When I’m writing a piece there are always one hundred million different ways I could organize or phrase what I’m trying to say.
How I decide to structure it depends on my goals. There are many different goals to have.
My goal could be to give the most helpful information in the most helpful way possible.
My goal could be to practice form. In that case the way I organize things depends on their effect not their usefulness. I’m very fond of effect. It’s what I care most about. Which is why I want to write fiction.
I could phrase things in way to just get to the point. Which is what I usually end up doing. Because I get too overwhelmed and just need to finish.
I am starting to wonder how much control I really have over anything. My 30 streak challenge did sort of prove a point with this. Because I can try to make something go the way I see it in my mind and it really never does.
I end up only being about to do what I can do. It has helped me to stop overthinking and moved me towards just doing what I can do and seeing if anything comes of it or not.
Trying too hard to make things works out the way I originally planned has gotten far too exhausting.
How I get my daily dose of masculinity right now is podcasts.
Listening to men talk to each other about bettering themselves is therapeutic. Especially when they stop editing themselves to the current climate and say their actual thoughts.
The podcast I listened to today was Dr. Andrew Huberman interviewing Dr. Alok Kanojia.
I had not one clue who Alok Kanojia was but definitely a cool guy with an incredibly unique perspective on things. I highly recommend him.
Kanojia made a lot of cool points on a lot of cool things that I’m not even going to attempt to try to explain but there was one particular point that broke my brain and perhaps entirely rewrote my mode of thinking.
Actually it didn’t rewrite my thinking. It revealed my thinking. How I’ve always been thinking without ever realizing it.
I’ve always been good at handling rejection.
Because I’m a pretty reserved type person. I don’t like everyone and I can’t help that I don’t like everyone and when someone takes it personally that I don’t like them it exhausts me.
So that’s what I empathize with.
When people need to reject me I feel quite a bit of empathy for their position and it softens the blow.
What I do find very difficult however is being on the other end and having to do the rejecting.
I know my terror of being the rejector is higher than average because of all my dating behavior has oriented to avoid it.
I’ve spent very long periods of my life being extremely single. Years and years of not trying at all.
Because I always wait.
I wait until I am completely infatuated with a man.
Until there is no possibility that I will want to reject him. Then I want to go on a date.
Terrible strategy.
It’s no wonder I’m still single.
I’ve always considered myself a very blunt, very honest and straightforward person.
When I don’t like a man I tell him.
When I do like a man I tell him.
This instills in me a very large sense of duty to always clearly communicate my intentions.
Which is exhausting.
I’ve spent a good portion of my life time being tortured over not having a boyfriend.
Why?
Because men are very nice. They are a necessity. Not having them makes life harder.
There are ways around not having a man. Just like there are ways around not having money.
But it does make everything more complicated and more difficult.
Not flying business class is much harder than flying business class. (I do love business class. I’ve experienced it once. It was beautiful. So humane.)
It’s hard not to feel rushed to acquire the valuable commodity that is having a man in my life.
So hard in fact that I forgot that ambiguity is fun.
In that podcast titled ‘unlearn negative thought and behavior patterns’ on Andrew Huberman’s podcast called ‘the Huberman lab’ Alok Kanojia corrected Andrew Huberman on a point of about flirting.
Huberman pointed out that flirting can be misread. That it can be misinterpreted and asked how to prevent that.
Kanojia said that is the point of flirting. That it can be misinterpreted. That there is a plausible deniability to it.
That it is a form of play and play is a form of testing boundaries without igniting aggression.
It is designed to be ambiguous.
He went on to say people are ambivalent. That we like the option to test things and then change our minds.
And I, who have spent my entire life trying to go from zero to one hundred. Always trying to be fully in or fully out. Always being so fully blunt and then avoiding having to be so blunt.
He broke my brain.
And made dating go from seeming like a level one hundred on Mario to what it’s like finding the cheat codes for god mode on Warcraft.
Ambiguity and ambivalence are fun.
They are a natural part of dating. I don’t need to avoid them. I don’t need to be blunt all the time.
I can simply play with some ambiguity and let things be what they are then see if anything comes of it.
Men might wonder why they are a commodity. What about them makes life so much better and easier.
Well for me there are many reasons.
The most obvious is that I get to be taken. When a man hits on me I can say no! I have a boyfriend.
No complications. No hurt feelings. They have to go away and shut up.
Hugs are another reason. A hug from a man I’m attracted to melts everything unpleasant into oblivion. (Puppies have a similar effect.)
Sex. Obviously is a big one.
Men help. When you’re hungry they bring you food. When something is heavy they carry it. When you’re feeling low they attempt to comfort you.
Security. No matter how hard something is if a man loves you, you at least don’t feel alone. Which is incredibly powerful. Friendships can do this as well. But it’s not as powerful as it is with a man. Just because when a man loves you he’s fully united with you.
Friendships can support but they can’t be so fully united and symbiotic like it is with men.
When a man loves you it goes very deep.
Jess lanai 