Taking charge and taking action: the masculine traits

In this the day of your birthday, I awoke early and cooked breakfast for you, just like I have done so many other mornings, because I celebrate your birth on a daily basis. I bring you toys found along my path through the heavy rainforest. I reprimanded your son in a didactical tone, explained that just because he doesn’t have money to buy her a gift doesn’t mean that he can’t give. I told him that if he wanted to get anywhere in life, he better start using his imagination, especially when it comes to the opposite sex. “She’s about to wash the dishes now” I announced a little later and he jumped off the bed abandoning his playstation game to take charge. Once he took over the task, I conferred to her the tactic used to make him wash the dishes. “Use your imagination to persuade others of using theirs” I told her in secrecy to spear the kid’s dignity to oblige. Same thing goes for the dog, which refuses to eat from his plate his dog food. Vangelis has been feeding him under the table for sometime until I firmly forbid him doing so. Now the bad habit has to be treated with a dominant stance, otherwise the dog will own this tribe, and I am the leader of the pack in this house. Snoopy, the dog, only listens to me and does as I say so long as I am on sight. Usually, the care of a canine is rendered to a child, and what kind of discipline such can exert. Dogs respond to your own energy, as if drawn by an invisible force, just stand still next to him and he will comply. Of course, a little bit of pain goes a long way, the kind of “legitimate suffering” Jang spoke of. See, here lays another misconception about pets. Animals are still animals, and in order to have them as guests in our home a process of domestication has to take place, boundaries have to be set. Even though I’m no expert or authority on the subject, apt behavior takes sacrifice whichever the animal. Fear molds the most precarious instincts and shuts down any display of dominance by the animal. It’s kind of funny, though, how didactical still is my narrative, as if I held anything more than questionable shadows. See, it occurred to me a scene for a Simpson’s episode in which Lenny confronts a bear and he does as he has been told, and climbs on top of two long sticks and points to the beast demandingly. The bear charges at the woodened-legs, and bites them to pieces until it leveled with Lenny. Then the bear roars standing on two feet and its roaring is translated in caption letters to the audience: “You’re not so big now!” I think that would have been hilarious. These manuscripts were never meant to see the light, and if they end up ultimately in the dark that is exactly where they were bred. Dare to start over from the beginning anytime now. Let us make up our minds and in the next line absurdly fall in love; always cast the first stone and remain serene with the certitude that everything that is under your control will be solved and if you are still in pursuit of happiness let me warn you: you’re in for a lot of trouble. Happiness is elusive, but suffering is the real master, and our condition relies more on its misery than its joys to mold our courage and determination. Passion and happiness in life depend more on an active nature, and the passive role will not get you there. The contemplative character has to take action eventually, and the more aggressive, adaptable and dominant males will have more. So our solution is to take action; no one ever prided themselves of being lazy. Well, I proudly admit, I am lazy. Leisure and adventure is the compensation I finally seek. People want to be taken seriously, and there is a need for that. The trademark of an idiot is a complete lack of seriousness. But still more of a moron is the one who doesn’t have a sense of humor. By the way, not having a sense of humor doesn’t go very far with the opposite sex but behaving as a clown will turn her off immediately. Unless it happens to be a very good looking clown, they prefer guys with a masculine attitude towards her.

The ever-so-desperately sought perspective

Working out clears your mind; I laugh when I hear people say that they don’t have time to work out. First, making out should be already part of your routine; secondly, it shouldn’t matter so much the time length of your workout as much as being consistent. I remember that whenever time was scarce, I devised what I used to call a “mini-workout”, which didn’t last longer than seven minutes. Most of the time I exercised for longer than that, and then I found that the important and difficult thing to begin with was precisely that: the beginning of it. At the time I was assistant manager to a small security firm that had its roots in New Jersey, and, given that I was in charge of a recently created account the owner himself commended me personally, I worked literally 24/7. On top of that, I found time to read and go out with my nocturnal friends, the so-called perfect strangers that I speak of, a rare breed that I had never seen on broad daylight. What a time to be alive! Now I’m off to the bank and then back. I may be moving from here someday, when I put in at least the same much I got, when the plans envisioned (i.e., saving money for a rainy day, buying a car, moving out, publishing a book, finding her a better job, making love aboard a ship in a cruise, going on a vacation to Santo Domingo) comes through. It’s not the moon I’m asking for; it’s an entire little universe of our own. Yes, it sounds divisive and indecisive, given that I will go on a date with another. I have been selfish with Isabel. The thing is, more than anything she needs a little security and I often give the impression that we may not be together within a year from now. My mentality should be to either devote myself entirely to her or let her to fend alone and find herself another life. That sounds very nice in theory but the truth is that I deeply care for her well-being, and I want her in my life. But Isabel regresses often and not in the melancholic sense; instead she complains of the time she has wasted and brings about things from the past. We are not our past, and I don’t want to have to worry about her worrying over things that happened a very long time ago. That the passion that ignited the relationship in the beginning is no longer there, and that I cannot find the same attraction for each other as we did before is only a blessing, a shift that will allow ourselves the ever-so-desperately sought after perspective.

The tougher the question, the sounder the answer

We shouln't speak as if we were holding all of the answers. Those who truly seek, often wonder. I question this very moment and my most immediate sense of urgency but also try diciphering what will survive the test of time. I am more focused now, and I look forward to a healthier life in which all of my sides come into one sound and singular being. I wonder if I should remain here in the long run, because Isabel has become increasingly difficult. I can't connect with her and I can't please all of her needs. I have told her that I cannot be held responsible for her happiness. I ask about her plans, and she mumbles things that don't seem to have resonance. As if she didn't really believe what she is saying. This affects me, in turn, because I am here with her. Her flaws are a reflection of my own failures. I want and I crave so much more. That is how infidelity works: it either destroys a relationship or makes it.
Now, every single aspect of our lives can be enhanced and improved overtime. That is also true of relationships. We have to make adjustments and better ourselves. I, for instance, didn't go out in a very long time, make more money than ever before, work twice as hard as anytime in recent memory, and have made amendments with the past for a very long time now. I can't wait for my life to show up one of these days and not be ready. I am ready now, and I want to contine, and all of this melodrama only slows me down. Either she changes or I will be forced to move on without her.
I recently worked out, made my own breakfast, sent money to my family in Colombia and wrote three simultaneous entries on my self-exploration. Yes, there are several blogs that I have started. One of them is in Spanish for my relatives and my closest friends, not recommended for a wider audience than that. I work more than forty hours a week, and plan to continue doing so, every passing second I am shifting, building for tomorrow, cemented on the present. I need an ally that shares my vision, one that is not as dependent on me to make her feel, a truly great companion. I think now we need to give ourselves sometime. All may come back to normal in a matter of days. I say, three the most.

Competition for sex

The highly self-regarded and prophylactic Emma, who once refuted me oral sex unless I washed my mouth first, became docile in intimacy overtime. She told me that she had demanded the same thing from every man she had ever been with, and refused to go on her knees in the oral act. Instead she proposed that she will lay on bed, and that I should approach the bed until I stood next to the side of the bed where her head rested. I accepted and when she laid on bed, I climbed atop her and ravished my way in through the milky alley among her mammal genitals. I slapped her and she furiously spat me, defiantly whispering hard:
-Damn, you.
She suddenly had secrets to confess about her ex-lover whom we met before she started dating him; she referred once to him as “being rather feminine”.
“What do you like most about me?”
“Your cock” she said.
She’d laugh telling me in half-whispered, half-spoken sentences that she once slapped him. He had become sort of fearful towards her ever since the episode. She had slapped me too, but I soon put her hand up and sucked on her neck so hard that she had to wear a turtle-neck just so that her boyfriend didn’t have to witness the legacy of his absences. As a result of that, I asked her if she had ever slapped him. That is how the confession came about. I asked her what had he done to her when she slapped him and she said that he seemed shocked and unmanly horrified, and that he simply said: "I won't tolerate violance." And then she slapped him again! Emma faked being sick, mad at him, or played Houdini on their dates. Finally, after the guy persisted in wanting to see her, she allowed him so but asked him for some time to think certain things over, and the guy agreed! She’d sneak me in her apartment, and I would tell her to call her sorry excuse of a lover. An argument would ensue, escalate into a verbal altercation whenever they spoke. The guy had suggested once to her to have phone-sex and she almost died at the notion that her lover would want to play silly verbal aggressive conversations over the phone when he could just have her. But when she saw the magnitude of her actions (you know, the fact that she had slapped me) on her necked, exposing her and threatening to end the prospect of landing a husband as she was nearing her thirties. The official version is that she started dating me after putting an end to her relationship with Blender. In reality, she had accepted his offer to having phone sessions because, she said, she wasn’t feeling ready to face him yet. To Blender, the fact that she suddenly wanted to play spooky over the line didn’t seem strange, especially after so long it had been since he offered her. He agreed and once on the phone, she talked him into going online and chatting for a while longer so that they could see each other. They had their performances and she cleverly played being chocked. Once he was back, he was mildly shocked to see the faded scars of suction on her neck. Then he got up and left a while later to call her and tell her that it was over. Relationships, of course, are never over when guys say it. They went out and made up and made out, and celebrated before he was gone again and she was puking herself to depression.

To each its own

Out of fear to be a virgin for the rest of his life, Michael decided to let his friends find a solution to his dilemma. Of course, friends opted for the most effective method to manhood: they took him to a whorehouse. Once there, Michael spotted among veterans in the oldest profession a gorgeous girl who had turned down other clients simply because they were not to come near her even with all the gold in the world. The girl made it known that in order to sleep with her you had to spend more than you would with any regular prostitute and on top of that she had to give the final okay. To Michael, money was no obstacle until, that is, the girl named her price: twice the amount of any other. All four of us prompted Michael to go for her. Michael hesitated, and not because of his financial resources. His argument was that he had to be the one who chose her and not the chosen one. The girl found him admirable, and called him coquettishly, lavishly biting her lips with insinuation. Michael decided that he had had enough humiliation for one night, got up with resolute fury and left. No, he didn’t go for her; instead, he went out the door of the bordello, down the stairs and out into the cold breeze-less night. By that time, one of us was talking to the cutie and advising her to leave that sort of life.
-I could find you a job in Banana Republic, I’m a supervisor there –said one.
-If you find me a job that gives me four-hundred dollars a night, then I don’t wanna hear.
Once outside, I confronted Michael.
-Man, there’s no need to get romantic with a hooker –I told him. –It’s impersonal.
But to Michael, the game was a whole different thing.
Yes, I think, different girls for different things. We can’t take home everything we find in our way. Some girls are just for luxury. No matter what, though, we seem to chase after misery. We love the ones that neglect us, and neglect the ones that love us.

The delicate balance between pleasure and duty

For a moment, I was about to go on the previous subject which I left halfway. I don’t owe my readers anything; in fact, I’m not even sure if there is such a thing as a reader. My mind wanders often, and I seek excitement even in my writings… But the idea is that we must follow our course of action till the end in mind comes through. We tend to think negatively of inconsistency. Take destruction, for instance. I walk empty floors that undergo construction for weeks at a time, and then there is a complete new floor, much better than the one before. If I destroy a bad habit, like smoking cigarettes, and lose some weight, then the impact –to my belief –is a positive one. But our ideas of destruction and pain are focused wrongly. Pain may represent an opportunity to grow beyond measure. If we learn to look at things in the same conflicting light as they appear, nothing will ever come out of it. It is believed that our human condition is meant for us to suffer. Why? Well, imagine what life will be like if we were to be comfortable with any given situation in our lives? We will automatically cease to exist, in a way. That is, if I made enough money already, then I don’t need to work. But such scenario never takes place. In fact, what seems to be the norm is a vicious cycle which keeps us in. What is the alternative in this case? One would be to find those things that are not worth suffering for: one of them is being in a state of preoccupation. Worrying seems futile a condition although it may have its advantages. As I said previously, suffering could very well be a part of our nature and hence the idea is to make life tolerable. But since we are aware of the condition and its function, then we may get rid of its experience altogether. Instead of setting out to live in a perpetual state of adventure, make plans to party and have a blast from time to time. An ideal balance between pleasure and duty should suffice. But perhaps still more ideal would be that our duty was creatively fruitful; that is, to engage in something that rewards our sense of purpose. We should have a pleasurable time with our task and at the same time make our time-off a duty to ourselves.

To be continued...

Things happen in an impulsive way, and it takes months before an action you had in mind comes into fruition. Sometimes, you wonder, why the path to perfection seems so unsteady and at times as if we were not interested ourselves in getting there, and then the answer dawns: things take place subconsciously. But how does this really work? It is easy to say that we have little, if any, power over what transpires, and another different thing is to actually demonstrate it. For instance, these words which I use to explain myself have been tested somehow before, and these very ideas are no strangers to me. So, in doing the things we want to, firstly we must take in consideration several things: one, and most importantly, is time; secondly, habit; thirdly, the location or place. All of these things don’t always work in coordination and sometimes you find that inspiration comes when you can’t really do nothing because you are at work, for example. At other times, you are into the habit of doing certain things with your time and when the moment comes to exercise whatever it is that you want to put in place, your instincts betray you.