A little about how I come to write this article first. I have a very good friend, Lissette, who keeps tabs on just how long it’s been since I’ve written my last blog, and with her little pokes at my subconscious I swipe my arms across my metaphorical table, knocking aside all my other projects I need to get done before life passes me by, and focus on easing the stress of her poking finger. It is a strong finger. I imagine she could break rock with the thing now.
I’ve had several topics that I want to write about flitting around in my head, so I wasn’t quite sure which to elaborate on. That’s kind of a problem with me, I have too many and often get weighed down by them and the notebooks filled with other writing ideas going back to my early high school. Yep, fifty hours a day would allow me time, I think.
So, I sat down and opened my trusty Scrivener program for writing, my hands poised over the keyboard. A topic about youth and creativity had been with me for a few weeks and I thought for sure that would be what started to purge from my subconscious, but it had other ideas. I generally allow a moment of pause, a state of peace where I think of nothing and let the images in my mind take form, sometimes a phrase or word becomes prominent and that becomes the kernel for what I am about to write.
This time, “of mice and men” came to the fore. Words appear as physically shaped objects in my mind, in this case “of mice and men” floated forward through a shifting image-cloud of impression of merging memories and extrapolated thought…its a rather rich field to see, and perhaps one day I’ll be able to work photoshop or aftereffects enough to get you a visual idea. So far words are my only palette and you’ll forgive me if I paint with colors you may not have seen before, but until I can more accurately convey what goes on in me, this is all I’m able. Another struggle of mine, this being able to communicate well enough. Ah well..
So, of mice and men. Many threads of experience and thought tie together for this one, not all of them pleasant, but all important.
Disclaimer: When I state facts or generalizations about men, it does not in any way include all men and it is clearly understood that there are women who share some of the same directives of thought and purpose/goals and understanding. This article does not preclude them, nor wish to downplay their unique strengths. My viewpoint is mine alone based on my experiences. And I just may use the male form of speech in my pronouns because I’m being lazy male.
So there. (You may imagine me sticking out my tongue here.)
When is a man a man?
Short answer: when he is true to himself.
This covers an incredible gamut in the experience of the individual, but is really quite simple. Men often get caught up in the extraneous directives laid down by their fathers or mentors and society as a whole. What they often lose sight of are the important things in life.
When trying to conform their lives to those directives, something is lost; a connection to the threads that matter.
In my mid to later 20s I made a lot of money, I got caught up owning and working two businesses 7 days a week, which, except for the fact of the lack of sleep and stress from my ex at the time, I did enjoy the work. What I did lose connection to was my family, not my ex and step son, but my born-on-the-farm-siblings and associated relatives and friends; those people who mattered when everything else fell away.
And more than that, I lost connection to who I was.
There were many factors that contributed to that, including an ex who didn’t want me to write because of her own overwhelming fears, but in the end it was that lost connection that put me in a teetering position that left little of me around to actually enjoy life. It became a process where in quite moments I would pull myself out of the grey and just say, “do the work”. It’s a mentality that exists with me today, but has an entirely different meaning.
Back in those days “do the work” was a mentality I used to push aside that extreme emptiness I was feeling and to just continue day to day, to trudge through the grey and darker presence my life had become. I didn’t think about future, had merely enough to just get through the loss of self I was feeling.
Directly at the end of that marriage, and the sale of my businesses, I wrote a 139,000 word novel in three months. I had a lot to say. I was finally able to say it, and I was happy. I have continued saying it to this day, with new words, new stories and, though I have so much ahead of me, I have so much already written and in the books, as the saying goes.
The pursuit of money was never a goal of mine; doing good things true to myself was, and is. Men lose sight of that. They lose sight of themselves because of their accepted societal mien, which can at times be both inspiring and demoralizing, dispiriting. There is balance, but only if an individual understands his true desires and what brings his life meaning.
Does going to a job you hate every day bring your life meaning? Does not taking the time to sit and chat with your sister, brother, cousins, friends, spouse, bring you meaning? They are a thread to welcome parts of you you may have forgotten.
With understanding there is meaning.
What is it you don’t understand about yourself? With that understanding the superfluous falls away, or becomes recognized for what it is.
Men as mice know nothing of meaning, they all become diminutive and very much the same. They get put in boxes, mazes, they get experimented on and are looked down upon. They eek out a living scrabbling for food, keeping ahead of predators, and scraping their teeth down to sharp nubs for the gain of a few more holes in the wall. With enough holes the wall falls down, and with it your house. What’s the condition of the house of your life?
As men who feel the need to support the weight of the world, we have to ask the question: what’s supporting us?
Being true
When something is true in carpentry, it is straight. One can look down the end of a freshly planed board and see a line that would make your mother proud.
Being true to ourselves is like that. There is a straight-line connection to that which makes us, us. It is a line we have to frequently look back to when our minds get caught up in all these pretty curves in the world. That connection to being who we are is essential and unique to the process of inspiring others. If that connection weakens we have to shore it up, and the best way to do that is through some creative endeavor and with time in nature.
Planting seeds, nourishing them, and watching them grow is a creative endeavor, more so because it gets us in touch with nature - an important component of the creative process. Drawing, painting, singing, writing, building, sculpting, grappling, and the like are all creative expressions, especially where there are no bounds or rules, just pure expression driven from your straight-line connection that intrinsic desire within each of us.
Creative play is a hugely beneficial as well, physically or verbally. When was the last time you actually got down and dirty and just all out played. Being adult simply means that you should know when to play. And it’s more frequent than you think.
If you have always had a desire to do something, something that actually made it past the well-meaning, and not, critics of your childhood - and yourself - then you owe it to the world to do it. We are inspired through variety and we welcome you to the pool of the creative to move this world, no matter how small it is. Do it. Make the choices that will benefit you and those around you today.
A wise uncle of mine would often say, ”tomorrow never comes”.
The counter to that is, “I’ll do it tomorrow (or next week, or after I retire, ad infinitum)”.
How many dreams and potentially world-inspiring impulses have been killed by, “I’ll do it later”.
It matters.
Be true to yourself and you’ll have meaning.
