Be Passionate.

I've been complaining that there are no eligible men around me, and that's just not true. This was pointed out a few days ago by an outspoken friend who doesn't like me being single, and she's the kind of person who "puts an end to" things she doesn't like. She pointed out the names of two eligible men in my life. Both are friendly, successful, and I have a lot in common with each.

And yet they're unattractive to me, and my friend asked why. My gut answer was that I found them physically unappealing, but I knew that how attractive they are to me is entirely subjective. Why did I find them so unappealing?

I know them both very well and have for several years, and neither has any passion. Neither seems ever to be joyously happy or enraged. (Yeah, enraged, it's nice to know something will get you all pissed off.) They are neither fascinated nor bored by art or nature or music, and neither particularly loves or hates animals, children, or God, or any of the other things people are passionate about one way or the other, like Twitter, Dave Eggers, and raw tomatoes.

Neither has a trigger nor any outward signs of being inspired by things around them. They're good men and I love them but I find them unattractive for this.

So I crave passion. I look for passion in men because I have it myself. Like seeks like, as it were.

I've always been passionate, but have been suppressing it. On the anger side, a little holding back at work and a little sparing feeling here and there and suddenly all the crazy is gone. And joy? A few years of ripened pessimism and apathy fueled by cable news and economic surplus will take of that in a flash. The last time I was joyful I took a bet to ride my bike down a steep hill no hands and did it. Pure joy.

I vowed to release my passion again. If I want to attract passion I have to be passionate myself.

Be passionate.

Tomorrow: Avoiding the Wrong Path

Peace,
D.

A Short Theory of Evolution

We are social creatures and we crave interaction with others. Humans have the vision to see not only what is but what can be. Our innate desire to improve our situation leads us to want to be with those who are like us and from whom we might learn what we don't know.

We are taught by those who have come before us. We learn from their wisdom we make changes to what we do or we try new things with their guidance. When what we do does not make us stronger, we learn a lesson to impart to others. When what we do makes us stronger, we benefit as a result of our interaction with others, and we change. This is happening constantly to billions of people everywhere, and is what leads humans to physically, physiologically, psychologically, socially, spiritually, intellectually, sexually, and technologically change, evolve, so that we limit mistakes, eliminate what's not necessary, and make life better. When we feel like we've made good changes, we have the confidnce to try new things, so we innovate, we succeed, and we make mistakes. We pass on the learned knowledge of those triumphs and mistakes to those after us. Armed with what we know, they then are free to avoid the same roads as we did and to forge new paths, discover new things, and make fresh mistakes.

Only with the help of others will I truly evolve.

Tomorrow: Passion

Peace,

D.

Better Now

There's a classical metaphor about the seasons and the courses of human relationships: that spring is courtship, summer is foreplay, autumn is climax, and winter is slumber. Another version of this uses the seasons to denote how humans evolve only through sharing knowledge, periodically going through cycles of ignorance (spring), learning (summer), applying and sharing (autumn), and, as a result, evolving (winter).

I appreciated this most of my life because, until last year, autumn has always been a great time of year for me. It's not my favorite season, mind you, I much prefer the beach and a margarita to leaf-peeping and manhattans. But autumn was always a time when I felt good socially, I did well at work, and later in life I was neither sun-dried nor plump from months of being snow-bound. The association of autumn and sexual climax and the association of autumn with applying wisdom to one's life appealed to both my desires to be physically beautiful and consumately wise.

But 2008 was an anomaly; autumn was not what it has once been. The relationship that had escorted me through my late 20s and some of my 30s, which had been over for years, finally came to physical separation, and therefore less financial freedom. Things were not going well at work, I was socially isolated, and my physical appearance was, in a word, shot. To top it all off, as I learned later, I was pulling myself out of a two-year depression and away from associated habits and thought patterns. But I had begun briefly to take control of things and believed I was feeling better. I started a relationship with someone much better looking than I am, regained a little confidence and lost a few pounds, and by the time September rolled around, I was ready for the season that had always been my stride, where I could ride the cocky road to smaller size sweaters and somewhat regular sex.

But instead of hitting an upswing I plunged into a remission season of self-pity and hopelessness. The much-better-looking guy treated me like a schmuck, I put a few pounds back on, felt fat and ugly, and I lost interest in everyone around me. Worse, I was further crushed after expecting the momentum previous years had offered me and instead hit a cold, black impenetrable wall of fear, doubt, and anxiety, all of which I thought I had overcome.

Through the end of the year I developed theories about what was happening to me, and smoked weed daily to dull the effects of sharp lessons I was learning. For instance, I learned that I was not old enough to know all I was supposed to know and no longer young enough to get away with it. I learned I could not turn the heads I used to turn, and that if I were going to be attractive at all I had to do it with confidence and cleverness where I once used my hair and my ass. I was paunchy, making excuses for why I was unhappy, and looking for anything dazzling that would blot out the image of what I was becoming. They called it a mid-life crisis in the 70s. I called it my own version 4.0. Whatever it was, it was hard to do and it felt like hell doing it all alone.

Maybe it was the weed, maybe it was The Alchemist, but I'm thankful that somehow I knew it was necessary and possibly endurable. I knew I couldn't get on with my life if I hadn't yet learned the lessons I was supposed to learn. I knew I was carrying around a lot of hang ups, rules, and beliefs about myself and about the world that I needed to get rid of. I knew I was angry about bad memories I had, and yet I also knew I had a real problem expressing anger and even knowing the types of things that made me angry. I let people treat me like shit because I hated confrontation of any kind and didn't have the energy to stand up for myself even if I wanted to.

Then, in a fittingly dramatic moment in a London tube station just a few hours into 2009, I promised myself I'd live my life differently than I had in 2006, 7, and 8. I began to document what I was learning and tried to glean lessons from what was around me. Where in the past I would have naievely concluded that because I was feeling better I was done, this time I honeslty assessed what was keeping me unhappy and what I had to change to make life good again for the long term. It had been good, after all. In a flash came the old stand by promises (I would eat less, move more, work harder, and exhibit patience, confidence, and discipline) and revelations (I had no control over my age but I could approach life with more excitement, and I had no control over my hair but I could get my body back in shape, and so on).

This quickly became unsatisfying. They were valuable truths, yes, but they weren't the knowledge I was looking for. I didn't need to learn what I already knew.

And then I remembered the metaphor: after awakening and learning comes applying and sharing. It was frustrating because I had done that part already. Now, I knew, I would never evolve until I moved to the next season, not till I apply and share.

***

The end is the road and the road is the end. I have marks to hit -- a flat stomach, more money in the bank, and specific accomplishments. If I play my cards right I could even wind up with the kind of confidence that makes it feel like my hair is thicker and my dick is bigger. But these are milestones along the way, they are not goals, they are not end-games. What I have to learn is that I have to keep evolving.

Those of us who pay attention and live mindfully are very likely to go through periods like this in our lives. Because we are mindful we wish to learn about ourselves, yet because we are busy we leave very little time for reflection. Emotionally we develop a need to learn, and then suppress it for practical reasons. But when that desire for introspection gets strong enough, we take stock in a big way. The desire to look deeply at our lives overwhelms us and we crave what others have learned so that we too can evolve.

What I have to share are lessons we either already know or need to learn. (After all, there are no lessons that do not need to be learned.) I hope to share these lessons with you, since when I do, it's my permanent autumn, permanent climax, heh, and a step closer to evolution.

Tomorrow: A Short Theory of Evolution

Peace,

D.