And when you can’t write, let others do it for you.

I’m sitting here, compulsively checking facebook, waiting for any one person to give me any validation, ignoring the “likes” I hate and the posts that probably mean the most.

I have fully committed to an avoidant personality. In trying to make myself whole alone, however, I am bored. Without something to complain about, I should have time to sit and enjoy my pastimes… any of them. Video games – bored by what is offered, not intrigued by what I could go out and purchase. Books – too still. Working out – I don’t want to commit to it; I’ve never worked out for health, always for aesthetic, and I cannot see the point when I am not single, and no longer interested in being on stage. Writing - I hate my own work, and others are indifferent to it.

So, instead, I stare at different screens and wait for my body to be tired enough to sleep. I read others’ words, pretend they’re my own, lament that I have nothing unique to offer anyone, chastise myself for being so predictably boring in my mental illness. You can’t even fight it. Not really. Winning buys you a half-happiness at best. Losing at least makes you feel something, even if it is despair.

Choose Her Every Day (Or Leave Her)

I spent 5 years hurting a good woman by staying with her but never fully choosing her.

I did want to be with this one. I really wanted to choose her. She was an exquisite woman, brilliant and funny and sexy and sensual. She could make my whole body laugh with her quick, dark wit and short-circuit my brain with her exotic beauty. Waking up every morning with her snuggled in my arms was my happy place. I loved her wildly.

Unfortunately, as happens with many young couples, our ignorance of how to do love well quickly created stressful challenges in our relationship. Before long, once my early morning blissful reverie gave way to the strained, immature ways of our everyday life together, I would often wonder if there was another woman out there who was easier to love, and who could love me better.

As the months passed and that thought reverberated more and more through my head, I chose her less and less. Every day, for five years, I chose her a little less.

I stayed with her. I just stopped choosing her. We both suffered.

Choosing her would have meant focusing every day on the gifts she was bringing into my life that I could be grateful for: her laughter, beauty, sensuality, playfulness, companionship, and so … much … more.

Sadly, I often found it nearly impossible to embrace – or even see – what was so wildly wonderful about her.

I was too focused on the anger, insecurities, demands, and other aspects of her strong personality that grated on me. The more I focused on her worst, the more I saw of it, and the more I mirrored it back to her by offering my own worst behaviour. Naturally, this only magnified the strain on our relationship … which still made me choose her even less.

Thus did our nasty death spiral play itself out over five years.

She fought hard to make me choose her. That’s a fool’s task. You can’t make someone choose you, even when they might love you.

To be fair, she didn’t fully choose me, either. The rage-fueled invective she often hurled at me was evidence enough of that.

I realise now, however, that she was often angry because she didn’t feel safe with me. She felt me not choosing her every day, in my words and my actions, and she was afraid I would abandon her.

Actually, I did abandon her.

By not fully choosing her every day for five years, by focusing on what bothered me rather than what I adored about her, I deserted her.

Like a precious fragrant flower I brought proudly into my home but then failed to water, I left her alone in countless ways to wither in the dry hot heat of our intimate relationship.

I’ll never not choose another woman I love again.

It’s torture for everyone.

If you’re in a relationship, I invite you to ask yourself this question:

“Why am I choosing my partner today?”

If you can’t find a satisfying answer, dig deeper and find one. It could be as simple as noticing that in your deepest heart’s truth, “I just do.”

If you can’t find it today, ask yourself again tomorrow. We all have disconnected days.

But if too many days go by and you just can’t connect with why you’re choosing your partner, and your relationship is rife with stress, let them go. Create the opening for another human being to show up and see them with fresh eyes and a yearning heart that will enthusiastically choose them every day.

Your loved one deserves to be enthusiastically chosen. Every day.

You do, too.

Choose wisely. ॐ

— Brian Reeves

I can’t stand THE DEPRESSED. It’s like a job, it’s the only thing they work hard at. Oh good my depression is very well today. Oh good, today I have another mysterious symptom, and I will have another one tomorrow. The DEPRESSED are full of hate and bile, and when they are not having panic attacks, they are writing poems. What do they want their poems to DO? Their depression is the most VITAL thing about them. Their poems are threats. ALWAYS threats. There is no sensation that is keener or more active than their pain. They give nothing back except their depression. It’s just another utility. Like electricity and water and gas and democracy. They could not survive without it.

― Deborah Levy

A keen glimmer of things to come
I feel my toes tingle
anticipating the wet chill of snow-crusted shoes
melting in the hushed heat of my home
as I wrap my feet in warm wool
my life a pomander bulwark against gloom.
White city dotted with bundled smiles
Each little hermit crab letting in the light of a stranger’s hello

A compliment requires two sides. It is the proverbial tree in the forest, and simultaneously the scientific answer to that question. There must a producer of the compliment and the receiver of that compliment. I would further postulate that the receiver in this instance must agree to the nature of the compliment for it to actually be so.

I know all this to be true. If I were to approach a strange woman on the street, for example, and tell her that her dress fits her beautifully and accentuates her shapely figure, I would intend that to be a compliment; however, much of how she receives it would be the context in which it was said, primarily — and this is cynical — whether she finds me attractive. The well-worn comic cliché applies here: the line between stalking and persistence is in the eye of the beholder.

Combine this thinking with the more recent (at least to me) rash of male body dysmorphia, and you find me, dear reader, where I sit so precariously, now; that is, invisible to the opposite sex, yet longing for their validation. Nothing I write here will threaten to rock the core tenets of the middle-aged male psyche. Predictably, I wade in the stagnant reflecting pools of the midlife crisis, late adolescence, and male insecurity. As I can all but feel my testosterone waning and the last gasps of my wonderboy charms suffocating under the iron grip of gray-haired, professorial reserve, I watch the admiration of the young transform from emulation and infatuation to smirks and boredom. Seduction now has become a process once again, as it was when I was young and unwanted.

As a descriptor, I have never taken comfort in the word, “handsome.” Much as many a woman would be loathe to labor under that descriptor from a potential suitor, I have always taken it as euphemistic and general praise. Its connotation seems to imply an inoffensive physicality, rather than a desirable one. To that end, I know I must accept my endomorphic proportions. I have not done so, but I know the burden is on me. After all, I shall never be the target of such a word as “beautiful.” Why? Possibly because my cis-gendered, laborer physique might imply to the uninitiated that I should find that term diminishing somehow. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I take similar umbrage when described, quite accurately, with any number of ostensibly complimentary epithets: burly, brawny, strong, muscly, bear-like, virile, etc. While the archers of these particular arrows mean them to have Cupid’s touch, they rather land with a thwack into a raised shield of defensiveness. I know how I look, and, for my own neurotic reasons, I’d rather not be reminded. Precise as these terms may be, I would prefer a more intangible quality to my compliments. I’ve been considered only once to have earned the adjective “irresistible,” for example.

These hangups belong to me, quite clearly, and I do not intend to saddle them onto anyone else. Sincerity accepted, complimenter. Flattery noted. For my fragile ego, however, drawing attention to those things I see as failings in myself only serve to make me feel lesser. I know that large, bald, hairy, funny, bright… all of these can, and have, been made as parallels to sexy. Universally, however, tall, sinewy, dark, with beautiful locks, sharp features, a sly, perfect smile… real sexiness lies there. Te majority agree that Benedict Cumberbatch does not hold up to scrutiny under close examination, but his confidence and the lines of him combine to make something sensually pleasing.

Confidence, of course, is the chief contributor. I submit that confidence originates externally; at least, the confidence that we associate with sexiness does (perhaps not the confidence we associate with Donald Trump, for example.) When I receive validation, unsolicited, from someone with regard to my physical attractiveness, I become supremely confident in it fairly quickly. I stand taller. I smile more. I assert myself with casual charm. I literally lose weight when people tell me I look good. I don’t have to change a thing; by the grace of my sex and my genes, it falls right off. Testosterone is a hell of a drug.

Due to my size, when I assert myself, I am often seen as aggressive. Yet, because I am aware of this, and at heart, want to please people above all, I am seen as weak. When my empathy and foresight allow me to make decisions of a buddhist nature, I sense the women around me judging me as wishy-washy and worthy more of their pity than their desire. Further, when I then, unwisely, tell of the reasons behind my actions, I appear to be defensive and weak, drooping even lower in their estimation of my potential as a mate. Understand here, dear reader, that I am not interested in polyamory, but validation, and validation for men like me must often take the form of sexual attractiveness.

When I don’t receive that validation, or when the validation has to be solicited, the opposite effect occurs. I can hear my therapist and my own knowledge of the human condition ganging up on me here. “It comes from within. Then, people validate it.” I disagree. My self-esteem has always been entirely based on the opinions of others, but that doesn’t necessarily change the self-image. An example: I retain that I am a person of unique empathy and vision, an artist of some achievement, working in successive approximations toward a fully realized version of my art and craft. If someone attacks that, even if their points are valid, the integrity of those core tenets remains. It transforms under my own care, and I take advisement, rather than criticism.

External perception of the aesthetic qualities of one’s self, however, remain entirely the province of the outside observer. If not, insanity reigns. To say, “I like the way a Trilby looks on me,” is all well and good, and such an opinion cannot be disproved. If, on the other hand, no other person, including people that have seen past your Trilby obsession to see the person within, can agree that a Trilby accentuates your best features, while diminishing your flaws, then that is simply not the truth of things. Argument must cease on that front, because your love for the Trilby should be accepted, but its aesthetic value can still be in question.

Similarly, people can see past my lack of fashion sense, or accept my crooked teeth, or convince themselves that baldness drives them wild, but in reality, I am not beautiful. I have been privy to many conversations between people where so many people are described for their beauty, even people in the room. For me, my attractive traits have always been listed as “intelligence, sincerity, empathy, humility.” While I take pride that I am thought of so highly, those are not traits associated with desire. I have never been one to value the warmth of the hearth over the heat of the bonfire. Is that what aging means? Never to be desired again, only settled and settled for?

Any of my past indiscretions, no matter how innocent, have always resulted from a woman tapping into this subconscious need. Sometimes, I have even felt manipulated at how simple it is. When my whole life has been platitudes about nice guys or handsomeness or confidence, even a throwaway of “hot” became a flag for a new world. Dare I consider myself in such terms? Nothing else mattered in those moments. For once, the dark and the dangerous parts of me enticed more than the silly and the safe.

So, how do I respond to the “handsome devils” and “cuddly bears” of my everyday existence? Can I cope with feeling like the nice guy or the big brother? It’s not a friend zone argument. Friends and past loves have blurred the lines of that image of me to similar levels of confusion. My own neurosis, I suppose. But even if you believe that you want to trap a handsome bear, I won’t come calling for that particular bait.

* My first post using the laptop I inherited from Marcee. It feels very Doogie Howser to be able to write from the couch. It seems… right. Probably, it is nothing more than the novelty. Anything that gets me writing again, I suppose.

This is the world we wanted.
All who would have seen us dead
are dead. I hear the witch’s cry
break in the moonlight through a sheet
of sugar: God rewards.
Her tongue shrivels into gas…

Now far from women’s arms
and memory women, in our father’s hut
we sleep, are never hungry.
Why do I not forget?
My father bars the door, bars harm
from this house, and it is years.

No one remembers. Even you, my brother,
summer afternoons you look at me though
you meant to leave,
as though it never happened.
But I killed for you. I see armed firs,
the spires of that gleaming kiln come back, come back…

Nights I turn to you to hold me
but you are not there.
Am I alone? Spies
hiss in the stillness, Hansel,
we are there still and it is real, real,
that black forest and the fire in earnest.

I have become invisible to those who know me, and all too visible to strangers. I am judged on factors I cannot control.

We must learn not to seek, or strive, or want. We must learn to accept, and live, and die.

You Are Tired (I Think) by e.e. cummings

You are tired,
(I think)
Of the always puzzle of living and doing;
And so am I.

Come with me, then,
And we’ll leave it far and far away—
(Only you and I, understand!)

You have played,
(I think)
And broke the toys you were fondest of,
And are a little tired now;
Tired of things that break, and—
Just tired.
So am I.

But I come with a dream in my eyes tonight,
And I knock with a rose at the hopeless gate of your heart—
Open to me!
For I will show you places Nobody knows,
And, if you like,
The perfect places of Sleep.

Ah, come with me!
I’ll blow you that wonderful bubble, the moon,
That floats forever and a day;
I’ll sing you the jacinth song
Of the probable stars;
I will attempt the unstartled steppes of dream,
Until I find the Only Flower,
Which shall keep (I think) your little heart
While the moon comes out of the sea.

April 22, 1958

57 Perry Street

New York City

Dear Hume,

You ask advice: ah, what a very human and very dangerous thing to do! For to give advice to a man who asks what to do with his life implies something very close to egomania. To presume to point a man to the right and ultimate goal — to point with a trembling finger in the RIGHT direction is something only a fool would take upon himself.

I am not a fool, but I respect your sincerity in asking my advice. I ask you though, in listening to what I say, to remember that all advice can only be a product of the man who gives it. What is truth to one may be disaster to another. I do not see life through your eyes, nor you through mine. If I were to attempt to give you specific advice, it would be too much like the blind leading the blind.

“To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles … ” (Shakespeare)

And indeed, that IS the question: whether to float with the tide, or to swim for a goal. It is a choice we must all make consciously or unconsciously at one time in our lives. So few people understand this! Think of any decision you’ve ever made which had a bearing on your future: I may be wrong, but I don’t see how it could have been anything but a choice however indirect — between the two things I’ve mentioned: the floating or the swimming.

But why not float if you have no goal? That is another question. It is unquestionably better to enjoy the floating than to swim in uncertainty. So how does a man find a goal? Not a castle in the stars, but a real and tangible thing. How can a man be sure he’s not after the “big rock candy mountain,” the enticing sugar-candy goal that has little taste and no substance?

The answer — and, in a sense, the tragedy of life — is that we seek to understand the goal and not the man. We set up a goal which demands of us certain things: and we do these things. We adjust to the demands of a concept which CANNOT be valid. When you were young, let us say that you wanted to be a fireman. I feel reasonably safe in saying that you no longer want to be a fireman. Why? Because your perspective has changed. It’s not the fireman who has changed, but you. Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.

So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything other than galloping neurosis?

The answer, then, must not deal with goals at all, or not with tangible goals, anyway. It would take reams of paper to develop this subject to fulfillment. God only knows how many books have been written on “the meaning of man” and that sort of thing, and god only knows how many people have pondered the subject. (I use the term “god only knows” purely as an expression.) There’s very little sense in my trying to give it up to you in the proverbial nutshell, because I’m the first to admit my absolute lack of qualifications for reducing the meaning of life to one or two paragraphs.

I’m going to steer clear of the word “existentialism,” but you might keep it in mind as a key of sorts. You might also try something called “Being and Nothingness” by Jean-Paul Sartre, and another little thing called “Existentialism: From Dostoyevsky to Sartre.” These are merely suggestions. If you’re genuinely satisfied with what you are and what you’re doing, then give those books a wide berth. (Let sleeping dogs lie.) But back to the answer. As I said, to put our faith in tangible goals would seem to be, at best, unwise. So we do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES.

But don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that we can’t BE firemen, bankers, or doctors — but that we must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal. In every man, heredity and environment have combined to produce a creature of certain abilities and desires — including a deeply ingrained need to function in such a way that his life will be MEANINGFUL. A man has to BE something; he has to matter.

As I see it then, the formula runs something like this: a man must choose a path which will let his ABILITIES function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of his DESIRES. In doing this, he is fulfilling a need (giving himself identity by functioning in a set pattern toward a set goal), he avoids frustrating his potential (choosing a path which puts no limit on his self-development), and he avoids the terror of seeing his goal wilt or lose its charm as he draws closer to it (rather than bending himself to meet the demands of that which he seeks, he has bent his goal to conform to his own abilities and desires).

In short, he has not dedicated his life to reaching a pre-defined goal, but he has rather chosen a way of life he KNOWS he will enjoy. The goal is absolutely secondary: it is the functioning toward the goal which is important. And it seems almost ridiculous to say that a man MUST function in a pattern of his own choosing; for to let another man define your own goals is to give up one of the most meaningful aspects of life — the definitive act of will which makes a man an individual.

Let’s assume that you think you have a choice of eight paths to follow (all pre-defined paths, of course). And let’s assume that you can’t see any real purpose in any of the eight. THEN — and here is the essence of all I’ve said — you MUST FIND A NINTH PATH.

Naturally, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. You’ve lived a relatively narrow life, a vertical rather than a horizontal existence. So it isn’t any too difficult to understand why you seem to feel the way you do. But a man who procrastinates in his CHOOSING will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.

So if you now number yourself among the disenchanted, then you have no choice but to accept things as they are, or to seriously seek something else. But beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life. But you say, “I don’t know where to look; I don’t know what to look for.”

And there’s the crux. Is it worth giving up what I have to look for something better? I don’t know — is it? Who can make that decision but you? But even by DECIDING TO LOOK, you go a long way toward making the choice.

If I don’t call this to a halt, I’m going to find myself writing a book. I hope it’s not as confusing as it looks at first glance. Keep in mind, of course, that this is MY WAY of looking at things. I happen to think that it’s pretty generally applicable, but you may not. Each of us has to create our own credo — this merely happens to be mine.

If any part of it doesn’t seem to make sense, by all means call it to my attention. I’m not trying to send you out “on the road” in search of Valhalla, but merely pointing out that it is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it. There is more to it than that — no one HAS to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life. But then again, if that’s what you wind up doing, by all means convince yourself that you HAD to do it. You’ll have lots of company.

And that’s it for now. Until I hear from you again, I remain,

your friend,

Hunter