There´s Edna, the Turkish girl who once dated me, as opposed to the other way around. It had to be explosive, she said, but it really was not. Sex, that is. "It's not that it was bad" she said, "it's that I thought it'd be mind-blowing, out-of-this-world good. You are so out there, in everything else."
That led to a long conversation that praised the benefits of feminism in the sixties that granted women more rights and therefore independence. How such movement indirectly caused the monstrosity of broken homes; now, a "man" could simply pick up and leave the childbearing to the mother with a small price to pay. How feminism, as a by-product, created this wuss epidemic that women everywhere suffer for. We talked of the necessary evil of Kensey. Ultimately, we agreed on the necessity to celebrate this self-made macho that has come of age. Out of all the progressive turmoil that the fair sex revolution imposed on us modern men, stuck between all the forces of ghosts past and present pulling us in every direction. We now find ourselves wandering the desolate land of our self-inflicted misfortune (yeah, laws aren't passed by without men's consent), not sure which way to turn forward and knowing only that we cannot go back. It may offer unlimited options.
Who knows? It may very well be a blessing in disguise.
And so, that conversation stuck with me but the ¨me¨ that I am at any given time is up for review, an upgrade; therefore, who I was back then no longer is. It's interesting how an internet personality tried to dismiss the attempt at immortality by having oir thoughts and memory replicated so that it can be saved for posterity. He countered that such move wouldn't probably be in vain given that our real personality would die with us and that the digital version of us would just be another entity apart from the one that ceased to be. In principle, he's right, nothing continues being the same and so if someone's memories and feelings and ways of being are plastered over to a digital version, that version would still be a replica of the one you once were.
But if the machine copies every digital venture of yours, it'd be easy to map people and places that they attend. There will one day be a way to transfer ourselves unto a digital realm. We're getting more in synched with technology everyday. What's more, one day the line where said technological world ends and humanity begins might be indefinable, blurred. More importantly, though, we are constantly updating ourselves internally, literally re-creating every cell moment to moment. Who we are now, will not be for long. Things are in a constant state of flux.
Back then, I was just glad I landed a girl that lively, worldly, and so bluntly outspoken. Never before nor ever again I were to meet a girl who was my superior intellect, in every way imaginable. She was just that bright. Everyday is an adventure with someone like that. Except all women before her were not as vocal or as prone to signal discontent. And though she used a cordial tone to point out every trivial flaw in my sexual technique, I knew there was only thing to do: do her better the next time around.
I spent three days eagerly consuming literature on the subject, watched videos on YouTube, Google every plausible connection to the subject at hand.
Of course, half way through the erudite rush, I contemplated the uselessness of my task. This wasn't a skill I could master as some irresponsible student binge-reads through dummy books and classroom notes the night before the big exam. This was something that needed patience, dedication and, of course, all of those things demanded time. Time I did not have but still, I persevered, intent as I am on finding things out, how-to-do lists, books, the miracle of the digital age literally at my fingertips.
The next time around, I was much, much wiser than the embarrassment we had laid to waste.
I took her and put her facing up against the wall, after a casual date and harmless topics of conversation. I held her there so that she feel my strength over hers, her body all transpired from a long day of summer exhaled an intoxicating fragrance. My heart raced steadily, like a caged, wild, rapacious bird of prey, vigorously cautious in waiting for a chance to escape and, if only momentarily, claim freedom as a permanent residence beyond the strict social norms and peer-pressure confines set by nefarious men in power so that they have a sexual monopoly over our women.
And then there was Angie, who had a legion of admirers who would all give gifts and flowers, pick her up in fancy rides, take her places other girls only dream of. Hot girls go places, in case you didn´t know. All they have to do is flash a smile and the door is open or a seat is granted. Oh the awful things us men have to do to just get from home to work and back, the humiliations endured on our way, the desolation, the raging hormones in our body chemistry, high levels of testosterone as a result of strenuous sets of physical activity. We wake up early, and take on the world, then we have breakfast.
Perhaps is a curse, but early on and still in many levels it still goes on, that I prefer some substance to my girl. It has to be a challenge, a tease, sexy, serious, all the things that drive a man of substance wild. If a girl owns more than one of any of these traits, even better. But better yet, we generally will settle for half the package if the girl has not adopted the types of behaviors in personality that make lovers awful, and here I take aim at some of these very issues, so that you can transcend them: jealousy, anger, possessiveness, timidity, desperation. All of those states of mind that derive from anxiety. So, how do we deal with it? Well, we do. Regardless of how we should, we have in place a system that regulates our emotions, our drives, our impulses, temptations, all of our own unique melodramas, the ones taking place in one place only, all at once: your mind.
Here, we see clearly the picture that the mind conceives of. What we see is only possible because we have conceive of it, nurtured it, seen it a thousand times before. So, you react in similar ways under a set of similar stressors, then we can take a look at the type of mechanism you have in place to cope:
Is it alcohol? Cigarettes? Internet? Friends? Family? Gamble? Is it your relationship? Your job? Too much TV? A sedentary lifestyle? What ails you? What really hurts and why, right now?
¨Make a mental map of the pain you feel throughout your body¨ I tell her, as part of a guided meditation. In seven minutes, she emerges much more vibrant and crystal-clear than she had been in days. Ah, the wonders of meditation.
You sit and inhale slowly in, let your lungs be full, and hold it for a few seconds before you, again, slowly exhale. Both inhaling and exhaling are not necessary parts of meditation. This is just to help the individual meditating individual to bring about the right state of mind faster than just trying to sit in silence and just be. Not doing, not producing, not even meditating. When you meditate, fully immersed in the moment, the notion of meditation disappears, it was never something that you did. It has how you became undone. Unsung.
Your eyelids become heavier and heavier, repeatedly, it will put to sleep. The tone you use with someone who is in an altered state of mind. The energy with which you walk into a room. The favors you grant. The things past lovers say of you. Were you any good? Did they come back? Were you on the losing end? Who hasn´t?
Thing is, solitude is among the most precious gifts bestowed upon a man. A man needs to retreat to a place where there are no others, no TV, no phone, no Facebook, nothing. To a man, there´s no better place in solitude than having the place to himself. We spend less time with each as adults than we did with parents and other family members when little. Depending on others was never easy, but it had all the right connections. Sisters, mom, and our beloved Zoraida. A woman that lived with us for years: she started off as being our maid since my mom went mad with power and actually hired a maid, money was not an issue so long as she kept on being the mistress of a wealthy man. How wealthy? His father owned the second largest chain of pharmacies in the major coast cities, and when he was involved with mom, we had only the best: private school to which we were picked up for and the best education. It lasted three glorious years, and I savored every moment of it. We even moved to a better neighborhood, and rented a bigger apartment. We would go to Santa Marta or Cartagena every other weekend. Zoraida would come with us.
Zoraida was a kind person. She was very shy, unbearably naive, and right away you knew she was infectiously childlike, so characteristic of good people.
We all loved her. My aunt wanted to extradite her to the States, have her as her own maid. Thing is, when mom´s lover left a few years later, she spent all the money squandered off the guy throughout the years in a matter of weeks. We were broke, and that´s when things changed around home. My mom did not want that for us, so she went and worked at a high class hotel casino, as a shot hostess or something, and there she met other men whom she occasionally bedded. But we got to keep the private school, the bus that brought us back and forth, home to school and then school home. We had no money to pay Zoraida, but she stayed with us so long as she had a place to sleep, eat and that´s it. She was more like a pet. We like to degrade people with animal metaphors, but animals deserve better! Therefore, men are dogs is, once again and for all, fine. That is one cute analogy I can live with. Dogs are loyal, if anything, and they are great companions, not detached or emotionally unattainable as cats. Cat people, that´s a red flag. No, well, I admire cats, don´t get me wrong and I´ve loved more than one cat lady in my lifetime,
Who doesn´t love a pet? She wasn´t confrontational. She didn´t have anywhere to go. Who works for free? That and then some was erased the minute you met her. It was good fortune having had the pleasure of meeting someone like her.
Yeah, I always omit real names, but this really is her name. I will name her and call her only by her name. Who doesn´t have a Zoraida in their childhood? Oh I´ve been fortunate with women from the one who brought me here, to her mom, to my many sisters (four), I was the only boy in the house.
I was always a cat person, then I learned social tricks like the dogs. Dogs are far more social and the most successful species after us, simply because they assimilated us, they imitated us, they were there to serve and cheer and were happy when you got back home and sad when you left in the morning, and always loved going for a walk.
Cat people? Don´t get me started. For starters, there is no walking a dog, no. There´s no amusing trick that the cat would play if it doesn´t serve the cat. Only the cat can find the cat so fascinating that it kind of brushes off its own magnificence. Who does that? Who gets to be so cool that doesn´t really care for it? Cats do. They get away with presenting themselves as enigmatic domestic ninjas, with claws and sharp teeth, it meows almost like a baby would as opposed to something as grotesque as barking. Cats are silent and self-sufficient; you can leave them for a couple of days, just provide them with food and plenty water, and toys. Cats do love to play, just you are not included. Cat people too, often devise their own schemes, themes, and crayons. A little piece of cloth would not call its attention but dangle it before their eyes and suddenly their interest is piqued. Cat people, unlike cats, are still human, part of an ultrasocial specie like ours. Yes, I was and still am a cat person. It´s just that I adopted some mean dog ways.
The Dog I envision isn´t just any dog. The Dog Metaphor, among the things that are Unsung. As in All Men are Dogs, that simply isn´t fair to the dog. A Man Dog of his Prime it is very much in touch with his wolf nature; in fact, dogs are very much like the ideal version of humans: they can be vicious with the enemy, even lethal; they can protect and guide a herd; they have super senses that can be put to good use. The dogs are not selfless completely: they somehow find freedom in limited space, always manage to be cheerful esp. when they see us sad; dogs are clock-alarms, residential guardians, and a whole lot of other things one can explore as we move along.
How dogs managed to use us to their advantage, after all it is a really good deal for the dog to be taken out of the wild (their ancestors were wolves), get fed and cared for, have a place to stay, streets to roam, trees to pee on. We don´t pay our dogs; but some dogs render invaluable services: policies dogs, special agent dogs, trackers, herders, etc. We can see how their service really has no match and luckily for us all they demand is some love in the form of food, a little petting´s all.
As
(the fact is, who you are is a work in progress.