Into the Looking Glass Part I

A friend. . . If I may I call you that? Careful, if you say yes, you’ll have the fierce loyalty of a mastiff in a friend for life. 😉 I don’t use the word friend lightly.

A friend recently posted a very open, fairly vulnerable exploration of her inner self that forces the writer to recognize things about his or herself that you may or may not want to. I was inspired to do so myself and I’ve been working on the following for a couple of days now. There’s a lot more to delve into, but I thought I’d stop and share what I have some more, then continue forward on my own. I can still feel things I haven’t dug into that I’m hiding even from myself. Apparently there’s multiple steps to this process, so we’ll see what comes out of the next one.

There’s already plenty to read here, so I’ll let you delve into as much me-ness as you care to. Feel free to ask questions if you care to, I’ll answer anything honestly. You’ll only help me identify the paths that lead deeper in. =)

Beware, all ye who enter here:

Step one: Looking inward.

* I was going to preface this with, “The most difficult part is not trying to write for an audience.” It may be the best place to start. I always write with an audience intended. I don’t always share, but even then I write to someone. I want to be read, I want to be seen.

* I love the spotlight. Not fame, just being the center of attention. One of the things I love about teaching dance is that I can be the center of that attention.

* On the other end of the spectrum, I’m naturally shy. One of the things I love about teaching dance is that it’s a safe place to be the center of attention, where I’m in control of the situation and as outgoing as I want without as much pressure.

* I prefer one on one conversation to any kind of group. I end up quiet and listening most of the time in group situations. Part of this is due to the emphasis on good manners in my upbringing. One of the ones that stuck with me has always been, “It’s not polite to interrupt.” Most people are so eager to get their words into a conversation that I rarely feel like there was an adequate pause to determine that the other person was done speaking.

* When I was acting in middle school our lighting guy complimented me for always standing in the light. I instinctually stand where I’m not shadowed.

* I am barely capable of being succinct. My closest friend says she starts to worry when my replies get short.

* I love vernacular swing and ballroom dancing, for a lot of reasons. I think I’ll tag some of my other points (dance) rather than list them all here.

* Etiquette is fascinating to me. I have a thick hardcover book of etiquette somewhere and used toread it for fun. Sometimes I’ll read online articles. One of my favorite quotations from The Notebooks of Lazarus Long by Heinlein is, “Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as “empty,” “meaningless,” or “dishonest,” and scorn to use them. No matter how “pure” their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.”

* Time Enough for Love and its intermissions republished individually as The Notebooks of Lazarus Long were extremely foundational when it comes to who I am.

* I try to be a gentleman. I don’t always succeed. Sometimes I like to say, in a more humble way, when someone thanks me for holding the door for them, “That’s what doors are for.”

* Humility is not my strong suit. In fact, on the VIA Character Strength survey (authentichappiness.org), it’s the last on my list of 24.

* People often think I am arrogant. While I can be extremely confident, arrogance suggests that my opinion of myself is undeserved. I have an extremely accurate sense of ability. I am honest to a fault and no less so in regards to what I am or am not capable of. I am, in fact, harder on myself than anyone else could ever be.

* Much of my life has been dark. I bear self-inflicted scars on my left shoulder from the period of my teen years during which a state of bored-depression lead to cutting. The location was chosen intentionally for its inability to cause lasting damage. It took me until the year I spent working toward a master’s degree to admit I had problems with depression.

* My bachelor’s degree was as much a work of perseverance as intelligence. I failed several classes for a variety of reasons, many of which were probably directly linked to my depression. My motivation is usually the first thing to go. However, what I failed to do right the first time, I did again and corrected the error in all possible cases.

* I am extremely intelligent and intuitive. I am smarter than I think I am. I am also not as smart as I think I am.

* It is difficult for me to connect what I know with what I feel. I carry a lot of the resulting stress in my body. I am constantly striving to balance the three.

<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight:normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; “>* The ultimate goal in my life is to be a Renaissance Man. I have been accused of such, but I think it’s one of those goals that can’t actually be declared achieved until life is over. Most of the best goals are this kind, making life about the journey rather than the goal itself. Reach for the stars, you can’t hit what you don’t aim for.

* I am extremely passionate about Positive Psychology and methods in which in modern society we recognize each other as autonomous members of our community and put trust in that recognition in order to work together to build successful business, educations, individual lives, and societies. Positive psych is a field of study that studies human well-being, not something that encourages “positive thinking” or mistaken egg-shell treading around the self-esteem of our children.

* I have high standards in pretty much every aspect of my life. Socially, sometimes that means I’m pretty lonely. I’m ok with that. There are plenty of people out there who have surpassed my wildest imagination, both in friendship and romantically. I’m just looking for the one who fits both categories and doesn’t think what I have to offer is some kind of dream that won’t last.

* My heart often aches, but never breaks. I’ve watched (not literally) two women I loved to distraction choose to marry someone else. Loving someone doesn’t mean you have to have them. The heart is a thing of dimensions, and while time may shut the door on a heart I gave to this person or that, I don’t stop loving.

* I deserve the kind of love I give.

* That was really hard to say.

* The person I love most in the world is my dad. It’s very hard for me to express the extent of those feelings without coming to tears. When I say tears, I’m not talking about turning into a sobbing, blubbering mess. I mean water pouring unbidden down my face and pooling on the desk or ground. It may be difficult to talk through the constriction in my chest, but I am completely coherent in the moment. It’s hard to explain.

* I do something similar when people tell certain ghost stories. There’s no identifiable emotional element at all, it’s very peculiar.

* It irritates the fuck out of me that people frequently interpret a lot of the activities I enjoy as unmasculine. My love for dance is one of them, which if you think through, doesn’t take much to realize that I dance with women, putting myself in a role that is frequently considered old fashioned in any other aspect of our society. I lead. There’s room for give, take, and self-expression but I guide what happens in the dance. I move her.

* As far as Idaho is concerned, I’m “metro”. I swear I’m one of a handful of men in my small town who actually owns a pea coat. One wonderful old gentleman in Southern Idaho said when we described the definition of metro as a man ‘who dresses well and has good hygiene,’ “in my day we called that normal<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; “>.”

* A former student once told me she thought I was born in the wrong era. She was wrong. I love living now, being here, doing the things I do. If they aren’t typical of a male in this era, I don’t have a problem with that. There’s a certain irony that things that defined a gentleman in the past are considered androgynous or feminine today.

* I like horseback riding, enjoyed fencing, love dancing, play guitar, write poetry and lyrics to original songs, fiction, and handwritten letters.

* Spring is coming and that means it’s time to start hunting craigslist for sailboats again. Hobie Cat here I come. Weekends on the lake, with a tent, Mira, and eventually someone to lay out across the tramp and enjoy the sun and wind with us. I took sailing lessons in middle school and raced J24 sailboats for a summer two years ago.

* As my mother proudly tells anyone who will listen, particularly women she knows I’m interested in, I never went through a phase during which I thought girls had cooties.

* I have always wanted to get married and have a family. At this point in my life, I’m still looking forward to the former and open minded about the latter. My parents have been married almost 40 years and I would love to follow that example.

* I like shopping with female friends or significant others. I have a highly tuned aesthetic sense for a straight male and an incredible imagination. When I see something on a mannequin or hanging on a rack I imagine how much I’d enjoy seeing it on someone I like looking at. If I’m shopping for myself, I know what I like, I’m in and out, like most men.

* Let’s juxtapose that with the image of me using a chainsaw, which I do frequently when helping my dad bring in wood for the winter. He goes through 6-7 cords or so a winter. I’ve spent my fair share of time greasy and working with construction equipment. I helped build our cabin and worked for two years in an industrial equipment rental yard.

* I don’t like smelling like a garage or having grease on my hands. But when the time comes, you do what needs to be done and buck up and handle it.

* Hunting is not my thing. If I don’t have a personal need to kill something with my own hands/tools, I won’t. Taking the lives of other living things is not my idea of fun. That being said, if it’s me or the deer, there’s going to be venison for dinner.

* Spectator sports aren’t something I enjoy watching. Playing can be fun. I’d rather read a book, play a game, go for a walk, ride a four-wheeler, hike up the river, play with Mira, go snowboarding, sailing, play guitar or sit and watch a fire burn while I drink hot chocolate or wine.

* Men should be imaginative, conscientious lovers who recognize that their partner’s pleasure is as much a part of the whole experience as their own. Not to mention the more excited she is the more fun it is for everyone. I am a good lover. Someone once told me I was a better lover than I am a dancer. Not sure about that, but it was nice of her.

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