by N. K. Peske
Imagine a day—today, for example—when you express your unique splendor and are appreciated. Go ahead, demonstrate that trick with the shot glass and the condom.
UNITY/ONENESS
All for one, one for all.
Alexandre Dumas
Part of our disease is thinking that it is up to us to do something about our situation in life and that we are all alone in a cold and unfriendly universe. What a relief to reassure ourselves that our Higher Power, our wife, or some significant other is there to take control and sort out our dirty from our clean, our whites from our brights, our dry cleaning from our hand washables. What a serene pleasure to know that we just have to sit back and let it happen.
When we recognize that the forces outside of ourselves are actually much better at this sort of thing than the force within, we begin to heal. When a man realizes that his mate is merely an extension of himself, a more capable extension that never fades his colors, then he can sit back, turn the showerhead to massage, and revel in the unity of the universe.
Healing is the experience of the oneness of all things. Therefore, in a unified universe, my mate is the same as myself, so if she goes to work, then so do I, even though I’m at the arcade playing air hockey.
What is mine is hers, so let her wash it.
FEELINGS
Feel slightly, think little, never plan.
Benjamin Disraeli
So often we are told that we must express our feelings in order to be modern men. This is a twofold dilemma. First, we must actually have these feelings, and then, as if that weren’t enough, we are supposed to talk about them.
At the urging of our significant others, we have attended weekend seminars, therapy sessions, relationship classes, couples retreats, and 12 Step meetings. We’ve tried to tap into, get in touch with, embrace, cherish, and communicate our innermost feelings. Why is it at these times we are unable to communicate that the strongest emotion we feel is irritation that we must get in touch with deep-seated emotions we don’t have?
This is a lot of effort in the service of self-deception. Today, if someone asks you “How are you feeling?” tell them you are feeling absolutely nothing. Even if this isn’t entirely true, insist upon it anyway. You’ll save a fortune in therapy bills and keep your weekends free for the only effective mental medicine yet invented, Saturday afternoon football and a case of Bud.
Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.
TRANSITION/STABILITY
Any very great and sudden change is death.
Samuel Butler
There is no hiding from the fact that transition is traumatic. Change feels like a direct, personal attack because, very often, it is.
Remember last week when your favorite plaid velour chair that you’ve loved ever since you stole it from outside Vito’s Calzone King to put in your dorm room had simply vanished? And for what reason? Because she thinks it’s ugly? Because she doesn’t care if it is comfortable, it still clashes with the carpet? Because she’s got connections down at the Salvation Army and can get next day, curbside pickup service?
No! It’s because you moved in with your girlfriend. You changed your place of residence. It’s because change means movement, transformation, readjustment. Change means work, and work means getting up out of that favorite chair, leaving it vulnerable to diabolical designers who would color-coordinate your comfort right out of existence.
If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. In fact, even if it is broken, don’t bother. It’s fine the way it is.
SECRETS
He who tells the truth should have one foot in the stirrup.
Arab proverb
Our current culture instructs us that only total honesty will pave the way to intimacy. This is because the culture is currently being manipulated by women who don’t know what’s good for them.
They don’t really want to know where you were last Wednesday night. And when she asks you if you think she’s getting fat, there’s only one right answer.
Let’s face it, truth is not always the best solution. If women were really being honest with us and themselves, they wouldn’t ask questions that they already know the answers to just to trick us into saying something that’s going to make them feel morally justified in withholding sex for two weeks.
In reality, confessions are best entrusted to priests, bartenders, and, if a large payment is involved, the tabloids. After all, if you’re rich, you can buy intimacy.
I refuse to answer on the grounds that I may incriminate myself.
WORK/RELATIONSHIPS
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
Oscar Wilde
Why are women always objectifying things? Why do they make so many demands on us? And what is all this nonsense about relationships being work? I mean, every time you see her lately she has another reference to some form of enforced relationship labor, and she was the one who insisted on calling what was a perfectly good casual fling a relationship in the first place. There’s emotional work, personal work, inner work. There’s work to share more of yourself, express your inner feelings. There’s being-somewhat-less-of-a-lazy-son-of-a-bitch-and-get-up-off-the-couch-while-you’re-at-it-and-vacu-um-something work and, of course, the ever-popular you-should-appreciate-me-more work.
This is not what you planned on when you caught that first look at her in Purchasing and asked her out for Chinese. This was not what you went through twelve pairs of edible sheets for. If you wanted to work, you would have kept your job. At least you got paid twice a month and had your weekends and holidays free.
If a relationship was meant to be work, they’d have to pay you to be in one.
ENTHUSIASM
Enthusiasm is very wearing.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Several weeks ago, I made a fundamental decision for myself. I decided that I would do only work that I was enthusiastic about. Since then I have been unemployed.
I was a barrel reamer in a munitions plant then. I decided not to ream any barrels about which I was unenthusiastic. I would not put in any hours, sweep any metal shavings, or oil any pistons just because of the money.
I resolved that I would only do things that put me in touch with myself, like reading magazines in the men’s room, or watching the babe in Purchasing bend over to pick up the pencils I dropped by her desk. After I got fired, I decided to devote myself exclusively to those things that seemed related to the meaning and purpose of my life, like watching television or judging bikini contests or napping frequently.
I feared I would end up a derelict. I feared I would starve. Thank goodness she has a job.
ATTITUDE/PERCEPTION
We don’t give a shit about inner attitude, just as long as it sounds good.
Johnny Rotten (Lydon)
I have spent the major portion of my life feeling like an empty bucket, a skinny pig, a barren field, a troutless stream. In fact, for most of my adult life, a good chunk of my childhood, and all of my adolescence, I’ve felt completely auxiliary to life.
Fortunately, adulthood has brought its compensations. Whenever I find myself feeling empty, I remind myself I’m alive by throwing a temper tantrum. I find these outbursts to be a valuable release that rids me of excess emotional gas. And there’s always something handy to get irate about: the leaky bathroom faucet, the pants your girlfriend didn’t pick up at the cleaners, the price of tea in China.
After an explosion I feel valued, I feel feared, and best of all, I feel that good kind of tired.
I’m not really empty. Even my girlfriend tells me I’m full of it.
LOVE/FORGIVENESS
Love means not ever having to say you’re sorry.
Erich Segal, Love Story
I like to think of love as one giant eraser, rubbing out all the suffering, sorrow, and ugliness between people.
When you love someone you see their scars as stars and rub until the beautiful surface that lies beneath the emotional scribbling of pain, shame, and blame shines th
rough and you can see your own reflection. Like a weathered barn, a smooth piece of driftwood, a kitchen counter with perfect ring-shaped coffee stains, love makes everything seem beautiful.
I tried to explain this to my roommate last month when my rent check bounced, but unfortunately, to her, love is an indelible marker, you know, the kind that not even all-temperature Cheer or a nuclear holocaust can wipe out, so my love eraser didn’t stand much of a chance.
I stood my ground. I told her that someone who really loved me would accept me for who I am, rubber checks and all. They would accept my inner child, my innocence, and my bad credit rating, but all she would accept was my key and a promise to have my things out by Monday.
I forgive myself for my past. I’m sure others will forgive me, too, and if they don’t, I can move cross country, grow a beard, and get an unlisted phone number.
CARETAKING/PROVIDING
You’ll be lucky to save your own ass, let alone somebody else’s.
Axl Rose
In our diseased families of origin, we were told to eat our spinach and to drink our milk so we would grow up and be big strong men who could take care of our families. A fringe benefit, we were promised, was that we would be able to finally take care of the muscle-headed jerk on the beach who has been putting sand in our trunks since we were four.
Well, here we are, all grown up, and we aren’t all Arnold Schwarzeneggers, are we? No. It all turned out to be just another deception, perpetrated by a generation of parents who all must have owned serious interest in the spinach industry.
As for taking care of our families, well, it’s pretty hard to support a vice president of Purchasing in the style to which she is accustomed on a barrel reamer’s salary. So I gave up.
I did cling to one goal, however. I am certain that with hard work and determination I can finally turn the tables on that muscle-headed jerk on the beach and dump a whole bucket full of sand down his trunks.
I will break the intergenerational chain of unrealistic expectations. I will never again eat spinach, and I am boycotting Popeye.
IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT
I despise making the most of one’s time. Half of the pleasures of life consist of the opportunities one has neglected.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
I must. I should. I ought to. I damn well better. It’s that stinkin’ thinkin’ again, telling us we aren’t real men unless we behave like explorers or continent conquerors sailing the high seas of adventure, or at least the high seas of minimum wage employment.
That all sounds great on paper or in movies starring guys like Mel Gibson, who would actually look good in one of those pert little brimmed numbers with the red-and-white checkerboard bands and the buttons that say “Have It Your Way.”
Taking risks calls for energy, a steel will, and good insurance coverage, none of which I have, so I try to stay home or as close to it as possible. Sticking my neck out and going on job interviews, traveling to places without a Burger King or cable, all cause more stress than I can deal with.
I have learned to push those “shoulds” right out of my mind. I’m no Indiana Jones, and that’s just fine with me and Mutual of Omaha.
I’m into the modern mental machismo that doesn’t require additional casualty insurance.
JOY
Yabba dabba do.
Fred Flintstone
Joy is spontaneous and unexpected. Joy cannot be planned for. It springs up and flowers on its own. What a comfort to realize that even if I never weed or water, I too can raise a crop of happiness.
What a relief to realize that we need not toil lovelessly for a mountain of materialistic mirth. We can just lie back and let joy happen. As long as we don’t set our sights too high, joy will pop up unexpectedly and uncontrollably, like dandelions in a new lawn or like mushrooms on a cow pie.
Remember when that girl down the block that you’ve been in love with since you were twelve and suggested a game of strip Twister? Or remember when you called in sick and then realized there was a Three Stooges festival on TV and you hadn’t even realized it before you called in? Remember when you discovered that you actually can put Tupperware in the dishwasher? What did you feel? Joy, right? Or at least something slightly more pleasant than the usual swift kick in the ass?
Next time you’re thinking about shelling out the fifty bucks for a dozen roses to smell, smell a dandelion instead. They don’t cost anything and require only minimal maintenance. Of course, they don’t really smell, either, but what self-respecting man wants to smell a flower, anyway?
Given enough fresh compost, I can grow anything.
LEARNING
His knowledge of books had in some degree diminished his knowledge of the world.
William Shenstone
I forgive myself for not reading. I used to feel kind of bad about it, but then I realized that life’s most important lessons are not to be found in books.
Take my bullterrier, Pizzahead. Pizza taught me the sheer joy of beef by-products, telephone poles, and bitches in heat. Now that’s what I call a life lesson. I can still see his little tail wagging as he made a beeline for the neighbor’s poodle. God, that poodle was ripe. Her legs were shaved really close, except for two little balls at her hips and feet. And she had this pink bow cocked at a coquettish angle just above her lovely azure eyes.
Pizza taught me to love life, to forget about my responsibilities and just cut loose, ears flapping in the wind, stopping only to sniff at life’s marvelous mysteries and relieve myself whenever I feel the need. I sure wish those guys who work at the state park could understand that.
Maybe if we stop thinking about education as something we find in books, we’ll actually learn something.
The world is my classroom, my poodle, and my toilet.
WHOLENESS/UNITY
Life just is. You have to flow with it. Give yourself to the moment. Let it happen.
Governor Jerry Brown
We are all like fluid. We are off on a journey to our oceans of origin. All of us, ultimately, rejoin the universal wholeness from which we have sprung and to which we will return.
Some of us begin like crisp, sparkling champagne, others like day-old Coors. Ultimately we are all consumed by some poor, bleary-eyed slob trying to get a buzz on. We all proceed through this everyman’s inner processes and are expelled once more into sewer systems that deposit us into rivers and streams whose swollen and degraded banks guide us safely back to our nascent seas.
Given the similarity between men and fluid, I would think twice about swimming in the ocean.
ESTEEM/COURAGE
There is no such thing as bravery, only degrees of fear.
John Wainwright
We’re never good enough, are we? We’re always looking for outside validation, believing we aren’t worthy of feeling good about ourselves unless we live up to ridiculously high standards that have been set for us, like steady employment, retaining our driving privileges, or moving out of Mom and Dad’s by the time we’re forty.
We deserve a positive self-image regardless of our external accomplishments. So we still live at home and Mom still washes our socks and makes our beds every morning. So we don’t have insurance, paid vacations, or a pension plan. So unemployment compensation has run out again. So the government is threatening to garnish wages we don’t even earn anymore. Are these reasons for feeling like a loser?
We don’t need to rescue people from burning buildings to feel like heroes. Waking up every morning with a will to survive takes a hell of a lot of courage.
I believe in a better tomorrow. I just prefer not to think that far ahead.
CONFLICT
It is a good rule in life never to apologize.
P. G. Wodehouse
Painful as it can be, conflict does sometimes arise. Of course, conflict takes a great deal of energy, and as we grow stronger in our conviction to do next to nothing, we must inevitably face the fact that this includes fighting, even if we are in the right.<
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We must always bear in mind that while conflict can be healthy (unless of course somebody is armed), there are easier, less tiring ways of getting our point across. We can reason our way to resolution. We can tell them the check is in the mail, the load is on the truck. We can tell them that we didn’t mean anything by that last remark, some of our best friends are Polish. Spontaneous sleep is another option. It doesn’t look good to hit a narcoleptic. Feigned drunkenness works. So does actual drunkenness. Pretend you’ve temporarily taken leave of your senses, lost your ability to swallow properly. Nobody wants to get drooled on just to make a point. The glasses thing doesn’t work anymore, but nobody hits a blind man. There are always alternatives to conflict.
Peace on earth begins with me.
AGING/YOUTH
One of the things at my age is to avoid strain.
Arnold Bennett
