The Sentient Man

I seem to think I may have touched on this subject some years ago but since it just popped in my head let me see where it takes me. 21st Century man has abandoned his “hunter” role and exchanged it for equality with the distaffed members of his world. Women can do just about anything men can and in certain cases just plain better if we are to believe all of America’s pundits. Be that as it may practical adjustments not only needed to be made but in certain instances men were forced to make wholesale changes. 

If we leave off controversy and accept the new society it doesn’t mean we men give up our masculinity it just means we have to use more guile instead of brute force. As the sentient man I love that. Obtaining anything by sheer force will usually leave the hunted with resentment and at the first sign of trouble they look to escape rather than remain in our company. I have found that the more freedom the female feels they have they’re lest apt to get lost in the rain. . Let the horses run free and with no corral you just might find they roam even less and become galvanized in heart mind and body.  If you truly love someone as the old cliché goes you will let them go. This attitude is not one of indifference quite the contrary it is the more loving way. Anything else is egocentric, selfish and a graphic lack of confidence. Let women continue to feel the need to be possessive we as sentient men can drop that from our repertoire. God does that work well.  

 I have found that women love their men to be confident and be able to make “command decisions” when a softer approach just won’t cut it. Women like to have it both ways these days they still want us to continue to open doors, show gentlemanly deference whenever they present us with their demure side but hell hath no fury if you tell a woman she can’t do something. Instead of folding our tents this is our opportunity to “man up” and retake our masculine role. They might object but some if not most will love you all the more for it. No matter how high a woman may rise in the corporate world they still want their men to be chairman in and out of the boudoir.  It may be a different world out there but our gender is in no danger of becoming extinct. 

The sentient man fits rather nicely into the world of equality because we as civilized men don’t have to roar as so many women are claiming the need to. Who wants to roar when quieter tones can garner a deeper love and a more powerful allegiance in the most unexpected ways? 

Speak softly and you will find that you don’t even have to carry a stick.  

True Love

The Vortex

Collectively we are in a vortex of technology each waking moment of our lives now. I often tell myself I need to “unplug” for reasons purely of sanity. There is much to be said about how our lives have been permanently altered by our iPhones and Android devices. I marvel in utter amazement of just how many functions a “phone” can do to make our lives more accommodating. More recently for instance I had received a PDF in my email and as I opened it in its miniature form I realized that I could print it wirelessly to the printer in the office it had detected. No longer did I have to fire up the computer, get online and open the mail. I did it in seconds from my iPhone. Pretty cool. 

But I need to disengage. When I come to spin class for instance I always leave my device in the locker because KJ trained me early that for this hour it was all about us and not anyone else. It made sense at the time because as she said everything would still be there when we are done. But guilty I am as soon as the class is over and it’s hard for me not to check my phone for who might have called or texted even before my shower. Sometimes I am able but for the most part I don my glasses (Optical Image) and light up the darkened screen. I am addicted and even though I am an alcoholic I suspect that many of us are tied to the hitching post that is our phone. 

I was talking to my friend DJ on the phone just now and she on the other hand goes on vacation and leaves her phone home. She doesn’t even know where the phone is from day to day and has to use the feature “find my phone” just to retrieve it. She has not given in to technology. DJ is the rare creature that doesn’t take her phone from room to room in her house. I need to take a page out of my friend Debbie’s book. Phones have made our lives easier but we are now savagely codependent on them. Think about the panic that sets in every time we misplace our phone. We might as well be hurtling in space for all the anxiety it causes. 

And dear friends this is just the beginning. When the information highway starts coming through our glasses like Google Glass we will realize what indentured servants went through. 

Mood Shifters

Is it possible to catch someone else’s depression? It’s easily understandable that we can catch another’s cold.  But is it really possible to get an infection like a dis-ease of the mind too? I can only venture that it’s true. Through self-analysis we can usually tell what ails us. We are upset with a loved one, worried about our future or even lamenting a situation in our chosen vocation. It just never occurred to me that a transfer of feelings like depression could be airborne so to speak. It might make sense to make this connection to compare it to when we are around happy people the feeling we come away with is that sense we are lifted as well so why not depressed too?  Lately I have found that when I encounter an individual with a deep sadness or a chronic depression that I come away feeling that my soul is sick as well. 

Depression can be like a spider’s web we can’t free ourselves from when we have no weapons to fight it off. I can usually shake these feelings off but when the anxiety can’t be named it has a sense of foreboding I can only describe it as free floating. It takes creativity to ward off these evil spirits with positive self-talk by taking inventory of what I am grateful for.  When I can name what I am ‘down’ about it seems easier to extricate myself from the malaise. I’m able to wrap my brain around something tangible something I can rationalize. When the words remain hidden I need to conjure up my own incantation to ward off my fear. The false evidence appearing real whether it’s someone else’s or mine needs to be banished by the things we are grateful for. That might not necessarily have us leaping for joy but it can usually counter balance any feelings of despair and loneliness.  

Energy Vampires stay away!

My Father

My father still lives although he no longer knows me. There’s no more Hello Jack! But I said all the things I needed to tell him when he had sense and sensibility. I’m glad I did because I’ve always loved him not always liked him but now I no longer hold resentment towards him.  

Freeman McNeil

It’s been at least 10 years since I laid on this model man and citizen. As I was driving down my street he came to mind this morning. I guess I spoke to him a half dozen times in the course of my career and what struck me instantly was his soft-spoken authenticity. He could have easily been caught up in his celebrity even though his playing days were over. He was constantly being mobbed in person for what people could get from him by way of endorsements or people he held under his influence. There were many professionals that could profit simply by the wave of his hand. It wasn’t that he withheld it from anyone he just wouldn’t lend his name to just any product or service. I never found out why perhaps I never will. 

What also struck me is how much favor Leon Hess held for him when he was alive. The owner of the Jets saw something in his running back as if he was his own son. This I know from my conversations I had with “Free”. Freeman McNeil was a great ball player but an even more exemplary human being.  I wish I could talk to him again being in his presence was a gift.  

P.S.

I'm not even a Jet fan. 

Road Etiquette

Remember when we first learned to drive we were taught etiquette by our parents or our High School shop teacher who took us on Student Driver Education lessons? What were those simple things? Signal your intention for one. If we were going to make a turn we pressed down or up on the indicator light so the guy in back of us knew where in God’s name we were going.  Why don’t people signal? I have tried to figure this out to no avail. At first I thought well they’re just lazy. Lazy? Only a few muscles are involved and after you make the turn the signal light goes off automatically. Really?  Then I thought even worse notions. Like they were just inconsiderate.  That’s a judgment but it was hard to let go of that one. But then I took the high road they were just ignorant because their parents or student driver instructor never told them about driver etiquette 

The second etiquette I thought of was the driver at night on a darkened road using his high beams. Perfectly normal but when you saw the loom of the light of an oncoming car in the opposite direction you switched back to low beams. Wrong! They leave them on to blind you. That still pisses me off. And depending on what kind of a day I had I might put my high beams on in retaliation but even that doesn’t seem to work. Sometimes it does but at other times?  Frustrating to me. The third is a bit more subjective. It’s the 4 way stop sign. Determining who gets to the red sign first is a bedeviling experience almost daily. The problem here is that most people do not come to a full stop as the rules of the road state. They roll (I’ve been guilty) and when I come to a stop even though they came late to the party they’re still moving and that qualifies as a stop in their mind and so they just keep on cruising. Etiquette! It’s simple enough can’t we all just get along? Oh and a big PS: Tailgating. What is it with tailgaters? My driver training told me that I should be at least a car length every 10 mph behind the guy in front of me. So 50 miles an hour translates into 5 car lengths. Not up my ass or in my trunk! Same holds true for those maniacs that cut you off exiting to a ramp or around you because you’re not moving fast enough. No wonder I drive in the right lane so often I hate the pressure that someone is in a hurry to go no place.  Drive safe my friends and remember you’re not the only one on the road.