Boys Will Be

I just had a shower and it felt good. I know some guys don’t like it. And, really, they never have. As kids, they would run around all day and their moms might suggest a shower before dinner and Dad might sniff the air and make a comment, but to them it just didn’t make sense. They weren’t that dirty and, besides, they were just going to get dirty again. They weren’t sure that that smell didn’t smell good. That it didn’t mean something. Something important.

The sheets on their beds might be a bit dingy, but wasn’t that a statement, of some kind, about their existence? Their jeans hadn’t been washed in weeks and they had been hid beneath the bed, just so Mom couldn’t grab them and throw them in the wash. This kind of personal grooming was what their sisters were so concerned with; it had nothing to do with them. They weren’t girls and they were determined not to be.

All this assumes that they even thought about it. It is more likely that this aspect of boyness is genetic. Inherent. Dad was probably the same way, before he was domesticated.

The young male mind is a primitive instrument. Guys are some of Nature’s own creatures, running around in the weeds or in the swamp or sorting through garbage, if they are urban males. Or, racing around on bikes and hitting each other, if they are of suburban origin.

They have a mission. One preordained by ancestors. This mission is to move evolution forward, through exploration and incessant experimentation. They are developing physically. They are perfecting their aim. They are testing limits. They are not big on communication. Or, hygiene. They know, instinctively, that it is going to take more than a little dirt to hurt them. It is going to take something like a T Rex or an attack by aliens to begin to thwart their progress.

Education? Their priorities differ from those of their parents and teachers. The concept of behavior is antithetical to their inner sense of independence and creativity. Sitting inside, in rows, no less, would be laughable, if the consequences for not attending were not so overwhelming. Ire, anger, disappointment, guilt and shame are powerful lessons and, even with their fierce forward momentum, society has somehow decided to impose its own habitual and arbitrary boundaries on them, rather than allow young boys, men, males, to discover them on their own and develop and use their innate powers of judgment.

No cars. No guns. No mind-altering experiences. Not even a minimum of tribal wildness. It makes no sense, but, sadly, they learn that they have no power. This lesson, this discovery, of the effects and limits, and the often violent acquisition of power, turns out to be very important, and, ultimately, tragic. The exercise of parental and societal power insures that each succeeding generation of guys are changed from playful cubs, setting small fires and incessantly jumping and shouting, to calculating, grasping, and, sometimes, devious adolescents and fraternity brothers, who worry about their status and about just how they are going to control the world and its inhabitants, so that they, alone, will be King of the Hill.

It’s frightening.

Time marches on, while evolution moves slowly. The Age of Aquarius has dawned. The age of Oprah is underway. 2012 is on the horizon, and a cosmic consciousness is beginning to pervade the population. Change is inevitable, as is the end of childhood. Soap will always be available and, with age, comes wisdom. Not only that, but a guy’s senses develop and understanding begins to sink in.

To wit: those sheets, actually, are dirty and may be the cause of several unpleasant side effects. Those jeans just won’t crumple to the floor. They stand there in the corner and are, for some reason, a little disturbing. And, without a shower, it’s not just Mom, who is keeping her distance, it’s that girl with the red hair.

Boys will be boys, but what about those girls? I mean, what about them?

Lately ...

Lately… whatever that means. It could mean, for the past several months, or for the last week or so, or for the last couple of days. If one factors in the Information Revolution, aging, and the possible onset of that disease whose name I can never remember, it could be this morning or just a minute ago.

However it may be, lately…, I’ve been experiencing myself in a new way. I mean ‘experiencing myself’ not in the biblical sense, but that my actions, thoughts, and feelings are all in alignment and working together. There is an identifiable sense of self.

This sense of self may strike you as something that should be obvious, or something to be worked out in the second year of college, or something completely incomprehensible. To me, it is something willfully created, struggled for, hoped for, but which can only come about in its own time. I have been looking for the switch, with determination, through the years and have never found it.

I always tried to be whoever they wanted me to be – good son, well-behaved student, businessman, employee, but I could never really get the hang of it. I spoke inappropriately, my biorhythms were out of sync, I worked too much or not enough. I knew I was not fulfilling my potential. I was not buckling down to the job at hand. I was not taking the whole thing seriously.

I tried but, inevitably, each time, I would fail. I was like an incurable alcoholic. I had, with shame, hidden some facet of myself in the bottom desk drawer. I had a couple of those small airplane bottles of longing, stuffed behind my socks. I kept saying I would quit, but never could. The voices in my head were too insistent, too distracting.

I had to face the truth: I was an imposter. A sheep in wolf’s clothing. An Emperor with no clothes. A guy who hadn’t done the laundry. Metaphors popped up unbidden. Bad puns disturbed perfectly reasonable sentences. My visions were not remotely similar to the Strategic Marketing Plan. I was a cause of disappointment to my parents. An object of worry to my sisters. A failure in the eyes of my friends. And, I was unemployable.

This left me with few options. There would be no title – Captain of Industry – for me. I would not figure in the Alumni News column. I could never become a CPA. Somewhere, back there, I had my Occupational Aptitude tested and, though it was exciting to contemplate, I knew, even then, that I would never become a television repairman or an astronaut. I’m afraid of heights.

Now what?! This is a question I have repeatedly asked myself. And, that was exactly the problem. Me and myself were on different sides of the fence. I could not figure it out and, myself, try, as it might, couldn’t make me hear the answer. Time, in general, age, in particular, the state of the world, and the economy, in many ways, wore me down. I gave up all of my ambiguous ambitions. It seemed, as if every possibility had been exhausted or wasn’t interested. To continue the metaphor from before, I gave up and said, dejectedly, “Make it a double. And keep ‘em coming.”

But metaphors are only that. They break down, at some point, and it’s hard to keep things straight. Are we talking about philosophy, psychology, or psychosis? Does drink represent desire or de-opposite?

What has happened is one of those ironies, upon which many major religions have been founded: Surrender to what is and peace will follow. Stop looking and you will find it. Wherever you go, there you are.

The only thing to do has been to take the advice of the masters – Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream. Go with the flow. Turn, turn, turn. Keep on truckin’. It seems those guys in the 60s were onto something.

Lately… I’ve just been trying to do my best.