It Isn’t Raining Men
I have a necklace with the Yin-Yang symbol on it. I am not strictly a Taoist or disciple of any given religion per se, but the concept of balance is one that is deeply rooted in my consciousness. I do believe in moral absolutes, so that is not strictly a Yin-Yang principle, but I for the most part believe in avoiding total immersion in one single concept.
My own introversion for example is tempered at times by extroversion. I am a political progressive with a few view points that are not on that platform. You get the idea.
Then there are the genders. I am of course totally a man. No ambiguity there. But I do believe the most well rounded men and women are those that are exposed, often and at an early age, to the psychology and perceptions of the opposite gender.
To be clear, I believe in gender equality, but not gender congruence, as it were. Men and women are different. Exceptions abound everywhere, but each gender does have a certain hard wiring in the brain, and hence a certain psychological make up that springs forth from same. So seeds of both genders are needed in a well balanced person’s psyche, just as elements from both genders are required physically to bring about a baby.
Female influence I did not and do not lack in my life. My father died when I was seven, and I grew up with my widow mother and kid sister. For years we lived with my oldest sister. She eventually had twin girls, and indeed with one exception all of my siblings had all girls. I have one nephew and ten nieces. So the problem is not with the opposite gender, but with my own gender. As in I wonder sometimes if part of the reason I am Too XYZ is the lack of appropriate male guidance when I was young and sufficient male company now that I am an adult.
I do have a brother, with whom I do not speak any more. He made it clear from very early on that he found little value in me outside of being a sometimes amusing distraction. But he never did make any investment in my well being, and almost never took the time to engage me on my terms. Once during a family emergency he didn’t even bother feeding me when I had to sleep at his house. He and his then wife had all the food because they were the “adults”. Obviously not a male role model there.
Several uncles remained distant once my father died, as well. When they did come around they only ever spoke to the other adults about people that had died 15 years before I was even born. When I was spoken to, it was briefly and for entertainment value. I don’t speak to one of those uncles because of his poor behavior. With another, I simply feel awkward. I don’t know what to say to him as an adult.
As a kid in school I had male friends of course, but I rarely got invited to anything outside of class. One of them even asked at one point, “What kind of person doesn’t have a father?”
I only ever spent any time with one classmate outside of school, and he had a very domineering mother. Both he and his father were quite well whipped by the time I met any of them. Don’t know where he is today. Don’t care.
For a time I was in the “Big Brothers” program. My big brother was a decent man, to be sure. But while my mother was hoping to instill in me some of that male influence, “Joseph” was actually about as timid at 24 as I was at 11.
It wasn’t until high school that I had male friends with whom I would actually do social things outside of school. Wasn’t until college that I started to make the slightest headway into any kind of emotional intimacy with men. (For most of my life, a list of my top ten closest friends has consisted of at least eight women.)
None of this is to say that I don’t consider myself a man. I do, although for a long time I honestly did not. I felt that being surrounded by women at home, at school, and other areas of my life, with little to no male contact meant that I was basically at heart, a woman. A girl who was never permitted to really be a man because he didn’t know any of them. I have moved beyond that fallacy, for the most part. Even though I still don’t have a lot of knowledge about how to do “manly” things such as fix cars and throw a punch.
Yet I still wonder if my overwhelming exposure to female perspectives, thought processes, approaches, brain wiring, speech, and home life has not in some way, when combined with my natural introversion, brought about an adult that is quieter, passive, and more introspective than average. I wonder sometimes if I would not have at least a bit more assertion and presence if I had been exposed to, and mentored by men at some point in my life.
Look, I was never going to be a hunter, mechanic, or brawler. No amount of males in my life would have made me Chuck Norris. But looking back on the memory of my dashing out the front door at age nine, trying without success to flag down the departing car full of the family men as they made their way to the shooting range to which I wasn’t even invited, I can’t help but wonder how things might have been different at key points in my life if the male/female environmental balance had been closer to 50/50.
None of this is to suggest that I inherit my weaknesses because women are weak and I have spent too much time around them. But we go back to balance. Yin and Yang, and to the natural hard wiring. What works in balance for a woman may not for a man. I am not “effeminate” in the classical and stereotypical sense, but I am skewed towards Yin for certain.
Or maybe I would have been the way I am today if I had been raised entirely by the Brute Squad. I don’t know.
What do you think? Does someone need the influence of both genders growing up to become their optimum self? Or is whatever we end up becoming the result of the seeds planted in us at birth?
AuGuest 2
(Author’s Note: This refers to the Too XYZ blog.)
Last year those who follow this blog may recall that in August I hosted several guest posters. I called it the AuGuest Extravaganza. I’d like to be able to do so again this year, and I want to hear from you!
This year I would like five contributors, one for each Monday in August. As I tend to blog on Monday’s and Thursdays, the Thursday posts will feature my personal take and additional comments on the guest posts that will appear each Monday of that week. As with last year I am doing this to mix things up a bit, and to give myself a chance to blend my own views with those of others. Some may be very close to my own worldview, and some may not match it at all. I hope to get both ends of the spectrum.
I am not particular about length of these posts, but I do want them to each pertain to some aspect of your life, career, thought process wherein you find, (or found, in the past) that you didn’t fit into your environment for reasons that cannot be quantified. As in being Too XYZ for any given thing.
It could be an event, a relationship, a job, a religion, a community, a school, a zeitgeist. Whatever speaks to you most so long as you explain that outsiderish feel you got while partaking in same, and how you responded to that. Did you ever fix it? Did it bother you? Have you moved on from it, or do you still find yourself Too XYZ for it? What have you learned? What do you want to learn and how do you hope to change? “Too XYZ” is the operative phrase for your guest post. Surprise me with your ingenuity as pertains to this prompt.
As August is approaching, I will need to know who is interested pretty soon. And when I know I will assign a due date for each party.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment, or drop me an email at tythewriter@gmx.com. Or catch me on Twitter @TyUnglebower.
Let’s hear your ideas.
Coffee Shop Blues
The “coffee shop” has become proverbial. Archetypal even. So much creativity, synergy, business, and overall fairy magic seems to radiate out from the bean stocked, foam covered holes-in-the-wall that encircle the Western World. Lives of this generation change in coffee shops.
The advertising campaign that finally puts the start-up in the black is devised by a group of three sleepless people from marketing as they split a biscotti at the corner table. The award winning article is pitched via the free wi-fi on the lap top that is sitting way too close to the vente-black..whatever. How many courtships began when someone struck up a conversation about the new blend that just arrived?
Sensational.
In my life, I have entered a coffee shop solo of my own volition twice. Twice. That is to say not going there because someone I was with wanted to go, or because I was meeting someone there. Not going there while working on a piece. But to go in to try to capture this transcendent quality all on my own. To enjoy drink in solitude and to soak up the atmosphere in hopes of either inspiration, connection, or both. I have done it twice. So much has been said about such moments, I had to at least try it out.
Nothing. Both occasions were complete wastes of time. Awkward, goofy, silent, lonely wastes of time during which no work got done.
Coffee shops and their mystique just don’t work for me. And I have been to some nice looking, independent coffee shops in my time. One of the most popular such places in my entire county is a literal 90 second walk from my apartment. I own a lap top, and am an introvert writer. Many people very nearly lose control of their bowels when I tell them I rarely go in there, and have never done so while writing.
And why not? For starters I don’t drink coffee ever. No matter how much whipped cream and Hershey Kisses you dump on top of it. But I could always order tea, which most coffee places also have. So that isn’t the main reason.
And of course I am an introvert. Me chatting it up with the barista is about as likely as me attending an outdoor alternative music festival. That is to say it could under very tight conditions happen, but not likely. The idea of me approaching another customer and asking them what they think of the coffee in order to start a conversation is about as likely as me going to that same concert and jumping into the mosh pit.
This almost eliminates the social appeal of such places for me. Unless someone that was gregarious and outgoing to a fault were to engage me, and be so damn charming I would welcome their intrusion into my tea drinking. (This scenario is probably as likely as me being naked in previously mentioned mosh pit.) And even then they would have to find me equally interesting to continue talking to me. Which is also not likely.
Which brings me to my next point. A quiet guy with a hot drink and a lap top in the corner table of a coffee shop. How many times have you read this book? Seen this movie? Four trillion or so? I know that many see coffee shops as the great equalizer. An uber-eclectic place where people of all stripes can consume the almost universally beloved beverage. Which might be true for those who come in and go out with their order. But as far as the people who stay in there, I find it safe to say that it tends to be the same demographic. Slightly more patient versions of me, or people who love the idea of me, so long as the guy with the laptop is attractive.
With so many of the same type of people, I am not going to stand out. The days of, “I see you’re a writer, what do you write,” are over. Nobody cares. Thanks in large part to the ubiquity of coffee shops and those that frequent them.
Yet still that vision of the coffee shop persists, and for many people it is true. “The people! The networking! The coffee! The artistic, independent vibe! The potential next Kurt Vonnegut clicking away at his laptop at the table next door!” To all that I say, “The pressure!”
Yes. The pressure. There are so many enthusiastic blog posts about independent artist, chick-flick,waiting-to-be-discovered-but-not-yet-ready-for-prime-time, creative juices, coffee bean inspiration, love at first sight, epiphany inducing, Gen-Y brainstorming, ragged plaid shirt and fedora wearing, cream and no sugar magnificence surrounding “The Coffee Shop” that I feel like a dullard and a failure just sitting in one if I don’t get a visit from the Archangel Gabriel with all nine muses in tow behind him.
They all probably drink coffee too.
Put another way, there is both so much physical noise and metaphorical “noise” or hype attached to the coffee shop scene that I have yet to feel inspired to action while in one. I can’t write a blog post with all of that racket, let alone work on revisions for my novel, or fall in love with the girl that runs the froth machine. (I don’t even know if there is such a thing as a froth machine. I’m making a point here.)
None of this is to say I don’t like such places. Sometimes I do. But with all of the creative, social, and professional success so many of my peers have experienced just from the simple act of sitting down by themselves in one as compared to my only ever feeling out of place and awkward when I do so, I think I am best served by going in only when someone else wants to. And even then, only if the place also serves tea.
If Introverts Spoke Like Extroverts
As most people know, for extroverts the act of thinking and the act of speaking are very much intertwined. The moment their brain conceives it is usually the moment they say it. And if both they (and you) are lucky, all of that talk leads to the bull’s eye of the conversation or question. Eventually.
Your Independence Day
From the standpoints of money, power, expertise, history and half a dozen other things, the American Colonists were never supposed to be able to win independence from the British Crown. Everything was stacked against them in every conceivable way. And when you look at the Revolutionary War from a tactical perspective, many, if not statistically most of the battles did not end favorably for the Continentals. Indeed, though we don’t like to admit it, a decent portion of George Washington’s early career as Commander of the Armies was rather lackluster.
Obviously, however, in the end, none of that mattered. Legend says that during the formal surrender of the British army at the end of the war, the band played, “The World Turned Upside Down.” And so it was.
And how did this come to be? Eventual good strategy and improved army discipline and training certainly played a large part. I will not deny that. But what else?
In short, several things. Adherence to an ideal. Refusing to play by the rules. (Of warfare or politics.) Eventual willingness to accept help from sympathetic outsiders. Refusal to quit. (Though we came close several times.) Inspired leadership, both on and off the battle field. A weariness with the status quo. A coming together of a huge eclectic mix of people from all demographics that otherwise would not be able to stand one another. And, if I may say so, some damn fine writing at the exact times it could do the most good. (Thank you, Common Sense, and The Declaration of Independence, among other printed documents.)
So it wasn’t supposed to work. But it did. It required fighting dirty sometimes. It required hot tempers. Appeals to selfish interests, and some very unfortunate kicking of important cans down the road. (Slavery.) It was a messy, long, exhausting, and for a while highly ridiculed affair that gave no indication for the longest time that it was going to end in anything but humiliation for the rebels.
Yet I write this in Maryland, which is in the United States of America, and not the British Empire.
What lessons can we take from this? What, other than patriotism, can be gained by considering this historic and world changing revolt? That we can declare our own personal independence from whatever status quo we find ourselves in. That the people around us will not think it can be done, because we have don’t have enough resources.
And because of that we will be scoffed at. Truth be told we will probably lose for a good long time at first. Long enough that we will decide it’s acceptable, in pursuit of our goal to say “to hell with conventional”, and start to play dirty. We can dive into the trenches with all kinds of different people of different strengths in order to make a change. We can appeal to interested outsiders and accept their help. We can tell the rest of the world to kiss our ass as we pursue what we decide should be our life instead of what society dictates. We can refuse to quit.
And if you are lucky enough to be good at it like I am, you can write about why you are doing it. Over and over and over again until not only are people reading what you write, but starting their own revolution within their own colonies.
From what will you declare you independence today?
Ty Unglebower 