having indulged in this.  This guilt is unnecessary, but it is there.  It is a frustration, or a disappointment, that things aren't all the way better yet, even though I want them to be.  I know the key to making them better is discipline, and to be even more in the moment.

Which brings us to what I, and what many others, think the core of anxiety is.  Anxiety IS that time spent drifting off.  It is the time spent out of the moment.  It was hard at first to catch the beginnings of this. I found myself just there, with no clue of how the thought got started.   With discipline and training, I began to see what the beginnings of this were.  I began to catch it earlier and earlier.  It is almost always a dark, self-doubting thought that begins it.  Though this is actually the easiest type of beginning for me to deal with.  It is much scarier when the mind begins from a question which to me seems reasonable..... Like will I find a job that satisfies my needs and fulfills me?  Why should I enjoy this?  What do I like about my family?  It is these reasonable questions which prompt the gnarliest twists of my stomach, that sick hunger for an answer that won't come.  Usually, these deep sorts of questions don't have answers anyway, but the mind, prompted by the feeling of the body prompted by the mind, plunges into the dark answers that fear submits as truth.  From there the mind drifts into the dark sea of self-diagnosis and self-prognosing.  A dark sea it is indeed.  This darkness catches the focus of the mind and pulls it away from others, from the present moment.  Into this analysis of what is and what isn't rather than just looking at what simply is right in front of you.   You think to yourself, when the hell did life get so complicated.  (Aside, this lends these thoughts a bit of credibility in the world of complicatedness we live in.  I feel like nowadays, the more complicated something is, the more likely it is to be true).  But in that very thinking is the problem itself, for you are almost definitionally not living in the moment.  What is so special about the moment?   I'm not sure, but it seems that for me anxiety is a separation from it.   I guess the specialness lies not so much in the moment in itself, but in the joy that it has to offer.  It might not seem like all that much, but in comparison to the dark seas of the mind, it has ALOT to offer, lol. 

So for me, this is why I say anxiety is disruption.  It is that questions which caused you to leave the moment.  It is that question that is so scary that you feel as if you MUST turn your focus from how good your coffee tastes, or how soft your dog feels, to some irrelevant, probably unanswerable question.  This is what anxiety is to me.  I hope that it helps someone that I shared it.  I really love most of the people I know, and I hope that it might help them figure something out about themselves.