To love, pure and chaste, from afar...?!

More insight from the marketing guru whose most insightful writings often have little if anything to do with marketing.

Harnessing the Midlife Crisis

I think the idealization of women is indigenous to men.
There are various ways of idealizing women, especially
sexually, based in almost every case on their
inaccessibility. When a woman functions
as an unobtainable love object,
she takes on a mythical quality.
- James Dickey, Self Interviews, p. 153

If you’re a man, you will definitely have a midlife crisis. When it happens – and it can happen a number of times - you can let it lift you to the next level, or you can let it unravel your life.

Wizard Academy teacher Dr. Richard D. Grant, a clinical psychologist, was chatting with a group of adult students one day while his microphone was still recording. I transcribed a bit of what he said because it explains for me the relationship between Don Quixote and Dulcinea, the common village girl Quixote admired from afar.

(In the book, Don Quixote never meets Dulcinea; she’s never even aware of his existence, though she has a profound effect on his life.)

Here’s what Dr. Grant said that day:

“One of the big things that Jung talked about that becomes more and more operative as a guy gets older is that he comes into contact with the deeper parts of himself which we call the unconscious. The trap door to the unconscious is actually a gate that is feminine.”

“The feminine part of a man’s personality is called the anima, the Latin word for soul. It leads him to growth and assumes many faces.”

“We should pay very close attention to what we find attractive, men, at mid-life, because that’s the roadmap of where we’re going to grow next. This is, a man’s encounters with females, especially at mid-life, tell him what he needs to connect with in himself to have more life. That is what the anima experience is all about.”

“This is very important for guys to know because at mid-life they get re-sensitized to females, deeply, and it doesn’t have to do with their committed relationships. And it’s very confusing for many men, and they think that they’re supposed to question their committed relationships and that life itself is in a strand of that person’s hair that they would follow."

"Actually that person is a symbol, mirroring this profound feminine part of the man that is the gateway to what lies ahead for him. And the function of the anima – the internal feminine – is to lead the man to the next part of his life.”

“The rules of relationship to the unconscious are the rules of chivalry, ‘pure and chaste from afar.’ If you decide to totally get engrossed in the idealized imagery of the feminine, you’ll lose yourself. There’s danger in that. But if you have a conscious relationship - feeling the power of that, but not getting seduced by it - you will come to awareness; you’ll learn things."

"That might sound wild but chastity is really the ability to relate to a female human being, for a man, and to the anima in all its power at the same time and in the right respect, both at once, without confounding the two.”

“If you attribute to a woman the goddess-like qualities of the anima, a man just melts in front of her. But if you keep them separate – you know, one’s for growth and one is to have relationship with, in all the benefits of monogamy and commitment – then you can benefit from it. Chastity is the ability to do both at once and not confuse them. That is what chastity is, not wimpy abstinence.”

“If you want to see the four parts of the masculine counterpart to this for a woman – the animus – go watch The Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy has four masculine figures she deals with when she goes on an adventure into a different land, learns all kinds of lessons and then comes home after her journey. So that’s an alternative story…”

Right now I find myself noticing women who are lighthearted and carefree. Thanks to Dr. Grant's little chat that day, I realize this is because I've been carrying the weight of fund-raising and construction for Wizard Academy for seven long years. I'm noticing these women because I need to make time for frivolous relaxation and play. The anima within me is whispering. I need to listen.

Men, what is your anima saying? Ladies, is the animus within you telling you where you need to grow?

Make no mistake about it. Deep and revealing conversations happen here all the time. Come. Adventure. Engelbrecht House awaits you.

Engelbrecht, by the way, means “Angel, broken” in German.

Just a coincidence.

Alphavillianism

In a recent Church setting, I heard a song (titled "Pilgrim Song," a pleasant ditty not to be confused with Wagner's rocking "Pilgrims' Chorus" or Paulus' exquisite "Pilgrims' Hymn") ending with the triumphant denouement, "And as I pass along I’ll sing the Christian song: I’m going to live forever!"

I believe that our spirits and intelligences preceded, and will outlive, our mortal bodies. But for whatever reason, for whatever doubts or angers or fears had been simmering in my mind at the time, it struck me at that exact moment, like the scales falling from my eyes in a Joycean epiphany: This may be the most ridiculously childish (not child-like) and egocentric notion I've ever heard. Could it be that our theology is nothing more than a modern, Protestant-derived twist on the millennia-old response to a simple fear of death?

And is living forever, even if forever young (as opposed to that poor sucker Tithonus), really desirable? Why not just live a full and rich life, do good, love, forgive, learn, and be content to call it a day?

No pho tonight

Body Mass Sindex

My work this afternoon on a presentation that my boss's boss will make next week of higher-ups required that I track down some images of both slim and not-so-slim people measuring their bellies. Interesting, but probably not surprising, what a Google images search for something as benign as "slim stomach measure" will produce. As I looked over all of those taut, twenty-something midriffs (and e-mailed my I.T. department an explanation of why their surf sirens were probably sounding), familiar and frustrating feelings of wistfulness mixed with anger mixed with resignation arose, that I really, really want to "know" a body like that, so much that, under just the wrong circumstances I'd give up almost anything for a single night or even a few hours of knowing, but most likely never will do so, and that nothing suggests that these pangs will subside -- at least not until I myself am decidedly old, fat, bald and broke, and therefore inarguably no longer a candidate for partnership with such a physique.

Isla Mujeres

An illustrated follow-up comment to my earlier post about our Cancun trip:

How could I possibly be expected to visit the idyllic Caribbean gem of Isla Mujeres without grabbing my unsuspecting dad's zoom lens and memorializing a sighting of the island's namesakes?

Memory dump

As you may have read in the previous post, I got a new phone. That required that I go through my old micro SD card, a process that unearthed some great treasures of legginess, even hidden treasures, capable of running and not being weary. They hail from the Nordstrom Rack, the craft store, the grocery store, The Apple Store, Costco, bike routes, Target, a business convention (someday I'll ask a Wall Street hottie who's a lower-level analyst at one of the big investment banks what it's like to have her pick of the millionaires on any given weekend, and assure her it's an inquiry and not a pick-up line...yeah, right), my stylist's waiting room and my bishop's waiting area.

Many of these have likely been posted already, others not, and each has its own heartwarming story. I lack the discipline to delete them, and it would seem like a shame after all that furtive effort to capture them (not sure how comforted I was to learn that there are evidently many others who are given to similar activities -- seems an entire subculture of "non-pornographic (at least not in the classic definition, perhaps) leg-lusting voyeurism exists, with each devotee providing constructive criticism of the others' filming techniques, etc.), so here they are:

Resolute

Funny how matters of very little consequence can sprout cancerous tentacles that wriggle their way into every nook and cranny.

I started this entry on January 1, at which point I was resolved --or so I thought-- to stop pretending that this marriage was working, that it was a source of happiness, that it was a source of anything good other than children. That night, after yelling viciously at my eldest son for complaining about being hungry (details below), I retreated to a hot shower and angrily and hopelessly m'ed through a full, Three Act dream scenario with my Tina Louise-alike leading lust object in the Hotel Monaco, then went alone to the movies. I sat through Inception and something involving Bruce Willis and the CIA, emerging around midnight still angry and feeling probably as close as I've come in recent memory to calling it quits. But rather than saying something I may have regretted back home, I largely avoided my wife for 48 hours while I worked through my thoughts. On Monday the 3rd, I wrote her the following, to which she responded surprisingly understandingly and productively, as a result of which things have improved dramatically around here:

I’m writing this because that tends to work best to get info “on the table,” and we can follow up later, if/whenever you feel like it.

Executive Summary

I’ve spun stuff around in my head at length, and have figured out that I’ve been angry at you because your ongoing complaints about the laptop and cell phone, combined with your disbelief/disgust/whatever-it-is about my reluctance to spend another $1,000 on [multi-level marketing product], make me feel like you are, after all is said and done, ungrateful for my efforts as a provider, which, in turn, makes me feel like a failure in yet another way as a husband -- ironically in the ONE area of husbandly responsibilities (i.e., breadwinner) that I’ve thought would be bulletproof/irrefutable by virtually any reasonable third-party standard.

Unabridged Version

As you're aware, I've had some muddled and confused thoughts and feelings for the last week or so that boiled over onto sweet [#2] Saturday evening. I've made what I think is some great progress sorting through things in the last 48 hours. My time on the hill with him helped in the sorting/clarifying department. It was a perfect ski afternoon - the sky was clear, the air clean and the snow fresh, and he did great. We had a lot of fun. But he’d managed to get out of the house without eating lunch, I didn't pack any snacks, the warming hut closed at 3, and by the time we were on the lift for what ended up being our second to last run, the combination of his hunger and cold toes (mine were cold, too) started taking over, which is why we didn't stay for a few runs at the start of night skiing. It was when I stopped for nacho gear at [the neighborhood market] that he started crying. But by that time, I wasn't mad at him, as you're also aware – but he got the brunt of the burst.

You’ll remember that, in trying to figure out what the heck was going on with my feelings about you (why I was feeling angry, even resentful, preferring distance, etc. – I honestly struggled to make sense of it, even as I was aware that it was going on), I brainstormed a lot of ideas on the fly. Some of them, now in retrospect, were so far off the mark as to have been stupid (“I wonder if maybe technology is the New Humanities.”), and others (“Is some sense of entitlement kicking in?”), while perhaps not entirely accurate, might have been within the general solar system.

I’ll explain:

I work hard to provide for our family. I know we can discuss whether I’m the one “earning the money” (since I’m the one who actually physically shows up at a workplace, types things, calls people, makes decisions, etc., all of which magically results in money appearing in our bank account) or whether “we” are earning the money (since your efforts at home enable me to leave the house and come to a workplace), but, at the end of the day, I studied my butt off in school and then applied myself pretty diligently in my early career to put myself in the best position to monetize whatever life would come to throw at me. What I do now is what life has thrown at me, and I work hard to do it as best as I reasonably can, and that hard work allows me to "provid[e] the necessities of life and protection,” as well as a fair amount of “other stuff,” for our family. It’s debatable whether I succeed at many of my other responsibilities as a father; in this area, however, at least for the last decade or so, things have, through works and grace, gone decently by almost any reasonable standard.

With that as a [characteristically] long-winded backdrop, I arrive at last at why on earth I’d become increasingly irritated at you in the week since Christmas.

We could debate whether you “need” a laptop until the cows come home. But that’s not the point. The point is that it became clear that this is something you really wanted, that you saw would have significant benefit to your life at home and, hopefully, a remunerative business application. You wanted a MacBook, but understood (which I appreciate) why that might not be the most prudent step for now. So I did a lot of research and took the time of knowledgeable colleagues & friends, to find something that would work well for you and not ding the budget too hard. This process arrived at the Asus. Nobody will argue that it’s cutting edge for today’s technology. But nobody will argue that it’s not at least a tenfold improvement over the Dell, or that it has vastly more firepower than you (or I, for that matter) could possibly use based on y/our skills and applications, although it may take a little “skill-freshening” for you to make Windows 7 become “intuitive” to you. Hundreds of millions of people somehow manage to cope with Windows 7 – while it may not be Apple, it may not be the direct equivalent of The Pear or the Iron Maiden. But the running theme of your experience with the laptop thus far comes across to me loud and clear as Dissatisfaction.

I wasn’t in the market for a new phone. I knew there’s all kinds of neat stuff out there, but my other phone was fine. You wanted a new phone. Which is understandable. Similarly, your old phone seemed fine to me but I don’t begrudge you that desire, although [my boss] loved the news almost as much as he loved word of your concealed weapons permit. So I did a lot of research and took the time of knowledgeable colleagues & friends, to find something that would work well for us, in conjunction with my employer’s parameters, and not ding the budget too hard. This process arrived at the what is arguably one of the very best data plans (our ONLY limitation is 1,500 minutes to land lines during business hours each month – literally everything else is unlimited), on the fastest network, on what many argue are two of the 4 or 5 very best phones out there (I learned the other day that our phones are categorized as “superphones,” not just “smartphones”), plus an outstanding third phone for the kids, all for (fill in cash register noise here) about $50 a month out of pocket when it’s all said and done. But the running theme of your experience with your phone thus far (this, to my knowledge, without having read the instructions or checked things online or speaking to your very tech-savvy brother who also has an Android-based superphone and could probably give you some good tips) comes across to me loud and clear as Dissatisfaction.

Take these complaints (that’s what they are), stir in $1,000 worth of newfound [multi-level marketing firm] guilt, bake it in the oven of recent trips to Europe and Cancun, let it cool on the rack of a reasonable outlay for Christmas, serve it with a side of the fact my employer (and I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that this MAY have had something to do with my efforts at work; see previous paragraph for the long and whiney tale of woe) just made a couple of adjustments that significantly improve our already-decent financial position, and I sit down to a meal of INGRATITUDE.

It’s not about how you navigate your “unintuitive” laptop or whether the color scheme of the texting screen on your “unintuitive” phone matches[that of your sister] . It’s that your emotional emphasis on these and other points claws back the scab on some sensitive tissue of ingratitude and inadequacy. So while I’m chewing on this entrée (back to the baking metaphor for a moment), I start to wonder:

- “When was the last time I truly felt appreciated by [my wife], much less admired? She says she appreciates what I do, that she’s grateful for warm running water, that she’s grateful that she can simply go to the store and buy food without really thinking twice about it, but…but she’s always assumed that this would be ‘givens’ in her life, so no matter what I do as a provider, I’m at best meeting the expectation, and sometimes falling far short of it. How can she appreciate –much less, admire-- something that’s ultimately either a C or an F, but never an A?”

which leads to stuff like

- “When was the last time I felt really accepted by her, as myself? Not my worst, lazy “self” – I don’t expect her to accept that. But just my normal self?”

which leads to really funkola stuff like

- “Man, I put an irrational amount of effort into that [annual family] newsletter. Was I driven in large by an effort to paint a picture with which I’d convince myself that we're truly happy as a family, as a couple, whether I AM truly happy, that this is the life I want to be living? I can think of all kinds of things that have been enjoyable or gratifying about our marriage and our family, some things in fact that have been deeply satisfying – satisfying beyond my wildest notions, in some cases. But from a purely selfish perspective, it’s harder to think of periods or even the last time that I felt lasting happiness, whatever ‘lasting happiness’ means.”

That’s what I’ve been mulling through for the last little bit. Thanks for only mildly begrudging me some of the space I’ve sought. My late arrival tonight isn’t for “space” purposes – it’s so that I can write you this without interruptions…I know you understand the value of “without interruptions.” I also know that you can relate to much of what I say here, and it saddens me, really, to know that you carry similar weights, although tech gadgets are obviously not the thought provokers in your case. It’s when I show indifference to the Church (and the Gospel as promulgated by it), when my physical dissatisfactions are apparent, when I fail to recognize the much good (and much amazing) that is in you, and maybe one or two other hot buttons, all of which are too often. So I know you can relate.

For those elements that you can’t relate to (like, “Hey, it’s about a stupid phone, not your Masculinity As We Know It”), you may think I'm being acting “emotionally unintelligent” (as you like to say), unreasonable, or, based on your most often-accessed models of manliness ("[Oft-referenced husband of couple with whom we're friends] good would never think this way about [wife]'s less-than-effusive response to something he gave her," or "[Another oft-referenced husband of another couple with whom we're friends] would never spiral down this path based on [wife]’s stinking cell phone. It's a CELL PHONE for crying out loud! Who the hell have I married??!?! [signature [in-law family] groan] Uuuooooooouuurrrrgggphhh!!"), even unmanly. But the fact of the matter is that these are my feelings, so, while you can certainly choose to dismiss them, you can't refute them.

Conclusion

Is whatever you make it.

BTW I’m not angry any more. I’m sobered, and there are some deep, central themes at play, but, for what it’s worth, I can think about you and smile, which I haven’t been able to do for a couple of days.

Hug,

Me