General nonsense

old souls – dead souls

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Yesterday I randomly came across this list of ’12 reasons why old souls have such a hard time finding love’. Normally I would think it was mumbo-jumbo – ‘old souls’? And who the hell is out looking for love?

Still it spoke to me in several ways. Truths:

  • Left unchecked, their hyper-intuitiveness can wreck relationships
  • They often have a greater purpose that must be attended to first – one that love would distract them from (They usually have to accomplish quite a bit on their own before they find love – this is because old souls love deeply, and completely. To be given love too soon would keep them from the other important things they are here to do)
  • They’re natural healers, and often attract people who need help, not love (at some point in time, it’s crucial for them to realize that they have to choose a partner, not a student, or a charity case)

I have written in recent months about how I have seen this final point repeat so many times that it is impossible to count by now. I went back to old journals and snippets I’d written down somewhere – the pattern has repeated throughout my entire life, a history I had not even guessed the depths of until I went far enough back into old journals. I remarked on this tendency so many times and more than once resolved to take another path.

But it’s so hard not to get ensnared: by the time you realize that someone needs help more than love, it’s already too late.

Sexuality

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In my experience, anyone who avidly, eagerly gives voice to his own ‘sexual generosity’, talking it up, is fooling himself. Why would you need to brag if your prowess speaks for itself? Also in my experience, straight men are the only people who, generally speaking, do this. (Always exceptions, of course.) They are, quite often, as with many other aspects of life, a lot of talk and very little action – and this mismatch between saying and doing leads to a whole hell of a lot of dissatisfaction and frustration.

Thus, it comes as no surprise to me or anyone else to learn that a recent survey concludes that lesbians give women far more orgasms than men.

“You could say that straight women are least likely to achieve orgasm during sex, but it’s just as true to say that if you have sex with a straight man, you’ve chosen the demographic least likely to make you come.”

I’m ignoring the “you’ve chosen” statement above, as most people don’t choose their sexual orientation or the ‘demographic’ from whom they seek sexual pleasure (although I grant that anyone could at any time choose to have an experience with just about anyone if they want to). But clearly the idea that it’s a choice is still something pervasive for a lot of people. When I shared the original article via social media, there was the inevitable comment: “So are you converting?” Could there be a more idiotic question? It’s no wonder things are the way they are in the world. Even if there were a choice, this assumption that someone would choose the option where she gets more sexual completion ignores all the other parts of interaction and relationships?! As if the orgasm is the only thing that matters to anyone in the long run. I guess we know where the person who would ask this question places importance.

The survey attempts obvious explanations, e.g. women intimately know the anatomy of other women, so of course they will give each other more orgasms. I tend to agree with the article in that it criticizes this glib conclusion. Every woman (and man) is different and responds to stimuli differently. Even ignoring interpersonal, individual chemistry, it does not come down to mechanics and technique alone, although those factors help. The article points out – not that this will come as any surprise either – that heterosexual sex is, implicitly, focused on the man’s pleasure and outcome first and foremost, so when it’s done for the man, the whole experience is done.

And, as poet Howard Nemerov will remind us anyway – and this is probably true for all of us, no matter our orientation, gender or age – “We think about sex obsessively except
During the act, when our minds tend to wander.”

Reading Pornography in Old Age
-Howard Nemerov

Unbridled licentiousness with no holds barred,
Immediate and mutual lust, satisfiable
In the heat, upon demand, aroused again
And satisfied again, lechery unlimited.

Till space runs out at the bottom of the page
And another pair of lovers, forever young,
Prepotent, endlessly receptive, renews
The daylong, nightlong, interminable grind.

How decent it is, and how unlike our lives
Where “Fuck you” is a term of vengeful scorn
And the murmur of “sorry, partner” as often heard
As ever in mixed doubles or at bridge.

Though I suspect the stuff is written by
Elderly homosexuals manacled to their
Machines, it’s mildly touching all the same,
A reminiscence of the life that was in Eden

Before the Fall, when we were beautiful
And shameless, and untouched by memory:
Before we were driven out to the laboring world
Of the money and the garbage and the kids

In which we read this nonsense and are moved
At all that was always lost for good, in which
We think about sex obsessively except
During the act, when our minds tend to wander.

The life of beautiful fools – No time like the present

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I had no intention of starting off today’s writing talking about Bill Paxton. But the dude went and died at only 61 after complications from surgery. (My history working in a surgical field, of course, makes me morbidly curious about the complications, but that is totally beside the point.) Bill Paxton appeared in more films and shows than I can count. For me, he is first ‘Chet’, the horrible older brother in the silly-stupid 80s flick, Weird Science – who would have imagined the career he ended up with based on that role? And later, although he appeared in many major blockbusters, his strength as an actor shone through in roles like TV’s Big Love and films like A Simple Plan and the disturbing Frailty (which he also directed), where his quiet conviction and ‘everyman intensity’ were on full display.

Apart from losing the actor, I think we’re once more reminded that our tendency to defer, to postpone, to wait… until everything is settled, figured out, the docket is cleared … is a waste of time. How does it do us any good? If you wanted desperately to do something, go somewhere – or whatever propels your dreams – why are you not doing it? Surely there are reasons why something is not realistic or why you think you need to wait.

But how many of those reasons are just excuses and fear? It’s easy to obscure what is important because sometimes following your heart is the much harder road to take. Should you not at least evaluate and question whether you are living how and doing what you want? What’s the worst that can happen? It’s a shame that it takes an untimely or unexpected death – of a family member or a friend, of a person in the public eye – to make us see that the present is all we have. Can you afford to wait?

After all, what happens to a dream deferred (Hughes)?

Safe in Sweden: Intent versus content

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Nothing at all has happened in Sweden – nothing out of the ordinary.

Various disciplines focus on the form versus content debate. I’m not going to get into the philosophical or artistic underpinnings of this discussion.

I will only make two points/observations.

First, we live in a time when the content of news does not matter because, according to the current US president, it’s all fake (at least, that is, if he doesn’t like it). Form still matters because of course the loudest, widest platform is going to carry the “fake news” (the facts) out to broader audiences – as well as the fairground funhouse that is the Trump administration and its lies. This past weekend, Trump invented an incident in Sweden – bloviating as usual – decrying how Sweden has basically gone to hell in a hand basket due to its welcoming refugees into the country. The ‘incident’ he cites, of course, never happened. All of Sweden is wondering what the hell he is talking about. (But then, who doesn’t wonder what he is talking about most of the time?)

My second thought, by extension, is about intent. Maybe the content (or the veracity of it) does not matter; maybe even the form is secondary. But what about intent? Trump may well know that nothing happened in Sweden – but his intent with virtually everything he says and does is to obfuscate fact, plant seeds of doubt and confuse people (there are apparently people out there who take the things he says at face value, believe them, pass them on; some even believe that some event did occur in Sweden, and that the entire world, Sweden included, is conspiring to cover it up?!). We will all busy ourselves making fun of this blunder to the degree that we will (continue to) be distracted from whatever shady and nefarious dealings are actually happening right under our noses.

I had a discussion with someone the other day about conversations and letters we exchanged early in our acquaintance. He asked me what I feel about them now that many years have passed. I laughed and said, “I can’t believe how full of shit they are.” He was pretty offended, even hurt (misinterpreting what I said, taking it personally). He explained that he had remembered the flow, the feeling and sense of possibility – and moreover, the intent – much more than he remembered the actual content. It made a lot of sense – he has always been more of a feeling and intent person. I, on the other hand, always hang onto the content itself (another dear friend said the other day, and I loved this: “as a person who values words so very very much, how when I am misled by words it’s not the words themselves but the complete lack of value that the speaker puts in them”. As always she hit the nail on the head; another great example of her eloquence and wisdom). It was perhaps the first time I really thought somewhat academically about content versus intent (even though I write all the time about people’s words versus actions, which is essentially the same debate). We cannot always know intent but as a part of analysis and “reading” people and moderating our own expectations, inferring/predicting intent may be our saving grace. Or at least save us a whole lot of trouble.

On the other hand, acting on what you imagine someone’s intent may be is dangerous. It’s like arresting someone before they commit a crime or, like Trump, deciding that every Muslim or every refugee is some kind of terrorist sleeper agent. He “infers intent” – but based on nothing. That is the difference. You don’t assume someone’s intent without taking in the content and context in which it lives.

Photo (c) SDH Photography/Sebastian Davenport-Handley

stunted growth

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Damaged by upbringing, forms of emotional abuse, observing dysfunctional relationships, we realized these things are nothing we wanted for ourselves. We have never been inclined to get too deeply involved or be too committed to others, so we are not the kinds of people who will ever marry or pair off, for example, even if we were in love. People like us, we just don’t trust other people’s emotions or intentions and feel we have had to be completely independent. And even if we have acknowledged and can see this, why would we take a big chance or invest much trust in another person’s feelings? Why would we tether ourselves to people whose feelings and decisions clearly cannot be trusted or relied on – a(n) (unconscious) way to continue being non-committal?

You don’t own me; I don’t own anything

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Don’t people’s lives sound a lot more interesting or exotic on paper than they are in the big scheme of things? I run into this problem, if you could call it a problem. I look at the day to day, mundane process of slogging through life, and I doubt my life looks particularly interesting. But other people tell me how amazing it sounds to dash off to different European cities on the spur of the moment. Yes, maybe these “highlights” sound fascinating … whether the moving from country to country and taking on new challenges and whatever, but all the mundane stuff like dealing with immigration authorities (as I used to do), tax authorities, walking through knee-deep snow to get to the mailbox, shoveling snow on a daily basis just to be able to walk from car to house, the boring task of choosing what food to eat, making sure pictures are hung straight on the wall, vacuuming, getting medical checkups and so on… all of that is, well, not that exotic, interesting or sexy. (For any person who has only lived in one place and not lived somewhere significantly different… or a person of any nationality who has stuck with what is most familiar in one place all their lives, the novelty of the day to day differences can seem cool and exotic for some time if the frustration of it does not push them over the edge first.)

My life produces more than its share of monotony, especially since I do push myself to work A LOT. I do sometimes do very random, spontaneous things that sound thrilling when tossed out casually, e.g. “I dashed off to Brussels for the weekend” or, as I recently did, “I went to Berlin one day just to see a movie and fly home.”  But life is still mostly about going to the store, buying too much dental floss, fighting to get sleep, making sure not to hit the random moose who runs out into the road, feeling sorry for myself on rare occasions (5-10% of the time, maybe?) because I am “alone” (even though I readily choose this), etc. etc. By comparison (and why should we ever do too much comparison?) others may feel that their lives sound dull, but for me, most people’s lives are fairly interesting (some more than others)… in the end, it is more about what they have to say, what they bring to the conversation. I think I would be boring and empty if all I had to talk about was something that was “surface exciting”. Monotony can be, in fact, comforting sometimes.

How many conversations end up being about balance? It all comes down in the end to balance, doesn’t it? I love the idea of a perfect balance of monotony/routine and spontaneity. But while I have monotony, I am always doing weird stuff and making plans to “set sail” (as someone once eloquently put it)… but this is also why I am unsettled, why I cannot commit to furniture or force myself to make the kinds of domestic changes I should make. Different levels of bucking the trend. I don’t want to make the choices. I don’t want to make the choices at all. I don’t want to admit that this is “it” and somehow imagine that by not furnishing the inside of the house to my taste and doing renovations is somehow making all of this temporary, something I can walk away from in a heartbeat. This might be one of the ways I fool myself. I don’t think anything is ever permanent, but my need for running and running and seeking adventure need not be at odds with my (somewhat hidden and unrealized) desire to settle in somewhere, even if it is a place into which I don’t settle into a daily life.

Ownership is a funny thing, isn’t it? I did not mind taking the step of owning my house or various pieces of property I’ve had in my ownership for brief or long periods of time, but that was mostly because comparing it to the idea of renting was more terrifying and a good deal more expensive. But then, perplexingly, owning a table is a much more difficult proposition. In fact I don’t really own any of the furniture in my house. All of it belongs to a friend; I am the recipient of sort of temporary furniture that may or may not be temporary. And I like it because I feel no ownership or connection to it. I am just a babysitter. Maybe it all comes down to my not wanting to care about stuff. I have prided myself on being mobile and spontaneous (which is funny since I come from a family of pack rats). I love getting rid of things… and not acquiring too many things in the first place (except maybe kitchen stuff).

I have given thought to the idea that getting rid of stuff, and by extension making major changes in life, is sometimes a form of running away from oneself (getting rid of yourself), and I know sometimes that I am guilty of this. “Guilty” might be too strong a word, but it fits for the moment. I think of a poem (“I Cannot”) by Polish poet Anna Swir, which simply reads: “I envy you. Every moment/You can leave me./I cannot/leave myself.” Sometimes being able to leave oneself would feel so liberating. And completely without compromise. Just you – and not even the you that you are today. A new you, again and again. But then, you would not really be able to leave yourself – the real you – no matter how many times you reinvent. Ownership – owning yourself – your own.

And would anyone know the difference? Particularly if you have lived your entire life conditioned to stand on your own two feet (and what else am I doing?). At some point, it actually becomes tiring to be perceived as that strong and independent. While I may like making my own decisions and doing what I want in life, I cannot see that there is an alternative. I have considered sometimes that I have  reached a point where people seem to think I am incapable of compromise and relish the total independence, as if I cling fiercely to it. In fact it might not always be the ideal – I like the idea of discussing and making decisions with someone else, if for no other reason than to get a second opinion. It is not so much that I second guess myself, but I think there is a certain amount of emptiness in how I do things. No misunderstanding though: people just perceive that I am incapable of compromise, but I am not incapable. People look at my life and see that I have plowed ahead and made choices, travels, moved abroad, studied, taken career, financial, property decisions on my own, and that signals that I am like an uncompromising bulldozer. But I have to – I have to live my life. I know many people who have spent lifetimes sitting on the sidelines, waiting for someone else to show up and instruct them in what to do. I don’t judge them for wanting partnership – who doesn’t on some level – but in the absence of it, is life long enough to just sit and wait, letting fear manifest in excuses? In this way, in fact, it is not me who does not compromise. It’s those who do nothing and make no choices, just waiting. That is the true compromise.

drop like a rock

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It is strange how disrupting a routine can set an emotional downturn into motion. Getting tired and overstimulated by socializing, and then feeling a great urge to sleep and do nothing else turns the mind inside-out. The great productivity and motivation of the past six weeks gives way to at least a couple of days of despondency, feeling a certain emptiness that feels like it comes suddenly, from nowhere. But all the signs that it would arrive were waiting to ignite, alongside a building resignation.

At least it only lasted for about two sleep-filled days. Now it is – and I am – back to normal. I suppose that is what we always hope for – normalcy and balance.

The best way to get there is to go back to what was before all the disruption, before all the up-down-all-over-the-place. Back to the quiet of place and mind. Back to a time before the little sounds of hope (and crashes of dashed hope) chimed.

Photo (c) 2007 Karen

Micro pen pal

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Years and years ago, I knew a guy who was intelligent, nice and cultured. We lived in different cities but had many lovely conversations about music and art and the world in general. But at some point, he kept backing me into corners with his feelings and suggestions. And what do I do when backed into a corner? I push my way out with (verbal) fists flying.

For me, he was a pen pal, whom I saw on occasion when in his city, but he interpreted all of it to mean I also wanted some kind of romantic relationship. I thought after meeting that I had made it – and repeatedly did – abundantly clear, that I had no interest in this whatsoever. But beset by lack of self-esteem, an inexplicable persistence and jealousy, I suppose he thought anyone who would talk to him as much as I did must have felt something else, something more, but … it was next to impossible to see redeeming qualities that would make someone be attracted to him. Not because he was repellent, ugly or stupid or anything like that. No, it boiled down to his COMPLETE lack of confidence and accompanying spinelessness.

One summer when I was visiting his city, I stopped by his place to pick him up to go to a gallery. While waiting in his tiny flat, he came out of the shower (undressed) and said, “OH, I did not realize you would be there.” Where the hell else would I be in this micro apartment? (I could not help but notice, in the midst of this particular awkward “overture” on his part, that the apartment was not the only “micro” item in the room.) Eventually this kind of behavior made me run away, realizing that it was not possible to be friends and that he could not, in the absence of other viable options, deal with the direct truth (my telling him he is cool but not for me romantically just made him try harder and annoy me more). Given his hard luck and “nothing going for him” nature, I also didn’t want to hurt him. But any compassion or kindness, he misinterpreted as (ardent) interest. After enough of these misunderstandings, I felt frustrated, angry and trapped, and this is when I lash out most cruelly.

At some point, in the midst of a couple of stupid affairs I was having (which I used as fodder for making him jealous/angry enough to stop talking to me and leave me alone, which never worked. Instead I got lectures about devaluing myself; certainly all true, but nothing I wanted to hear) I indirectly compared his penis to Brussels sprouts (i.e., when he said I had never had sex with him, so I should try him out to get over an obsession with someone else, to which I replied, “That is like telling a heroin addict that she will stop shooting up if she just eats some Brussels sprouts.” As he well should have, he got angry and hurt).

But what upset me was that the next day — and this was the crux of his total problem with women, people and success in general — he sent me flowers and apologized for getting angry. Seriously?! He had every right to be hurt and angry, and what he should have understood is that he needs to own that anger and lay down the law. He should have told me, “You have no right to talk to me that way.” But no, he just took it. And that is so utterly unattractive in another person.

At some point this kind of talk finally made him so angry that he stopped contacting me for three or four very peaceful months. I enjoyed that time because, most of all, I respected that he finally took a stand. Unfortunately he was never going to know about the respect or get credit for it because it would all disappear if he were to contact me again, which he did.

Thereafter (still years and years ago), for the most part he seemed to accept that I would never be interested, but on occasion he would do something like send flowers at Valentine’s Day and make some remarks that would again push me into petty territory (talking about my ultra-promiscuous life with lesser intellects) and sheer cruelty: “Ah the Married Idiot (one of the erstwhile affairs, whom this guy hated and had the most jealousy for) is in town this week and wants to get together.” His reply, “That guy has HUGE problems.” Seeing “HUGE” written in all caps like that made me immediately respond, wickedly, cruelly, inexplicably, just to be hurtful, “That’s not all he has that’s huge.” ?! What on earth was wrong with me?

After this, he got mad, as I hoped, and went silent… for a while at least. I am happy to report that sometime soon after, he finally met someone who loves him and probably does not treat him in a cruel and careless way, the way I, his pen pal, did.

Gothenburg

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This evening I am heading to Gothenburg for a few days – friends, music, getting away from the norm, and was just thinking about one of the times I was there when I used to work in the city. I stayed in different hotels almost every week, which in some ways should sound like a small kind of adventure – but felt more like a thankless part-time job (that some would find fun), but it is one of the many things that contributed to the deterioration of my quality of life in a big way. Now I choose to go for fun.

One of these hotels, Pigalle, looks like an old French bordello (no wonder – Pigalle – its decor is what you would expect), bedecked in dark lighting, a lot of fringe, gaudy wallpaper and velvet. The desk clerk, haughty like a madam and unresponsive like an overprivileged millennial, passed around the front desk computer (a Macbook) to some guests like she was transmitting syphilis. I was thinking, “Really? You just hand over the same computer where guest information is stored to guests to let them check their email?” When I stayed there, the place was covered in scaffolding and construction noise filled the rooms from morning to evening. I laughed heartily in my room when I saw the the “in-room refreshment” basket that offered up a small Snickers bar for 50 SEK (about 6 USD). Across the street, at the grocery store, these same Snickers bars were on offer – buy 5 for 20 SEK or something.

I have not fully squared myself with the ‘sharing economy’, for example, never finding something like Uber to be my cup of tea (it’s weird enough for me to take actual taxis – and I am really not onboard with the labor practices). But airbnb I have embraced at least some of the time (especially when I have to be somewhere for a longer-term stay). A flat in central Gothenburg rather than a cramped whorehouse bedroom sounds like a better plan.

Photo (c) 2016 Maria Eklind

aged

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The beauty of being older is that you may experience pain but you know it’s only temporary. You will float right out of it eventually. You have all the evidence in memory and sometimes even in writing that all the things that so wounded and destroyed you when you were younger, and continued to do so over and over, will keep happening, and you will get over all of it. You will come right out the other side of the pain and feel almost as good as new.

Reading notes I’d jotted down from 1996, 2001, 2011, and various other points throughout, I see my pain splattered all over the pages, remembering exactly what I was doing, where I was sitting, even how I was breathing or crying or wringing my hands or writhing in physical pain, when all these catastrophes occurred – real catastrophes and crises or just those minor dust-ups that inveigle the heart – and I can even smile at this repeated pouring out of the fucked-up muck of life. All that agony, frustration, keeping up appearances, feeling used, tremendous loss, self-torture, deconstructing so many illusions, treading water, fecklessness, justifications: all of it felt like something once but eventually becomes something you don’t consciously remember.

Photo (c) Paul Costanich.