Journey to Nothing

[LastThursday]

Why are so many men dickheads?

I suppose I should qualify my passive aggressiveness. Firstly, there seems to be a large imbalance between men and women, yes some women can be dicks, but definitely it applies to men more than women. Secondly, the quality of dickishness is different between men and women. Lastly, the clue is in the word: dick. Not all mean are dicks, the vast majority are not. But some do let the side down.

Typical dickish behaviours in men are (this is my experience your mileage may vary):

• Verbal and physical aggression
• Not backing down
• Bullying and harassment
• Oneupmanship
• Dismissing, not listening, being "right"
• Lacking empathy

The last in that list I find interesting. A lot of males are socialised away from being empathetic towards others. This happens because males are often taught to be disconnected from their own emotions. And by disconnected I mean not that males don't feel emotions, they certainly do, but that they aren't taught to interpret and sit with those emotions. Instead, they are taught to dismiss emotions and use rationality to explain difficult things. This often results in an immature and stunted EQ. 

How is it you can be empathetic to others when you yourself are not empathetic to your own emotions? You can't. A lot of men will dismiss even talk of emotions as not being in their realm, it is for women to deal with, and indeed a lot of men offload that responsibility on to their partners or mothers. 

A lot of men will feel deeply awkward or uncomfortable of going anywhere near talking about emotions. Even for me to simply acknowledge some of my male friends' problems and offering my empathy and help is awkward for them. Why for god's sakes?

Being a dickhead is not a male trait, it is the trait of someone disconnected from their and others' emotions; and their inability to inhabit the world of others.

I see a lot of dickishness on this forum and IRL, and it makes me sad. I feel like fighting it but it's pointless, but I understand its source. If only some men would just man-up!

Edited Tuesday at 10:18 AM by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

I'm very wordy lately. It's like the tide coming back in. 

In my magical workings so far these things have come up:

There's mostly a sense of loss as things stand and my current state is one of grieving. Some of the things which made me "me" eroded away over time. I can see the arc of that erosion in hindsight and it was mostly an organic natural process both in my control and out of my control. I think I can and should regain some of those qualities: energy, flirtatiousness (interest), creativity, love of people, humour, optmisism. My grief is making me withdrawn and inactive. There are many other qualities I feel like regaining.

There are some things I should shed. I have an inherent almost neurotic neediness to be seen and heard. Being seen instead should just be a natural consequence of those qualities I need to regain - i.e. the motivation for being seen is different, no neuroticism.

There is also a strong sense in which I don't feel worthy enough. What is strange for me is that this is at odds with my defiant sense of sovereignty. It's like deep down I'm aware of my inherent self-worth and always have been, but I doubt myself for expressing that with others. I need to shed that doubt.

A more difficult thing for me is to have greater discernment in my relationships. I have tended to drift in and out of relationships (all types) very organically. Whilst on the surface that may seem like an ok way to go about things, it has meant that I've fallen into some very dysfunctional relationships. I think I learned to tolerate dysfunctionality and become blind to it from my parents ultimately: they were not bad people, but they were/are very dysfunctional people each in their own different ways. Some of my romantic relationships were dysfunctional in hindsight and yet I continued with them for years. I suspect I'm tolerant of it because some part of me believes I too am dysfunctional and am drawn to it naturally. I will need to be more ruthless about this in future: don't get into dysfunctional relationships, and if I do without realising, don't drag them out. What is dysfunctional in this case? Many things, but primarily lack of openness, bad communication or lack of it, mismatch in needs, aspirations or style (a bit more woolly that one). But also I need to shed this idea that I am dysfunctional at core, I'm not, and the pretence that a beggar can't be a chooser. That is what the Death stage is for in my rituals however: shedding.

It's not all bad though. I have managed to keep my intelligence, general openness, and some of my good humour, all high on my list of values. And, my incessant knowledge that through constant change I can become the person I always wanted to be. I have stagnated for far too long.

 

[LastThursday]

I continue The Process, as I'm calling it. Whilst I've barred myself from documenting the mechanics of it, I'm bending my rules slightly by documenting some of the things that have come up - more as a means of keeping the record. Today it's getting older.

Consolidation

I've identified what I like to call The Spark. This is what makes me me and there is a sense in which this spark is the one and only constant in my life. I had it when I was a six year old, a nineteen year old, and now a nearly fifty four year old. 

I'm obsessed with age and mostly the consequences of it. I think I inherited this obsession from my mother who would very often reiterate that she still looked young. To her it was a kind of death to be old. Her outlook was understandable to me because her identity was based in both being a mother and being attractive; she was a peacock (I know wrong sex). She always did her hair, plucked her eyebrows and wore make up even into her seventies, she was very proud of her appearance, unlike her more sloppy son. However, there was no denying that she looked old eventually, and she knew it, but would still fight it.

My Spark is an ineffable indivisible point residing nowhere in particular. It seems to be aloof and detached from the workings of the real world where entropy and destruction and death are rife. More than anything in my life that thing has retarded my ageing process. I've come to realise that even if The Spark is detached it is not a passive observer. It modulates my very being in subtle ways. Like my mother I never thought I would get old. I'm watching myself age in real time and it's distressing.

I've had many people tell me that I'm young in presentation. My barber thought I was 35, my uncle was surprised when I told him my age (although he should know better, bad uncle!), an ex thought I was under forty when I was 45 (I could see the disappointment lol), my nephew is surprised at how young I am compared to his 55-year-old father. Much like a beautiful woman gets indirect feedback about her beauty, I have to accept the feedback of people around me: I am young still.

But I know why I'm young still. Because I've actively worked at staying that way mentally. I have matured in every way and yet I can still pull out youthful energy and excitement when I want to and I'm allowed to. In fact some of the misery I'm wallowing in is that that youthful side of me is not allowed out any more, I'm supposed behave like a wrinkly 53 year old. No. No. And NO! I won't allow it. 

It is that Spark that has kept me youthful. I've always been very aware of it and it often pulls me back to being a kid and young again. I'm blessed with a very good visual memory and many of my memories of being very young are still there. I believe every time I go back there my physiology responds accordingly retarding the ageing process, if not physically, then mentally and in appearance. My whole life is compressed and scrunched up into that Spark and I feel the entire weight of it at once. I feel that if I at once stopped identifying with it I would suddenly become old and rigid.

What to do though? 

If I am to change through The Process then should I be consciously dicking around with that idea of youth? To some degree youthfulness is immaturity, and as much as I hate to admit it to myself I am immature in some ways for precisely the same reason I am still youthful in some ways - the two are causally connected. 

Is it maturity I want? Do I need to disconnect myself from youthfulness in order to progress? Does a drug addict need to give up coke to move on? Maybe that's an unfair characterisation of myself. But there is a kind of fear of age and a fear of loss of youth that I'm addicted to. 

Should I be playing around with my Spark at all in this process? I need to go through death but how much needs to die? The issue is one of holding on to things that don't serve me any more. But the weight of that Spark holds on to everything at once, something needs to give somewhere in order that something else better can replace it. It's an extremely delicate process of cutting where every thread joins on to every other thread - and maybe it's actually impossible to do without collapsing the whole thing. What to do? Do I remove the Spark entirely.

 

Edited 19 hours ago by LastThursday
typos and elaboration