Truth or Consequences

This above all: to thine own self be true.

-Polonius: Hamlet Act 1, scene 3 

We’ve all heard variations of this piece of advice over the course of our lives.  Whenever we question something about ourselves, or feel unsure about what to do, we normally hear someone tell us that we need to stay true to who we are. That if you’re not honest with yourself, you’ll never really find any measure of happiness. It is a sound piece of advice, because I think we’ve all felt that moment when you realize you’ve been lying to yourself, or have ignored something that was really important to who you are, and realized that it was causing you great emotional pain.

However, historically, there have been a few exceptions.  If part of who you really are is considered “deviant” in any way, then society at large will demand that you keep that part hidden.  The problem is that what society considers “deviant” is subjective, but nonetheless, that part of you still exists.  It’s especially a problem if that part of you is in no way harmful, whether physically or mentally, to anyone else, yet society still wants you to suppress it.

In our current society, we are in a struggle with the concepts of homosexuality and transgender people.  For some reason, at least in my experience, it is mostly tied to religious belief, and it would seem that a lot people have a problem with both of these traits.  There exists a belief that homosexuals and transgender people choose to be that way.  That somehow, they have decided that they want to behave in a way that would get them shunned, persecuted, ostracized, oppressed, attacked, hated, and any number of actions that would cause them great harm. 

What I have to wonder is, of the people who believe that they would choose to be homosexual or transgender, what would cause them to believe that anyone would choose to be something that would garner so much negative attention?  There is no logical reason that people choose to put themselves in a situation that would bring great distress and pain on themselves.  And for those that would call them masochists, realize that masochists derive pleasure from physical pain, the complete opposite of someone who is being hurt emotionally and made to feel that they are worth less than what they are because they are just trying to be who they feel themselves to be.

It’s an important distinction to make, and to understand.  Choosing to be something means that you can also choose to not be that something, at any point.  There is no inherent connection to that choice, aside from the attachments you make.  However, to be born as either homosexual or transgender, is an essential part of the very core of your being.  To deny something that is an important part of who you are, especially when it is due to coercion by outside influences (family, friends, society) causes such strife, such pain, in your very being, your soul if you believe in such things, that a lot of times, people can only free themselves from that distress by ending their own lives.  If it was simply a “choice,” then people would not feel such self-loathing if they were to “choose wrong” so to speak. 

Identity issues are difficult enough, even if you don’t have societal pressure trying to crush you into conforming.  I’m ethnically Chinese, but I was born in the US.  Anyone who is born a second generation immigrant understands the difficulty in trying to balance the different cultures that you grow up with.  Many want to honor their heritage, but at the same time, they have to live in the society that they were born in.  If you don’t assimilate, then you feel separated from your community.  If you do assimilate, you drift away from your family and cultural history.  Trying to be both is admirable, but nearly impossible.  There’s a great deal of compromise needed in order to keep both sides happy, and a lot of times, despite so many people going through it, it’s not a shared experience.  So imagine adding on top of that the idea that you’ll be hated by the world at large if you want to be yourself.  Your whole life, people tell you to be honest with yourself, but when you are, they come down hard on you to bury it away, to deny that part of you.

Which brings me to the whole point of this entry.  The courage it takes to come out, and to claim your homosexuality, or your gender identity, is immense.  To know that just by proclaiming who you are, you will face great hatred, persecution, violence, and even threats to your life, requires greater courage than many of us can ever fathom. 

People will try to co-opt that bravery, by claiming that somehow, your ownership of your identity somehow infringes on their existence.  That being true to yourself will damage the very fabric of society, and that they are somehow courageous and righteous by standing up against your right to be who you are.  There are those who would attempt to negate your courage by saying it pales in comparison to people who put their lives on the line on a regular basis by being soldiers or police officers, as though somehow finding employment, knowing full well what the hazards of the job are, immediately raises you to heroic levels. 

If that were true, why does no one hold up loggers as heroes?  They have the highest per capita fatalities, and they work hard to provide fuel, raw material for nearly every aspect of your life, and they don’t even get paid all that much.  Or fishermen who help to put food on your table.  They travel to remote locations, risk being thrown into the merciless ocean, freeze to death, drown, or any other number of horrific ways to die.  Yes, you can say they do it for monetary gains, or to better their own life situations, but can you really say that most of the people who go into the military or into law enforcement aren’t doing it for the same purpose?  Can you really say that the majority of them are people wanting to do those jobs for noble reasons? 

Even then, even when held in comparison to these jobs that people take willingly, knowing that they may lose their life, it doesn’t change the fact that coming out requires massive stores of will and courage.  To know that the possibility that you may lose friends and family over your choice to come out, that you may lose your livelihood because of unfair labor laws, that you may be looked down upon by your community, would make the decision against coming out seem almost like a no-brainer.  However, the fact that living a lie is so painful, where the only choices they have are coming out, living in misery for the rest of their days, or ending it all, should tell you what kind of courage it takes to come out and be honest with yourself, and to be true to yourself. 

Ultimately, the point I want to make is that it shouldn’t be a matter of competition on how brave something is in order for it to be validated as being worthy of the label.  Everything has its challenges, and to dismiss one thing because your personal measure of bravery lies in something else is terribly narrow-minded.  Identity issues are never simple, and we’re all struggling to find out who we really are, and what our place in the universe is.  Don’t stomp on someone else just because their journey takes a different path than yours.

Back to Life, Back to Reality

Tomorrow marks my return to the workforce.  It’s been over four years since I was last gainfully employed.  It has been a surreal experience to have been away for so long, and even stranger to be able to go back to what is essentially a promotion from my former position, despite the large gap in time.  I’m definitely excited, but the weird thing is, while I think I should be nervous, it isn’t anywhere near as bad as I  thought it would be.  I suppose the experiences I’ve had these past four years has changed me more than I realized.

Prior to starting anything new, whether it was a new job, a new hobby, or just anything that would cause even the slightest amount of pressure, I’d be a complete wreck in the days leading up to whatever it was I was going to do.  I’d routinely be unable to sleep until the wee hours of the morning, I’d feel butterflies in my stomach, and I’d be worried about completely screwing up and making a complete mess of things.  Now… I just feel like I’m going back to the office after a long weekend.

There might be a couple of things in play.  One, is that I’m basically returning to my old job,  I was fortunate enough to be able to go back to my old place of employment and find a job that was a perfect fit for me. While I won’t be working with the original group of guys that I was with, I’ll still be in the same general building as them.  Being in familiar surroundings definitely helps.  It also helps that I know basically everyone that I’ll be working with from before as well, and they’ve always proven to be incredibly supportive.  It was their faith in me from before that helped me to get the job in the first place, so it makes me feel like I have someone at my back.

The second thing is that after having been a stay at home dad for a couple of years, I don’t think there’s a lot of things that would phase me anymore.  When you someone else’s life is in your hands, and they’ve grown up to be a happy and healthy child, it kind of shows that you can be capable of anything, no matter how unprepared you think you might be.  Juggling the myriad number of things required to take care of a child, keep the house in order, make sure everyone is fed, and keeping yourself from going crazy really gives your ability to multi-task a good workout.

The only thing I’m worried about is the possible bad habits I’ve picked up from not having to deal with adults on a regular basis.  You can get used to speaking to kids in a certain way, and that normally passes over to how you speak to your spouse or significant other.  Avoid enough adult contact, and your day to day conversation can sound pretty strange.  I just hope I don’t suddenly announce that I have to use the potty in the middle of a conversation with a colleague. 

Also having to wake up in the morning.  It’s different when you’re woken up by your kid and you groggily take the time to prepare breakfast, or clean up a mess.  It’s another thing to have to commute to the office, and figure out some technical problem when your brain is in a haze.  My sleep schedule has been kind of screwy lately, especially with being away from my family for the last two months.  A lot of late nights and late mornings.  I’m hoping I can settle into a regular diurnal mode of sleeping, just to avoid being a total zombie for the first few hours of the day.

Aside from all of that though, it is a return to what could be considered a more traditional configuration for a family.  I’ll be working while my wife will be home with the kids.  While I was happy with the time I had with my daughter, and the time at the beginning with my son, I’m glad I finally have the opportunity to going back to a situation that is ultimately more comfortable for me.  I like planning things and having them come together under my direction.  I like getting a paycheck twice a month.  I like feeling like I’m contributing the way I’m comfortable contributing.  You can call it old-fashioned, or patriarchal, but honestly, I think it just works better for our family unit.  At least I sure hope it does.  Time will tell.

On that note, tomorrow promises to be an interesting day.  First day back in the saddle. Here’s to hoping it leads to greater things.

Coming Home

So here I am on a flight out of Hungary (actually out of Sweden, but really who needs all the details?), and I'm stepping forward into the next part of my life.  It's been almost 4 years since I last lived in the US, so I can say I've got a bit of a different perspective than when this whole adventure began.  When I was on my way out, I was full of anxiety, apprehension, and confusion about my future. Now that I'm on my way back I'm... full of anxiety, apprehension, and confusion about my future.  The more things change...

The big difference is that on my way back, I'm actually more hopeful of how things will end up.  When I was leaving the US, I was worried about how I would adapt to life in a completely different country.  Moving to Japan wasn't necessarily a hard decision, because it was a move to be with my wife, and to support her.  The difficulty was in the leaving the familiarity of the life I had, the security of a job (albeit a job that I felt was leading to a dead end), and of leaving the only home I've ever known. 

There was one thing that was playing through my head though as I boarded the plane and flew away from New York City.  That old saying of "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere."  Let me tell you right now, that saying is utter bullshit.  I think before I left, I was living a rather comfortable life in NYC.  I had a couple of solid jobs, I was making pretty good money, and there wasn't much that I wanted that was really out of reach.  Moving to a foreign country where I had no grasp of the language, and honestly wasn't all that thrilled to be there, left me floundering for quite some time.  When the only jobs available to me at the time were variations of an English Instructor, it soon became clear to me that being outside of the US was going to be much harder than I originally envisioned.
 

However, I did end up having a job that I would need to devote all of my time, energy, and mental abilities to.  Anyone who tells you that being a full time stay at home dad isn't a job needs to be shot in the face.  Especially when you're a rookie, and you get thrown into the deep end before you realize what is going on.  I've already gone into some detail about the trials and tribulations of being a first time stay at home dad.  The constant worry that I was going to screw up my daughter, the feeling that I wasn't doing everything I could to raise her right, or that I was going to just outright kill her because of some bonehead mistake.  Ultimately, I think I did alright with the time I had with her.  She's been an absolutely sweetheart.  I feel fortunate that our daughter has turned out to be the kind-hearted, sweet, funny, goofy, strange little girl that she has become so far.  We're in the middle of the terrible twos with her currently, so she has her moments, but even then, she has been an absolute joy to my wife and I.

The other side of that coin with being out of the country the way I've been is that I've felt completely isolated for quite some time.  This is something else I've spoken about in some detail, and I've felt possibly the worst depression I've ever had in my life.  I've withdrawn, lashed out, put up walls, shunned my loved ones, and basically been a real piece of crap at times because of how I've felt, and I'm lucky that my wife has put up with as much as she has.  I hope not too much of it has rubbed off on my daughter, since I was her primary caretaker during these last few years.  Only time will tell I suppose.

The sad thing is that in our final year in Japan, I was starting to put together some sort of life again.  Finding friends with mutual interests, having the occasional social gathering, and just doing things that I enjoyed on a semi-regular basis was starting to get me feeling like my old self again.  I think I was beginning to break out of my funk, and was more loving, attentive, and just generally a better guy than I had been the previous couple of years.  Then of course, the year ended, and all that I had built had to be left behind.  And thus we embarked on our journey to Hungary, where we would try to make a go of it there.

I'm not going to lie and say I had a good time.  If nothing else, I think it was worse than my time in Japan.  Whereas I felt isolated in Japan by our circumstances, I felt like a complete outsider in Hungary.  In Japan, I could at least blend in and not get a second look from people.  The only odd looks I would get were from people who found it strange that an able-bodied male was walking around with a baby girl strapped to him in the middle of the day instead of being at work.  However, it was more of a curiosity than looks of disdain.  Never in my life have I felt more alienated than I did while I was staying in Hungary.  The worst of it was when I was just out at the park with my daughter, and I had two separate parents pull their kids away just because they were playing too close to us.  I don't exactly know what the reason was, as I didn't understand what they were saying, but the looks on the parents' faces made me feel like I had two heads, or was wearing a sign that said "PEDOPHILE MURDERER" written in blood across my face.  I won't say that was representative of my time in Hungary as a whole.  For the most part, the people are rather benign.  However, they don't know how to handle non-white foreigners, so it just felt like I was on display for the most part as an oddity or some for of an attraction.  By the end of my time there, I had finally just decided to say screw it and dyed my hair blue (although it turned out more green) and assume people were looking at me funny for that, as opposed to for just being born a different ethnicity.  To be clear, the actual reason for dying my hair was to celebrate the birth of my son, but I probably wouldn't have done it if I didn't feel like I stuck out so much anyway.  It was both frustrating and freeing at the same time.  It also didn't help that I just couldn't seem to find work, no matter how many resumes I sent out, or leads I would follow.  I would seemingly be on a decent path, with the right qualifications, just for it to suddenly fall apart and find myself back at square one.

So now I'm heading back to NYC.  I go back feeling as though I've been a complete failure at providing for my family.  I go back with a near 4 year gap in my work history.  I go back not knowing how well I'm going to adapt to living in a city that has moved on without me, and where I'm not even 100% sure I fit in anymore.  When I express these concerns to my friends, I generally get one of two responses, on the extreme opposite ends.  The majority of it has been "Everything will be fine. I'm sure you'll find something soon, and you'll settle back into your life here.  Once you find that job, you'll be able to bring your family back and live a happy life here."  (Did I mention I'm going back by myself, because without a job, my kids have no healthcare?  My wife and kids are staying behind until I find work, so there's the added stress of that to contend with.)  The other response, which is far less frequent, but which plays in my mind much more, is "Man, life is expensive in NY.  You sure you want to come back here?  Have you thought about looking elsewhere?  Is it really the best place to raise a family?"

The first response I'm not comfortable with because I'm a realist.  I don't KNOW that everything will be fine just because people say it almost reflexively, and without any real care for that four year gap in my work history, which has been a real problem for me to find work, at least overseas.  The other response just plays to my paranoia, and makes me more worried about the decision to come back.  Neither one really helps.  I know why those two responses are given, as people want to reassure me, or help me realize that things may be tougher than I imagine, but they both play to the bad parts of my psyche.  I'm grateful that people care as much as they do, but sometimes it's hard to deal with things when I feel like there are expectations placed on me and what kind of success I'll find just because I'm coming back to NY. 

All that being said, I am glad for one big thing about coming back.  To be near my friends and family again will have a hugely positive influence on me.  I'm hoping being in my old stomping grounds will have me feeling like myself again.  The last few times I've been back, I've wavered between enjoying my time, and not feeling comfortable because things were so much harsher than I remembered.  Some of it was because of comparison to the life I was leading out of the country.  I just hope that this being my full return, I'll be able to settle in and be myself again, for the first time in a long while.  I'm hoping that the funk I've been in has been due to the circumstances, and not because that's just who I've become.  I haven't been the best husband and father the last few years, and I constantly beat myself up for it, which only leads to a deeper depression.  It's a vicious cycle, and I hope by returning to comfortable ground, I can break out of it.  Hopefully, that other saying that people tend to go by is wrong as well.  Maybe I can come home again.  We'll see. 

Where’s the Worth?

Now that my family and I have completed our time in Japan, we’ve begun the next phase of our life.  We are currently in the home country of my wife, Hungary, and we’re living with her dad while she continues with her pregnancy.  Our time here is primarily for her to experience life here once again, and to verify or contradict the feelings she has had for this country since she left here some 16 years ago.  She wanted to see if her memories of this place were all justified, and that it really is where she’s wanted to be all this time, or if it was just a sense of nostalgia that clouded her mind, and that life here is way more difficult than she remembered it being.

What this means for me is that it is now my turn to re-enter the workforce after a near 4 year hiatus.  To be honest, I couldn’t be happier to do it, since I’ve been sort of champing at the bit for quite some time to get out of the house.  While I have loved having the time with my daughter these last 2+ years, I’ve discovered, in no uncertain terms, that I am not cut out to be a stay at home dad.  I maintained well enough, and my little girl seems to have grown up happy and relatively well adjusted (she is still my kid, so she’s going to be kind of weird), but I never thrived and I don’t think I ever could in a home environment.  Mentally, I’m just wired to work, and collect paychecks, and feel like I’m contributing monetarily to my household.

Of course, there is hesitation when thinking about returning to work after 4 years.  There’s the question of whether or not I’m actually ready to go back.  My readiness may not be equal to my desire, and that could lead to some pretty bad failures when I go back to work.  How much will I miss my family during the day?  That’s a big one, because I’ve known nothing but time with my daughter during all this time.  And of course, one of my biggest concerns is whether or not I’ll actually be able to find some meaningful work after having been out of the industry for 4 years.  The world of IT is ever evolving, and I’ve been out of the game for what might as well be a whole era.

Job-hunting can be a soul crushing experience.  You’re reduced to your accomplishments and how well you can state them on a piece of paper (or in a Word document as the case is nowadays) and you send out hundreds if not thousands of them, knowing that you’re going to be rejected time and time again.  You may feel as if you are a shining star in a sea of darkness, and that you should be easily picked out, and picked up, but in reality, you’re just another point of light in an otherwise packed sky, and you just have to be lucky enough to be picked by that one company that will take a chance and check you out up close.  Meanwhile, you sit there, and wait, and wonder if you did everything right to feel like you shined as bright or as interestingly as you could, but feeling as though you screwed something up royally, and they’re huddled in their little HR cubicles, looking at your resume and laughing at your inept attempt to look employable.  It’s enough to make a person lose it a little bit, and honestly, it can kill a person’s self-worth.

And that got me thinking about the last four years, and what my worth has been.  After a couple of rejection letters from a few companies in the last month and a half, I’ve begun to wonder just what I’m worth now, and what I’ve been worth the last few years that I’ve been without work.  Internally, I feel as though I’ve been a kind of paperweight to this family.  I have a function, but it could really be accomplished by anything of sufficient weight and size, and in most cases, you don’t even really need it.  There were times I honestly thought things would be better if I weren’t around, instead of being there and just taking up space.  This feeling has been even stronger lately, since my wife is now no longer working, and actually has time to be the stay at home parent to spend the time with our child. 

I’ve expressed these feelings to my wife, and some friends, and time and again, they’ve told me how awesome I am, and that things will work out, and that it’s just a matter of time.  Of course, I’ve always been the impatient type, and hearing platitudes has never done much to placate my worries.  However, it does make me examine myself (big surprised huh?) and brings up the question, how do you quantify your self worth?

Is it based on how much money you bring home?  How much time and effort you spend cleaning the house, washing the clothes, bathing the kids?  How good the food you cook tastes?  How much you can make your kid laugh?  How much you make your spouse laugh?  I’ve struggled with this question for much of my life, because when I think back on it, I can’t really say that I’ve ever felt that I’ve been worth much.  There have been moments where I’ve had little triumphs along the way that gave me a sense of joy and accomplishment, but they never had any lasting effects on my feelings of self-worth. 

These last few years have really been testing those feelings.  I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite as low as I’ve felt these last few years.  However, there’s always a need to soldier on, to take care of my responsibilities, so I put those thoughts as far out of my head as I could.  I just did what I had to, and spent my spare moments losing myself in hobbies, video games, and esoteric thoughts.  But going through the job-hunting process has put a lot of my insecurities into sharp focus, and it’s one of those times where confrontation of those feelings had to happen, or there would be negative consequences.

So how does one go about judging their self-worth?  The only thing that has had any sort of meaning for me is how happy the people around you are, and how much of an effect you had on that happiness.  From speaking to my family and friends, I’ve discovered that I’ve surprisingly had a positive influence on their lives, even without really noticing it.  My existence on this planet has helped to impact people in a positive way, and that is really the only thing that I can say, for myself, has a lasting effect on my feelings.  If I wasn’t here, than the net positive effects that I’ve been able to have on people’s lives wouldn’t be there.  It may not be anything tangible; I can’t exactly hold other people’s happiness in my hand and count it, but when I know that people miss me, and want to be around me, that’s as good a way as any to know that you’re loved and wanted, and it tells you something about your self-worth. 

Does this mean that I’ll be able to go forward without feeling any insecurities about myself again?  Probably not, and I’ll backslide into depression again, because that’s always been my cycle.  But it’s important to keep the good things in mind, or it ends up being a fight that you’re just beating yourself in.  I’ll likely question myself over and over again, and feel worse until I finally find work and feel like I’m legitimately contributing again (even if I’ve been contributing all this time).  Even then, the job would just be a bandage to patch up one tiny cut in my admittedly beat up psyche, but at least it would be one less thing on my mind.  Until then, I have to keep doing what I can to do good by others, and maybe, hopefully, things will work out (even though I still really hate that phrase). 

Crushed by Success

By now, everyone has heard about the death of Robin Williams.  They’ve likely also heard about the details of his death, whereby he committed suicide by hanging himself, after what appears to be a failed attempt by cutting his wrists.  There has not yet been a report stating whether or not he had drugs or alcohol in his system, but he was known to have a substance abuse problem.  However, even if those weren’t the final catalyst to his actions, it was also reported that he had been suffering severe depression in recent months because he felt he couldn’t provide for his family.

I’m sure like many people, when I heard those words, I scratched my head initially.  How could an amazing talent like Robin Williams, a box office draw who always seemed to be working, ever have to worry about money?  It was even stranger when I found out that he had also already set up a trust fund for his kids that would have them set for the rest of their lives.  It was originally very hard to imagine what his worries could be that he would feel driven to kill himself.

Then it hit me.  Or at least, a theory hit me.  I can’t presume to know what was going on inside his head when he made the decision to end his life.  However, there was an article on Cracked.com recently that helped to shed some light on the situation.  You can find it here.  It’s a solid piece on why people who you might think are very funny and generally the life of the party, and always seem to have a smile on their face, would ever decide to end their own life.  But we see this type of thing happen to all types of celebrities, not just comedians, and also many of them are successful.  You can also find examples of this in your day to day life.  I think we’ve all heard of someone who, for no explicable reason, decided to commit suicide.  So it got me to thinking…

A lot of people who have been considered incredibly talented and successful, yet still killed themselves, always seemed to be uncomfortable being described as “geniuses”, “amazing”, “phenomenal”, or any number of superlatives.  They would usually laugh it off, or make some self-deprecating remark about how they’re just having fun doing what they love, and they don’t see anything special about themselves.  A lot of people would see that as being humble.  However, to anyone who has ever suffered from depression, there’s another reason for trying to deflect anything good being said about them.

Quite simply, they don’t, or rather can’t, see themselves that way.  From personal experience, I can tell you that when you’re locked in the throes of depression, you can see nothing good about yourself.  Every positive thing that someone says is either taken as not being sincere, or as added pressure to live up to a standard that, to your own mind, you can’t possibly live up to.  In fact, that pressure can feel so strong, that weight so heavy, that no matter how great the success you’ve had before, you can only see failure for yourself in the future, because you feel as though you are worthless and incapable of anything good.

That’s why a man like Robin Williams, an Academy Award winner, a millionaire many times over, beloved actor of millions, could ever feel like he wouldn’t be able to take care of his family, nevermind that they were already taken care of.  The depression had gotten so deep into him, that he could only see a bleak future, where he would be forced to toil away at jobs that would bring no satisfaction, no joy to anyone.  I believe he saw them purely as cash grabs, with no opportunity for art or passion.  It was known that he was not a fan of doing sequels, because he believed that there should be new stories to tell, not rehashing of stale plots, even if those movies would bring joy to many.  I doubt he ever thought sequels had any redeeming qualities, and he didn’t want to cheapen his integrity by making films that he felt weren’t good enough for anyone.  It would seem as though he had a very high level of perfectionalism that could have contributed greatly to his self-loathing.

I know for myself, hearing things like “You’re amazing”, or “You’re wonderful”, or really anything that could be considered a compliment just feels like added pressure to live up to those expectations.  I have always tried to be a good person, but I don’t know if I could ever truly be “amazing”.  I would rather hear a simple “Thank you for your efforts” and move on from there, because there’s no implication of expectation that I have to live up to anything special.  I’m perfectly fine with doing things as they are needed, and trying my best, without such accolades.  I know this isn’t true of everyone, but then again, not everyone suffers from bouts of depression.  It’s difficult to really see the world and how great it can be when everything feels like a dull gray. 

I think in Robin’s case, he had been so successful, for so long, and had been battling depression for so long (as evidenced by his substance abuse problems) that he hit that point where the expectations of him being that same, funny, loveable, incredible man, had finally crushed him.  When you feel as though you’re expected to succeed, and all you feel is that you are nothing or going to be nothing but a giant failure, it is no surprise that you might feel like giving up. 

Whatever he was feeling, I really hope he knew somewhere deep down that he truly was one of a kind, and that he has left an indelible mark on a few generations of fans, as well as anyone who ever had the privilege of working with, or even just meeting him.  I also hope that anyone else who might be going through something similar to him realizes that those positive things that people say about them are not some kind of cruel joke, or meant as added pressure, but rather a showing of appreciation for the good that they bring into other’s lives.  I know for myself, it’s like trying to pull a shark’s teeth out with a salami, but I’m working hard to remind myself that maybe, just maybe, I actually deserve some of that praise that comes my way. 

What Makes a Real Man

Since the heinous crime perpetrated by Elliot Rodger, I’ve been seeing a lot of articles and Youtube rants on misogyny, specifically the concept of masculinity and how it’s wielded as sort of a weapon against women.  It got me to thinking about how strange it is to be a male human, and yet by the definition set forth by what passes for typical masculinity, I don’t really qualify as a “man”.

I am not physically aggressive; I neither hide nor hide from my emotions; I believe whole-heartedly in equality for women; I don’t view women as objects to be won as if they were some sort of reward that is entitled to me; I do not have a domineering personality; I am not physically imposing; I am well aware of what I fear and will freely admit it, and a whole list of things that honestly would have a stereotypical “man” look at me and question if I’m actually a guy at all.

The type of thinking that has men trying to validate their masculinity leads mainly to violence and harm.  Being a ‘roided out monster who represses their emotions in order to “man up,” and who only see women as sexual objects who exist purely to satisfy their physical needs has somehow become the new standard for which men should strive.  The type of man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants, even when that involves hurting someone, raping someone, or just plain being a humongous dick to everyone around them, and somehow this is meant to be a goal for all men? 

I understand how that might have been the case back in prehistoric days.  Where your size equaled your ability to survive out in the harsh world.  Even then, women were still revered, because their ability to bring life into the world was considered something special.  Anthropological findings have long since dispelled the myth of men cracking their women over the head with a club in order to mate, and yet, it seems the men of today still see that as a lesson to be learned.  If you can’t get what you want, brute force and ignorance will get you there. 

It’s time that way of thinking is changed.  We need to redefine what makes a man, a man.  A modern man, who isn’t judged based on how many women he’s slept with, or how much weight he can lift, or how much money or material goods he is able to obtain.  I’ll try to put together a list that I think is appropriate and you can feel free to add or subtract the things that make sense to you.

First and foremost, a real man should take responsibility for his actions.  Men are self-aware, sentient creatures, or at least we’re supposed to be, so any decisions that they make should have some thought behind them.  There should no longer be an excuse of “boys ill be boys” whenever they do something wrong.  A member of the Indian government recently said “Boys will be boys, they make mistakes” in regards to rape.  People like this should be hung up by their toes and beaten like a pinata.  ( I said I wasn’t physically aggressive, it doesn’t mean I’m violence free )  If you are a real man, and you bring harm to someone, then you have to take responsibility and pay for your crimes. 

Of course, if you were a real man, you wouldn’t harm people for no good reason anyway, which brings me to my second point.  A real man would protect those who need protecting, whether or not they’re physically weaker than you, vulnerable, or just in a worse off place than you are at the time.  A real man cares for his fellow man, and would hate to see harm come to them if he could do something to prevent it. 

A real man would not be afraid to show his emotions.  He would be smart enough to realize that repressing your emotions to not appear weak to others only makes things worse for themselves.  Holding all of that in only leads to more internal pressure, and anyone who knows anything about that knows that eventually cracks will appear, and then a giant kaboom will follow.  A real man deals with his problems in the best way that he can so that he can resume a healthy life, where he can enjoy his time with loved ones fully.

A real man should be flexible enough to do whatever the situation demands for his family.  If you, as the man, have to stay home and be a house husband and a stay at home dad because that’s what is needed, then that’s what you do.  I’m not saying you can’t complain, because holding in that sort of resentment toward your spouse will only lead to marital woes, but at the same time, if it needs to be done, then you have to put in your best effort.  It is just another challenge that needs to be taken on, and a real man is always ready for a challenge.

A real man treats people with respect, but knows that respect has to be earned.  No matter your race, gender, sexual orientation, or tax bracket, a real man would treat you as he would want to be treated, as a human being.  He wouldn’t judge you based on things outside of your control, and he wouldn’t be quick to make judgments based on first impressions.  He knows that life is not made up only of his experiences, and that everyone has hardships that he may never have gone through.

And finally, a real man doesn’t feel entitled to anything.  He knows he has to work for what he deserves, and even then he might not get it.  However, he’s grateful for what he has and isn’t resentful of those who may have more.  He knows that life is what you make of it, and that it is his job to make his life mean something to him.

It’s not a very long list, but just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s easy.  To strive to be a better man, or more accurately, a better person, should be the goal of everybody on this planet, regardless of who or where you are.  Your job should be to improve the world around you, not to grab everything for yourself and claim power over all. 

Having written all that, I can’t say that I match all of those requirements for what I consider to be a real man.  However, I think those goals are something worth striving for, because they bring no harm to anyone, and only serve to better yourself and those around you.  Maybe I’m wrong, and there’s a component in the list that could potentially cause problems, but instead of looking for the cracks, how about first considering the positive spin on it first.  And if you have other things to add, leave them in the comments.  I’m always working to be a better person, and there may be things that I might not have considered.  Taking into consideration an outside perspective is also an important part of being a real man, because a real man knows that they don’t know everything.

What Comes Next?

I’ve been thinking about mortality quite a bit lately.  I’m not sure what exactly brought it on; probably reading articles about religion, atheism, scientific discoveries, and other things that makes one think about what we see and what we do and don’t know.  Anyway, I’ve been hit with this feeling of how enormous the amount of time is when you’re not alive and breathing on this planet, as opposed to the short amount of time you do spend doing whatever it is you do while you’re alive.

I’m not sure I can describe the feeling properly.  For me, it feels as though you’re sitting in a dark space, and you don’t know how large that space is.  The only thing that you can see is yourself, because you happen to be illuminated.  You can move about freely, but the only thing visible is yourself, and no matter how far you walk, you never hit a wall, or hear anything, or  see anything, not even anything directly at your feet.  If you stop moving, everything is still, all is silent, but it’s not the kind of quiet where you can hear your own heartbeat.  It’s just kind of empty, maybe white noise at best, kind of like what you get when you wear ear protectors.  That’s probably the best way I can describe the feeling I’ve been getting lately when I think about the vastness of time as it relates to my own life. 

I can say one thing definitively about that feeling… it scares the hell out of me.  It hit me the other night when I was lying in bed, somewhat suddenly, and it actually caused a bit of a panic.  It got me to thinking about what comes after death, since we can only experience our life while we’re alive, and no one knows what comes next.  There of course is a ton of speculation.  Innumerable religions have been founded on the idea of what comes next and how to get there.  The one constant is that there is something next, and that who we are as individuals doesn’t just disappear when we die.  Lying there, at night, with that feeling hitting me, I very much want to believe that one of those beliefs is true.  However, none of them have ever made sense to me, so I can’t subscribe to any religion, along with other reasons, hence my atheism.

However, it has made me wonder, and come up with my own theory.  It’s about as plausible as all the rest, although it may get a bit convoluted, so bear with me. 

If you look at life as a concept, it all comes in cycles.  We’re born, we live, we die.  That’s the basic individual life cycle.  However, on a larger scale, we see how death can lead to life.  We’re born, we live, we die, we return to the Earth, life emerges from our remains in some form.  Normally through plant life, but through that, energy is passed on to animal life, which ends up entering that life cycle, which in turn returns back to the plant life cycle. 

Ok, so we’ve established that.  Seeing that as cyclical, we now turn to our individual consciousness.  We, as individual humans, are born with basic consciousness.  However, it takes time for that to develop.  We are completely unaware of who we are as individuals until some time has passed, and we develop a sense of self.  For some, it takes longer than others, but it eventually happens.  As we get older, the biggest fear is that we lose our sense of self.  The older you get, the more likely this is to happen, but ultimately, we lose our sense of self completely when we die. 

During the entire course of our lives, we are converting a massive amount of energy, from the food that we consume, into our actions and thoughts.  Physics teaches us that energy and matter cannot be destroyed, just converted into different forms of energy or matter.  It also teaches us that due to this, we are all potentially made of star stuff.  Probability teaches us that given a long enough stretch of time, anything is possible.  There is also a theory floating around out there that the creation and destruction of the universe is also cyclical, as the universe is currently expanding, but will eventually collapse and shrink back down until it reaches critical mass and another big bang happens, thus entering into another cyclical phase.

So what I propose is this.  When your consciousness ends, at least the current version of it, you are completely unaware of time.  Time is only experienced by us because that’s how we interpret our actions, and how we move about in this dimension.  However, after your consciousness ends, all of that energy is converted.  Into what, I can’t say, but the energy that once composed who you are still exists, just in a different form.  Given a long enough time span, the energy that once was composed as you could potentially reform in the same way, possibly in the next iteration of the universe.  However, because you’re not experiencing time, you couldn’t tell this was happening, so you would theoretically wake up after your death, and still be you, and you would never know, except for the radical changes around you. 

It’s possible this may have happened already, or it’s possible we are just the first iteration.  There’s no way of knowing, but it’s fun to imagine.  The hard part is wrapping your mind around it, because it requires the stretching of the imagination into the realm of the infinite, and that’s not a comfortable place to be.  Of course, it’s also possible that this really is it, and once we die, there’s nothing at all after, but I like to imagine my theory has some plausibility to it, because it’s comforting in its own warped way.

That being said, I do still prefer to live the current life that I have as if it was finite, and my actions will have consequences that will be defined by what I did while I was alive now.  These actions and consequences extend to my family and friends, and whatever effect I have on them will be my legacy, so I have to be sure that what I’m doing now is the right thing for me.  There’s no sense in pining for the unknown, when you’re dealing with what you know right now.  (That’ll end my little morality blurb for this blog entry).

Now, none of what I said may make any sense.  Feel free to interpret it as the ramblings of a madman.  I honestly wrote this because thinking about death, for me, is more comforting than just being afraid of it.  Dealing with the fear with this weird mental exercise in explaining it with what little knowledge I have is what gives me the comfort needed to combat that weird feeling of vastness that I sometimes get.  Better than lying awake in bed all night feeling really tiny. 

Told you this blog was for catching all the detritus in my head.  Hope you enjoyed some of this bit of weirdness.