Here's to Liberation

"Nice guys don't finish last - they rot in middle-management." - Dr. Robert Glover

This was one of the lines in a book I bought about a few days ago. The book is entitled No More Mr. Nice Guy, by the author of that line. I can safely say it has changed my life in such a profound way that I never had thought possible.

I was in a bookstore while a friend of mine was getting her ears pierced. I was actually looking for a copy of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, but chanced upon this slim book in the psychology section, perched on the top shelf facing all the others. I read the first few pages and I was stunned - literally stunned. This book, in detail and without too much overgeneralizing, described how had been acting and behaving during my adolescence, young adulthood and through my relationships both intimate and platonic.

It described, with almost overwhelming accuracy, the decline and fall of my most important relationship I have ever experienced with another woman. Everything was there. My unconscious forgetting, my trying to fix things by doing more of the same, my passive-aggression, dumb insolence when confronted with conflict, trying to avoid fights, timidity, unwillingness to lead, getting pissy and moody, threatening to leave, caretaking instead of caring (i.e, doing things for a payoff instead of altruistically) emotional stonewalling and all the rest. It was all there. I could give mental examples this behavior - my behaviors - as I read along - and I was so switched on I read the entire book in about an hour and a half. She lost trust in me because I failed to be the measure of a man that she had expected, that she deserved. I had buried my masculinity for so long, my long held belief that keeping it hidden was a blessing - instead it had turned out to be a black and soul-destroying curse.

Although I didn't have an agenda set in place for 2010, I have one now - it's to stop being a "Nice Guy." Of course, our Aristotelian minds immediately jump to the conclusion that I would become the "opposite" of nice; a complete arsehole. As it turns out, my "niceness" seems only thinly veiled by unconscious anger and spite, which manifests itself in a variety of unpleasant ways. Instead, I plan to become a more integrated, open and honest man and to put my needs first instead of blindly following others and their perceived expectations of me.

So I saw my doctor and we set out a plan, using the book to get myself back on track after so much living through "toxic shame" and attachments that made me fear the world around me. Even though he assured me that technology will continue to make everything better ("We have bionic ears, soon we'll have bionic eyes," he said, reassuringly. "Give it five years and we'll have bionic vaginas...don't tell my wife but I'd be first in line to test one.") I was determined to see this through until the end. Within hours I was following the therapy plan we'd set up, doing the exercises, signing up to the support group online forums and setting up meetings with "safe people" to discuss my progress and help lead me through this journey of self-discovery and personal development.

I can say with all honesty, I have never felt better. I not only see a future, but a great one. I'm going to enjoy 2010 and every year that comes afterward. I don't promise this to anyone except for myself; so let's go!

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Addendum: For anyone interested in the book, I am willing to set up a regular discussion group in the Melbourne, Australia area. The online support forums can be found here.

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http://twitter.com/crushtor

The Last Throes

So here I am, foreigner in his own land, struggling to comprehend what he has done and what he hasn't done. A tunnel surrounds my eyes that are slowly being hacked away at a meticulous pace. There's a heart in there somewhere that cries out in agony every single second of the day, but I try to muffle its screams. My mind's eye flashes guilty images and perversions and trials gone wrong. I check the time again. I am no closer to my destination. Impatient, I look for an exit. The door, I fear, is an escape to a place I cannot return from. There’s no where I want to go, except to go back again.

The rattle from an old air conditioner cools the sweat beading from my head. I'm draped all over the ratty couch with no regard for anything in particular. As sleep approaches, I bask in a feint afterglow that diminishes with every breath. A black clad woman fades into obsidian. She's haltingly removed from view as the all consuming darkness claims her. I fall away, shouting out blessings and apologies. It all seems so hollow, now, those words. I can't grab at them, I cannot cage them. I want to, all those cowardly, stupid, undesirable words. Seconds go by for no good reason, each one of them threading together some kind of life. Each path I draw out in the sand gets blown away by the tumult of a mind in rapture. Worse still, I don't even know if she heard any of them. I don't even know if they were true.

I sit at the periphery watching the decline of those I know and those I merely see. Sitting on another couch, I heard voices. In amongst the doorway, I saw people streaming in and out, panic darting across their faces. A girl with glassed over eyes briefly glanced at me. Her face changed every minute. More faces than anyone could ever have imagined. She didn't say anything. No one ever does. My eyes stare and burn themselves into the other side of those walls and they never say anything. A sudden chill snaps through the room when I walk through, even though the heat from my breath fills the air just the same as everyone else.

Then the pleasantry and hellish reality of another beloved enters my view. The decrepit, the weeping, the gently decaying. She's making the best of it but she can't take it any more. She's seen too much pain behind those grey eyes, too much and too soon. Life wasn't short, it was a painful excursion with ever weakening flashes of solace and comfort. Oh, how I feel for you. If I felt at all, I would. Now that's been farmed way out of here by incomputable combinations of chemicals, smoke and mirrors. It would take me years to count all of the particles in a storm that changed every second, even in the insignificant space between the blink of an eye. We lose sight in that second, we lose so many sights. Add them all together and you have a life thats merely been lived between sheets and dreams.

Fear presents itself at the doorway, restricting my entrance. I want to go back. I plead with him. But the seconds pass by he keeps slinging those arrows into my sides. I see them piercing you too, but I say nothing. Doing so would cleave another immeasurable part between the folds of our shivering bodies and you would never speak to me again. Don't worry, it's fine. In every single scenario, you walk down that marble hallway. You dry your tears. Then you walk away.

When the flags have blown away

And the footprints start to fade

Will I find my way again

Or lose the path before me?

I saw the leaves go brown

I saw them falling down

All my dreams lying on the ground

With nothing to assure me

Threshold - Hollow

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http://twitter.com/crushtor

Christmas Straight Up Sucks

I figure that the most irritating holiday of the year requires input from yours truly, because we seem to be the generation that has perverted it to such a degree no one knows why we sit around a table, eat a damn bird that no one eats during regular times and other shit that we only care to think of during December. Surely, this process could all be mediated instead over Facebook, somehow?

If it were up to me, I'd probably order Chinese food with hell of egg rolls and chicken wings instead. (Provided I was somewhere that did that kind of order.) I'd sit around, download more episodes of The Wire and watch them on a big screen TV, oblivious that my local bar, CD store and Discount Tyre outlet were all closed. I lead an interesting life, dammit - I exist as an eternal mixture of intrigue and backwater sass. (Hah, who am I kidding.)

Talking about The Wire, its cerebral television; it has this uncanny ability to draw you to its narrative, even though the bulk of it is ego-driven political dialog the likes of which Aaron Sorkin loves to masturbate over, losing his jive whenever the characters say "fuck." (And they say "fuck" quite a lot!)

If you can imagine your best friend - as complicated and imperfect as they are, you can get a handle on how compelling and brilliant The Wire is. You probably met at some time in your lives where you both had the same interests and conversation flowed so freely you didn't even notice the sun rising after spending all night on the phone, greeting their brothers and sisters and tagging along to strange as hell events like their Dutch migrant piano recital or application for tags at the DMV. (Er, VicRoads? Screw it, y'all know I want to be seppo)

The Wire is the televisual equivalent of your best friend - the tension between their own self-interest and your need for attention - exists like allegory on the screen. You see cops beating on their own, drug dealers aspiring for the average life and the corrupt, perverse nature of institutionalizing humans at their worst, at their most demonized. As it plays out, you understand and feel everything it offers in and of itself and beyond - much like your best friend does - without even realizing.

Next year, we should all watch The Wire instead of having Christmas.

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http://twitter.com/crushtor