Sage advice given to me by a friend in the guise of a random comment

Prior to my first encounter with 'the wild thing' (ie sex!), one of my friends, who had already partaken of the wild thing, made a comment to me about the wild thing (and I'm paraphrasing, for the comment was made quite some time ago):

"It's not like in the movies, it's more down to earth, and things can go wrong."

She was mainly referring to the first time, or at the beginning (not that things can't go wrong after the beginning!), but I think she was also commenting on the romanticizing and airbrushing of sex - in films and novels (at least, mainstream films/novels), and in society in general.

I was very grateful for the comment/advice, which ensured that my first time wild thing expectations were drastically lowered - but in a good way - so that I wasn't anticipating fireworks, and thus was not disappointed whenst fireworks did not ensue.

"Life-Experiences" I Haven't Experienced

Life-Experiences: Obviously, there are, like, a gazillion experiences to be had, so my list is just of the more general things of which most earth-born peoples can expect to experience during their lifetimes.

Here is my 'un-experienced' list:

1. death (ie mine - admittedly, it would probably be a little tricky to type out this list had I experienced death, but you never know)
2. being pregnant
3. giving birth
4. extra-terrestrial encounter
5. being in love (ie proper, thoughtful, standing-the-test-of-time love...not the more random, lust-driven thing I usually go with)
6. heroically sacrificing my safety to save someone else
7. raising children
8. committing to a relationship (eg. getting married or agreeing to be a de facto)
9. attending an orgy

So, having made this list, my task now is to decide which, if any, I would like to experience:

1. NO! - though it may be difficult to avoid
2. was interested for awhile but not now (would've liked to experience being 'kicked' from inside :-)
3. was interested for awhile but not now (was interested to see how much pain I could tolerate)
4. YES!
5. YES!
6. bite me
7. was interested for awhile but not now (would've liked to experience breast-feeding, and, of course, being able to say, 'because I said so!')
8. hmm, maybe, would be highly dependent on point no.5 - wouldn't get married, though
9. No. I know, I know, only a crazy person would pass on the opportunity to eat peeled grapes and wear a toga...and, uh, have lots of sex with lots of people at once. But, as a committed introvert, I find it very difficult to focus my attention on more than one person at a time (I suspect this may be a disadvantage at an orgy)

Mid-Way Formed

[And some (related) rambling]

Assuming I live to be between 80-90 years old, then, being that I’m in my forties, I’m halfway to ‘complete’ formation. Only forty or so more years until I know everything, and thus, can die. (Maybe I shouldn’t joke about dying, lest the karmic forces of nature read this blog post and decide to ‘teach me a lesson’).

So, what does this ‘mid-way formed’ mean? Possibly that I now have twice the wisdom and maturity I did when I was in my twenties? Well, in theory – maybe. In practice – I definitely possess more wisdom and maturity than I did in my twenties, but I don’t know how well these things can be measured quantitatively. And, if I actually had very little wisdom and maturity in my twenties, then having twice that amount now doesn’t make me so very wise or mature.

But certainly my perspective has drastically changed from my twenties. When I turned forty, I realized that I’d experienced twenty years as an adult – twenty years which had gone by reasonably fast. So now I’m very aware of what the passage of twenty years feels like, and that it won’t be so long until I’m sixty (and then eighty!!). Lordy. I want my ‘remaining’ years to go slowly.

Getting back to wisdom and maturity (if only I could), people ‘grow’ at different rates (physically and mentally) and are exposed to varying degrees of life as they grow. I think the aphorism that it’s the failures and challenging experiences which shape character (and formation) is very apt. So that people who have seen more life and experienced more challenges at a younger age, may form more rapidly than others of the same age – or too rapidly, in a damaging way. But, in general (I think), adults aged within 5 - even up to 10 - years of each other are at about the same amount of formation (for younger adults, 18 to 25, the age gap is probably closer, more like 2 to 3 years of each other). Which is a contributing factor as to why people of about the same age group tend to gravitate towards each other, and become close friends or partners. And especially seek each other out as life grows older and gets harder; there’s comfort in being with people who have experienced the same passage – and pain - of time.

Of course, people of all ages can be friends, and I think it’s enriching to have older and younger friends. All friendships contribute to a better understanding and tolerance of other people, but a ‘transgenerational’ friendship has unique qualities. With an older friend, there can be a ‘window’ into the future, as well as the receiving of (mostly) sage advice. Then, with a younger friend, there is the giving of advice, and maybe a kind of mentoring, as well as ‘experiencing’ that younger time again (but with older eyes).

In terms of a partner (for me, at least), I don’t think a relationship with a much older or a much younger person would work – more than about 10 years. We wouldn’t be equal. Our amounts of formation would be too different. If my partner was a lot older, I think I would feel as though I had to age too quickly so as to be able to intimately understand and connect with him. And why would I want to age quickly?? I want those years to pass slowly, they’re my years, not his. If my partner was a lot younger, I think I would feel that I needed to slow down my growth, stagnate my formation, so that he had time to catch up. And why should he have to catch up?? I think it would be selfish of me to impose my older-ness – my extra years - onto someone younger. As the older (and, in theory, wiser) person, maybe I should know better.

So, what if the only people available for a relationship are a lot older or younger - then I’ll just have to be alone. Or build a time machine.

Today's Literary Quote:

From The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde:

"The brain had its own food on which it battened, and the imagination, made grotesque by terror, twisted and distorted as a living thing by pain, danced like some foul puppet on a stand, and grinned through moving masks." (pg 159)

I have to confess that, once upon a time, like Dorian, I too kept a transferable demonic self-portrait in a 'locked room at the top of the house' - actually, the rusting boot of my old corolla, underneath the spare tyre. It did serve me well, though, for awhile. The portrait would absorb all my verbal faux pas and my ludicrous vociferations (including when I would use words like 'vociferations'). The painting's transference manifested itself as ridiculous facial expressions, and gibberish would emanate from its tainted canvas.

Eventually the noise from the portrait grew so loud that it could not be contained within the confines of my corolla's boot. Its hideous tones seeped into the car's carriage. I was unable to concentrate on my driving. Family and friends refused lifts from me. I became quite lonely and despondent. One time, I had a vision of a 'foul puppet' upon my dashboard, and I nearly crashed my car. It all became too much and I realized I was going to have to destroy the portrait. Once I had made this decision, I felt as though a great weight was no longer squashing me. It was very liberating.

Of course, once I'd destroyed the portrait - by cutting it into tiny pieces, which I then scattered across an abandoned sewerage processing plant - my ludicrous vociferations came flooding back. Years of inappropriate comments and wild streams-of-consciousness poured from lips, day and night, for many months. It was hell. I couldn't be around people, I couldn't even be around animals (who are notoriously tolerant of lunatic rantings).

Finally, the rantings began to ease. And I started to realize that I actually had some control over my mouth; I didn't HAVE to vocalize every random thought. I could, in fact, veto myself. It was a life-changing revelation. And, thankfully, I didn't need to murder anyone to come to this epiphany, unlike the tragic Dorian Gray.

Something Heart-Painful I've Never Experienced

There are, of course, many, many painful things that can happen in this world which I've never experienced - eg homelessness, war, hunger, death of (my) child, prolonged and incapacitating illness - and I'm thankful that I haven't had to experience these things. And, mostly, when I'm being depressive and negative and self-pitying, I can still appreciate how much my life is NOT a struggle, compared to the lives of so many others. The last month, however, has not been one of those times. There's been some high level depressive and negative and self-pitying inhabiting my brain, catalyzed by an intense bout of loneliness. An infection of loneliness, and its consequent pathology; sleeplessness, distractedness, brain vomit.

I tend to 'catch' loneliness when I've experienced unrequited affection (at least, when I become aware of unrequited affection - most likely the affection was unrequited for some time, but my delusional state would not allow realization of such realities).

Discovering you've been unrequited is always, to varying degrees, heart-painful. But so is being in a long-term relationship which ends when you didn't want it to end. This is a heart-pain I've never experienced. The relationships I've had have usually been around 12 months long, and mostly I ended them. The most painful breakup was with a boyfriend who was abusive, and the breakup was painful because he wouldn't 'allow' me to breakup with him.

I imagine it could be devastating to have a long-term relationship end; a sudden, massive emptiness, and a loss of control over one of the main conditions of life. I don't know how I'd react in this situation. For me, at the moment, I have a large degree of control over my life. Discovering that someone doesn't want to have a relationship with me pretty much means that my life 'changes' from me being on my own, to me continuing to be on my own - albeit with an enhanced sense of loneliness. And I can always rely on cups of tea to make me feel better (and, occasionally, cups/shots of something a little stronger).