The Living And The Dead

I often see people I used to know. I see them in the faces of strangers I pass during the course of any given day. And in the movements of some, the stride, the gait, the body posture, the mannerisms. Bits and pieces of those I’ve known, in brief, unexpected glimpses. Character traits, personalities, emotional temperament. Illuminations of the heart, the soul even. A smile belonging to an old friend, or a brief casual acquaintance. A familiar warmth which may once have embraced me, but has long been forgotten. Or a glare that connects me, suddenly, to a moment I may have quietly moved away from for fear of the entanglements of its unfriendly, and ravenous tentacles.

I recall, and re-acquaint with, so many different people thru these quick, enigmatic encounters. The living, and the dead, both. They re-visit my world for a moment to remind me that I am still a part of them, that I am connected. That I have been given a small portion of their soul, and they have been given a piece of my own. They remind me that we are alone in this world, but that we are never really without one another. The residue of each brief connection resonates within our very existence. We do not exist independently of each other. We exist in harmony with our experience, with the sacred, and the profane. All of it. We are continually reminded if we only pay attention.

Good friends and family are important. They love and embrace us, and can make us feel secure. They reflect our development, and our psychic/spiritual condition. But some people hang on to everyone they’ve ever befriended or loved, fearful of being alone, afraid of facing their own limitations, their own demons, the lingering doubt about their capacity for self-sufficiency. Some cling with a desperation that betrays any measure of faith, trust, or understanding, in themselves, about themselves. It is a way of moving through the world both distracted and cocooned. It works for many. It gets them through, but at the expense of getting to know themselves in a broader, deeper context.

Were we to fully understand the principal of spiritual connection, perhaps we could live without the distraction of perpetual reinforcement.
Perhaps we could.

Like Thunder

I’ve walked the path laid out before me for as long as I’ve been able to stride, or even stumble. I’ve cared for the dispossessed, the wounded, the lost, the criminal and the abused in a myriad of jobs and circumstances. Minister, youth center director, counselor, inmate liaison in the county jail, substance abuse counselor for a public health clinic, high school counselor to students at risk, to name a few. Manager of a band of misfits finding their own lives. I also worked for a major financial institution in the jungles of Corporate America.

When I was young, and even into my middle years, because of catholic guilt, and childhood family dynamics, it was never demonstrated to me that I was important as an individual, and that I was deserving of having my needs met. I was happy to be fed the figurative scraps of life left on the table for those like me to quietly divide. I took the smallest piece of chicken on the plate. I always gave others the pick of the white meat, and left the leg for them in case they wanted seconds. I satisfied myself with scrawny wings, and bony backs, and necks. I did not complain about my chronic deprivation. And I watched others fill out nicely, and their lives take on meaning. It did them good, the nourishment they had. It did them well to have the things they needed. I watched them have the world for the asking, and even for the taking. I fed myself meagerly with one hand while feeding them bountifully with both, offering them the meat of that tender breast, or the strength of that warm thigh to sustain them.

But I’ll be alright. I always have been. I’ve made my way, with the living, and with the dead, with the deranged, and the defiled; through the wild, through the fog, through the forest, through a wilderness once burning with anger, and shrouded in regret. A land once filled with promise, a land once welcome for the tired and the hungry, the fallen, the forsaken and forlorn, the lost and the forgotten. Like an early American promise. Like a long road home. A perilous journey fueled by fallen heroes, “used to be’s, and coulda been’s, and never were’s, and zeroes”. A cruel and peculiar drama, but on a stage of sound design.

I no longer fear the frailty, or the deprivation, or the neglect. I am stronger now than the well fed, the inbred, the perpetually safe and satisfied. The adversity has made me strong.
Like thunder.

I would not wish the same for others,
but I thank God for it’s brutal intrusion into my otherwise tenuous life.

On Assignment

Lately I’ve been kicking around the concepts of life/afterlife like I sometimes do. You know, the whole unending process of questioning that we are born into and revisit time and again throughout our lives. One religion, or sect, teaches the ‘heaven/hell’ (reward/damnation) lesson, one teaches the ‘re-incarnation’ (do-it-all-again) theory, another espouses the ‘spiritual ladder’ (earn your salvation) principle, another the ‘bliss/oblivion’ philosophy, still another the
‘I am god’ theology. There are more variations on life/afterlife than there are different kinds of hot peppers in Mexico. Some combine all of them into a kind of spiritual casserole in an attempt to make sense of it all, or to mollify ones self. I mixed 12 different kinds of chili peppers in a blender once, when I was living in Baja, in an attempt to make the ultimate salsa. It practically killed me. It reduced me to a fetal position on the floor of my kitchen, not unlike what religion has done to some of the people I know. Not very pretty.

Some don’t pay attention to the big questions about life, and purpose. The Why’s, the How’s, and the What ifs? Or at least they pretend not to. But most do try and figure things out on some level or another. The eternal questions. The ones we try to solve in order to determine how to live.

In dealing with concepts, whether they be new, or generally accepted, but unproven, I find myself falling back on the ‘old coat’ test. Does it feel comfortable? Does it have dignity? Does it feel worn, but not tired? And lastly, does it feel authentic? I think it’s a pretty good indicator of substance.

I keep returning to a very simple conclusion of purpose in my own life. A pretty solid reason for being. I’m ‘on assignment’. It helps me to look at life this way. Yeah, just that, I’m on assignment. From whom? From where? It doesn’t really matter. I don’t really need to qualify, or quantify it. It doesn’t need a name. It doesn’t need a face. Call it an acceptance of the unseen, the unproven, the unspoken, the unknown. Call it faith if you must call it something. Call it an internal knowing, or an eternal truth. I don’t care. Call it naïveté, or blasphemy even.

On assignment, representing the human race. . . . . . . . and the Divine.
What if each of us lived as a personal representative of both? And are we not? Who would want to be a poor representative of either? A concept so simple, yet so profound, as to go unconsidered by even the most intellectual among us.

On assignment.
I believe life would be meaningful for all if such were the case.
I believe it would be a peaceful, and a dignified planet.

Make Me An Instrument

Throughout my life I have been drawn to the thoughts and writings of Saint Frances of Assisi. I often meditate on a prayer of his (The Prayer of Saint Frances). More often than not I fail to meet it’s gracious intent. But failing to meet it’s standard is no reason to move too far away from it’s purpose. A few weeks ago a co-worker of mine came across the prayer in a book of poetry she was reading to a class we conduct together. She read the prayer to me, and as always, it made me want to dig deeper, to be more conscious of my shortcomings, and more determined in my quest for personal and spiritual equilibrium.

Other than ‘The Lords Prayer’ (Our Father who art in heaven. . . . . . .), it is probably the most profound and significant prayer ever written. Certainly the most well known. And yet, as I look at the condition of the world today, it is quite obvious that it is also a prayer that has largely gone ‘un-prayed’. There are those who live this prayer (whether they actually say the words or not), and there are those who don’t. If it is the motive and intent of our hearts that really matters in this life, then this is a prayer to embrace. I am one who believes that we become the embodiment of the practices we live and the ideals that we hold close.

Some may regard this as a religious, or a Christian prayer. I do not. It is a prayer of assimilation, of reconciliation, of integration with the divine, and with the greater family of man-kind. I consider it to be a plea for help in becoming thoughtful, magnanimous, vital, valuable and purposeful human beings. I have long believed that anyone in a position of influence or leadership would be well served to take these sentiments to heart. Every politician, every minister, every poet, songwriter, performer and teacher would be of far greater value to those in their sphere of influence if they had the courage and inclination to do so.

What if everybody stopped protecting themselves, dropped their pretensions and insecurities, stopped trying to impress one another with style over substance, with gossip over understanding, with exaggeration over accomplishment, with image over honesty? What if everybody had the motivation to pray

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”


Share this prayer with those you love,
and those whom you consider to be your friends.

The Visitation

It was about 7:30 in the evening. I was relaxing in camp at the foot of Thunder Mountain. It had been a hard few days wrapping things up at home, packing for a week away in the tall pines, where Silver Lake overflows to create the North Fork of the American River. It was quiet. I was enjoying the beauty of a view men have sought like gold, and even sacrificed their lives to own. I’d been looking forward to this for weeks. It had been an hectic and unexpected year. Many family gatherings around the wedding of my youngest son. That was good, but followed by the quick deterioration, and eventual death, of my older brother from brain cancer. A year I’d not yet had the time to absorb, let alone sort out.

I was resting now, at home in the great outdoors. Feet propped up comfortably on a perfect rock. Mind at ease, feeling free to think about things, unencumbered, for the first time in a long time. I was thinking about my sons, the paths they’ve chosen, the lives they’ve made for themselves, their music, the family, letting go of worries and concerns that I’ve worn like an old coat for so long. Good thoughts. And I was casually mulling over how I arrived at the persona of ‘The Old Coyote’ as a moniker for my own music.

Then I stood up, abruptly, and for no apparent reason. As I did, my head rose above the top of a large flat rock that was planted in the ground just a few feet away from where I was now standing. My eyes locked on to the eyes of the most beautiful coyote imaginable. Like an apparition, but one I could have reached out to touch. Thick grey coat, like a wolf. Eyes like wet marbles in the sand. Glistening, gleaming, deep and alive. And his eyes were locked on to mine. He was not nervous, or afraid, just relaxed. We watched each other for a perfect minute. He delivered an unambiguous message in that moment. Unspoken, but strong, deliberate and profound. His eyes said softly, but unmistakably “you did not become ‘The Old Coyote’. It is who you have always been." Then he ambled quietly away, stopping for a moment to look back. I pointed him out to my wife, who confirmed for me that ‘if he was an apparition he was a physical one’. A final connection for a brief moment, and he was gone.

That old guy came by my camp specifically to pay a visit. He knew I was there. He knew I'd recognize him. And I knew we’d known each other since I was a child.

I thought I heard him singing.

In A Heartbeat

I recently watched a documentary that a son made about the 50 year marriage of his mother and father. They lived in a conservative town in the mid-west. The film was originally intended, in some way, to honor the relationship, it’s enduring, and endearing qualities. It’s success, but also it’s ups and downs. The son was looking for honesty, but expecting a loving and honorable relationship he could illuminate for the world, and for himself. It would also serve the purpose of validating his own commitment to his wife and family, his own chosen road, and reinforcing for himself that, even through the hard times, he made the right choice in his own life. That choice being ‘to do as his parents had done’. And to do it well. He knew his parent’s marriage was not perfect, but he did view it as remarkably ordinary, and although it was something he feared for himself, it was also something he actually wanted for himself.

The son conducted on-camera interviews with his mother and father over an extended period of time. He interviewed his two sisters as well. During the making of the documentary his mother became suddenly ill and died within three weeks of contracting the illness. To everyone’s shock and surprise his father, during the making of the documentary, married his former secretary just three months after the death of his wife. To make matters worse, the father emptied, and moved out of, the home where they’d lived all those years and moved to Florida to start his new life. The family and friends were stunned, to say the least.
Everything changed for them in a heartbeat.

I work with developmentally disabled adults, conducting a recreation, socialization and mobility class on a medical unit of a large campus. The unit is a satellite existence unto itself. Some really good people make it their home away from home for 8 hours every day. I work part time, but participate in, and absorb, the climate, and the social dynamics of the workplace. Dedicated, hard working and loving people populate the unit. But there have been some rough stretches, as there is with any family or group of people. There had been measurable tension on the unit for a long time. It revolved around a particular individual. It involved a social duplicity, and an underhandedness, and it was affecting, and infecting, the whole environment. Eventually some young, and very courageous, staff members dealt with the situation, directly, and through the proper channels. I provided them support. It was not easy for them. It never is for someone who puts themselves on the line. But it was for the good of the whole, and the situation got resolved. One day the tension was palpable. The next day it was gone, as a great sigh of relief rose from the very foundation of the building.
Everything changed in a heartbeat.

My brother died a year ago. He was the latest in a long line of people I have loved and lost. That is not unique to me. Most people lose people along the way. It happens. We don’t like it, but we make the best of it. We find ways to make the loss tolerable, the pain less painful, the memory more comforting. But the loss remains, nevertheless.
My brother was here. And then he was not here.
Everything changed in a heartbeat.

Social Duplicity

There is a pervasive social duplicity that is practiced far too matter-of-factly. Duplicity, itself, is by no means, an endearing quality to begin with, but even less so when it is wielded so comfortably, and so cleanly, among family, friends and acquaintances. It is seen most profoundly in government. It moves through our work and social circles like a virus, unknowingly infecting even the most unsuspecting among us. When a culture, family or social group, continually demonstrates a particular form of behavior, even those who would be most immune to its influence become affected. People slowly begin to take on the character, style and behavior of their social groups. To not do so would be to eventually invite exclusion from the group on some level.

Duplicity: Defined as “The fact of being deceptive, dishonest, or misleading.” It is an insidious practice. It can be used offensively or defensively, with words, or actions, of both commission and omission. It is how attorneys have acquired such pathetic reputations. When I’ve had occasion to speak with people about honesty, for example, invariably they will put things in the context of whether or not a lie was involved. Rarely will people frame honesty in the context of whether or not a comment, behavior, action or non-action was deceptive or misleading. And there is an increasing inclination to try and convince an offended party that they must have just misinterpreted something. A convenient smokescreen, but really just a transparent and predictable demonstration of the very behavior that is being denied.

The continued practice of duplicity breeds a duplicitous nature. In the soul of an individual, and in the soul of a culture. I believe that is what is happening at an alarming rate today.
Duplicity is about deception and dishonesty, but it is really about character. As individuals, we become what we practice.

Addiction, as an example, develops as the result of practiced behavior. It is of a psychological, and eventually, a physiological nature. Duplicity is of a purely psychological nature, but it picks up momentum and becomes ingrained in ones character as a result of its continued practice, very much like addiction. It is used to gain an advantage over a person or situation. It goes to character. It will always go to character. And, ultimately, it ends up giving other people and situations an advantage over us. As we become compromised, we become weakened and less credible. Many have never recovered from the practice of duplicity.

We don’t start out with a duplicitous nature. It develops over time. Along the way, as we discover the ease with which we can manipulate others, we make choices when and how, and whether or not, to use those skills. Predictably, the more we use them, and the more successfully, the easier it becomes to continue on that path. It is often quite effortless to be less than honest, less than forthright, less than genuine. It becomes, for many, the path of least resistance. But, fortunately, the same can be said of integrity. As we practice honesty we gradually develop an honest nature. It just happens over time. It, too, becomes a natural pattern of behavior, becoming the norm, without additional effort.

I write about honesty, and the dearth of honesty, quite often. Not because I feel everyone to be lacking in the virtue, but because I know it to be the fundamental cause of just about every deteriorating relationship, be it family, friend, community or government. Relationships become strained when people become unable to look each other in the eye.
You can count on it. Unfortunately, many have become expert at being able to do just that. You might call that ‘duplicity in full bloom’.

People become what they practice. We can pretend otherwise, but that would just be an advanced form of duplicity. It's called self-deception.

Not The Kind Of Friends I Want To Have

Years ago I spent some time in Europe, pack on my back, guitar slung over my shoulder, traveling through about 15 different countries. Eventually, I found myself walking through the desert of Eastern Greece, heading to the Turkish border. Then on to Istanbul. I’d been hitch hiking all day. I was out in the middle of nowhere. Alone. There were very few cars. Two or three an hour. No one would stop. But I had a good sense of direction, and in the early evening decided to leave the road and cut cross country on foot. If I was going to end up walking all the way to the border, I’d at least cut down on the distance. It was flat, and I figured I’d be OK. I pointed myself in the right direction and began the long trek through the desert. I walked for hours. It was very dark. And I was very tired. I could see the faintest of lights way off in the imperceptible distance. So far away that I wasn’t exactly sure if I was really seeing them at all.

I was living a hard trip. No frills, no pampering niceties. Alone for days, and weeks on end. Walking, carrying my life on my back. Intermittent company, but no one I wished to be around for too long. Evaluating my life, my circumstances, my future. Some concern with all of that, but overshadowed by my immediate concern about getting to Istanbul.

And now, it was the middle of the night, well past midnight. I was walking with the dead, practically counting myself among them. Then I began to sense a presence. Never a good sign. At first just faintly, then stronger, until I was sure I was no longer alone. It was then that I began to wish I was. It felt now as if it were getting closer. And closer still. And then a sound. Over here. And then over there. And there. And there. I couldn’t tell if it was different sounds in different places, or if it was just one sound that my own fear was moving around like manic thoughts in a bad dream. Then the sound was close enough to see. A dog. Not a friendly dog. And another. And another. And another. These were big dogs. And they were wild dogs. I was surrounded. I was prey. I was going to be dinner. Never been that before. This was a gang without guns. The pack moved with me as one. They moved around me, darting in briefly to challenge me, to test me, to frighten me. Then out. One, then another. Then another. Growling, grunting. Frenzied, but deliberate. Building their confidence, working their strategy. Scaring me to death. This was no hallucination. And it was not a situation I could talk my way out of. I knew that better than my own name. I’d been in bad situations that I could talk my way out of. This was not one of them. I was frantically swinging my guitar around, trying to keep them at bay. My mind flooded with rampaging thoughts that my family would never see me again. That I would never see them. That they would simply never hear from me again. That I would have, in their minds, simply disappeared, deserted them somewhere across the world, never to be a part of them again. My survival instincts kicked fully into gear. High gear. I would live. Dogs be damned.

I was quickly taken by vivid memories of old black and white Cowboy and Indian movies I’d seen on TV as a child. Pictures that came to me as clearly as the danger I was in. I remembered in the old movies that when the wagon train was surrounded, with the settlers hanging on for their lives, they’re final hope would come down to whether or not they could shoot the Chief. If they killed him, all the other Indians would retreat. If they were unsuccessful they would perish. Yeah, I know it was a stupid Cowboy and Indian stereotype, but it’s the only image I had to hang onto at the time. It’s the image that came to my rescue.

I had a strong sense of which dog was the leader, the Alpha male, whom the others were taking their cues from. He would dart in quickly, and the rest of the pack would do likewise. When he’d back off, they would as well, momentarily, but I saw the pattern. I attacked him full on. I yelled like a crazy nut job in a ‘B’ movie, and ran at him full force, attacking him head on with my guitar. I was not trying to scare him, I was wanting to hurt him. But it did scare him, and he backed off, as did the others, a little further each time I came after him. The dogs would regroup and make subsequent attempts to penetrate my defenses, but as time went by the attacks became more half-hearted than vicious. I continued walking through the night with the dogs consistently holding position around me, still moving as one, for hours, but in a gradually widening circle. Time passed like molasses. By morning light they were gone.

I offered a humble thanks out loud.

I was exhausted, both mentally and physically. I took psychic inventory to make sure I was OK, then laid myself down in a quiet place, under a tree, and fell off to sleep.
In Istanbul they told me about wild dogs in the desert. Dogs I’d already met. Not the kind of friends I want to have.

I’ve been seriously threatened by gangs on three different occasions in my life. In Amsterdam, in Harlem, and outside a clinic where I worked in San Francisco. Had a gun stuck in my chest and the hammer cocked. Twice. Been surrounded by men who considered killing me simply because they could. Been more moderately threatened on a couple of other occasions.
I have never been as frightened as I was that night in the desert, alone with the dogs. I have never felt more abandoned or forlorn.

And when I awoke later that morning, under that tree, in that small quiet place . . . . . . . . . . .
I was never more alive.

Silence Doesn't Lie

When it comes to people, it’s remarkable really, how animals, both wild and domestic, seem to know whom they can trust and whom they can’t. There are countless antidotes about dogs or cats sensing something troubling about an acquaintance, a new boyfriend or girlfriend, a delivery man, friend of a friend etc. I’ve often observed dogs grow agitated at the very appearance of a particular individual, even before the person says a word. Wild animals will often remain calm and unconcerned around some people, but become nervous and aggressive when near others. Frequently they will flee a situation altogether if sensing a profound enough need for self-protection. Newspapers are filled with stories of women who were harmed by men whom they immediately and instinctively mistrusted, only to have over-ridden their own intuition with a rationalization based on need. Need for companionship, need to be liked, or not wanting to offend, or to think of oneself as ‘accepting’, or as ‘not ruled by fear’, or any one of a myriad of other reasons.

The point here is that we’re losing the ability to rely on gut-level perceptions. Remarkably, we’ve come to substitute flimsy rationale for the intuition that has been built into our very core. The intuition that was designed to ensure our well-being, our longevity, our personal prosperity. The thing about animals is that they are masters of the obvious. Because they don’t understand the words we (as people) speak, they cannot be misled by them. They tune in almost exclusively to body language, movement, facial expressions, twitches, ticks, and (when a person is speaking) tone and manner of voice. It is much more difficult, almost impossible, to fool an animal. Some animals (like people) will ignore their internal alarm in order to get something they want, but for the most part they pay attention to what their natural powers of observation are saying.

Over a great many years I have (from a distance) frequently watched conversations between people whose voices I could not hear. I have always been fascinated by those exchanges. Having no idea what was being discussed, it would still become fairly obvious if one person or the other was being genuine or not. Not a judgment I would make, but a loudly registered internal and natural perception (instinct). Some call it a sixth sense, usually accompanied by the implication that it is something that ‘some’ people have. In actuality, everyone has it. But not everybody uses it.

I have always enjoyed watching television with the sound turned off. Interesting how a particular actors’ performance can seem very good, even profound. But turn off the sound and you can see the flaws, even the dishonesty in the performance. You begin to realize how the words being spoken, the music of the soundtrack, even the laugh track, can enhance or disguise the true performance. You can see that an actor might not really believe what he’s saying. Watching an actor without sound can also produce the opposite result. You might see a more brilliant performance than you saw with the sound on. My point here is that sound (and especially words) can obscure the reality of what you might otherwise be seeing. I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “He hides behind his words”? Many people do hide behind their words. Politicians in particular.

Don’t know about you, but with the campaigns for the presidential nominations in full gear, I’m getting pretty sick and tired of the phoniness being displayed by just about every one of the candidates. Everybody saying what you want to hear. Everybody pretending to be the candidate of integrity. The honest candidate. The one above the fray. And we’re going to be getting this dog and pony show shoved in our faces for the next year. Let’s face it, that’s politics, but we don’t really need to hear anything more they have to say.

I have a suggestion. Why not turn off the volume of the TV and just watch these people like an animal would. Silence doesn’t lie. You want to know who’s telling the truth? Who’s trying to fool you? Who’s hiding behind their words? Who actually believes what they’re saying? Politics aside, who you can trust as a person? I’ve been watching without the sound for a very long time now. I’m neither a Democrat or a Republican, and I don’t fully agree politically with any of these people, but I do know what I see. It registers on an instinctual level.
I’m pretty familiar with the politics of all four of these candidates. Some I like better than others. Some I dislike more than others. But the following conclusions are based solely on what I have observed of them without the hollow sound of their words. I must admit, two of the conclusions surprised me. Two did not.

If I were a dog greeting visitors in my keepers front yard, this is how I would respond to each of the four leading candidates for President if they came to my house.

Barak Obama - I’d meet him at the gate, lead him up the walk, through the house to the back yard where my family was gathered. And, based on my comfort level with him, they’d probably invite him to stay for the barbecue.

Mitt Romney – I’d meet him at the gate, lead him up the walk and through the house to the kitchen. I’d leave him there, and go out back to get my keepers. They’d come in and have coffee with him at the kitchen table.

John McCain – I’d meet him at the gate, lead him up the walk to the front porch, then go over to the side of the house and bark for my keepers to come out front to sit with him for a chat on the front porch.

Hillary Clinton - When I saw her coming from down the street I’d begin running the perimeter of the yard, barking loudly to deter her from coming any closer to my house. And to warn the neighbors that she was in the neighborhood.

Again, based solely on watching them to see what registers as genuine, and what does not.
Just my observations. You do your own.

The Vanishing Ego

It is mans ego that enables him to rise to an occasion, to blaze his own trail, protect his territory, or conquer his own demons. It is the idea that he is the master of his domain that feeds his motivation and encourages his strength. It is a positive thing that a man has an ego that requires something of him, that demands it even. It is the man who has been stripped of his ego who flails and flounders, who floats and drifts through life broken, battered, and without resolve, like a rudderless raft at the mercy of a raging river. A man can be stripped of his ego quickly, or gradually by time and circumstances. He can be scarred, compromised or diminished by a parent, by drugs, alcohol, religion, social conditioning, a toxic spouse, or a combination of any of the above.

A disinterested parent can condition a boy to feel worthless, restricting development of his, otherwise, burgeoning ego. A domineering parent can crush his fragile ego like a soda can under the tires of a two-ton truck, delaying a healthy transition into adolescence, and adulthood. Drugs can cause a teen-ager, or a man, to turn inward to the point of losing himself within himself, leaving his ego lost in its own darkness, with only the remnants of a former motivation to cling to. Alcohol can drown a man’s ego like a crocodile drowns a water buffalo in an African river. Religion can strip the ego from a man like a raging bull steals the dignity from a matador as the man stumbles, wounded, compromised and disoriented, around the ring, vulnerable to moves of ferocious beauty, hooves of danger, and, ultimately, the horns of death.

Social conditioning can eventually cause a man to deny his own strength, and to doubt his own value. When he’s seen enough idiot males in enough idiot sit-coms being pummeled and emasculated by smart and domineering women, and when he’s seen enough ‘tough ladies’ beating up enough average men in enough crime dramas and action movies, he’s going to begin being compromised in the same way he was marginalized and invalidated by the women’s movement back in the 70’s. Only this new destruction of the male ego is being perpetrated upon a new generation of men, men who have already been raised to value, and appreciate women. Evidently, it is not enough; they must also be stripped of their egos, and of their dignity. And the cycle perpetuates itself.

A toxic relationship can poison a man’s ego, suffocating him slowly until his lungs collapse, until the only options he is left with are death or surrender. In such a relationship, when a man attempts to assert himself as a man, he is beaten down with words, or hostility, and denied access to love. The women’s movement of the 70’s practiced, either by coincidence or design, a scorched earth policy, leaving no male sympathizer un-bruised, the supporters, the boyfriends, and the husbands alike. They were all victimized by the insensitive and unsympathetic aggression of the budding feminist collective. The only men who were spared the damage were (big surprise) the actual male chauvinist pigs, the misogynists, if you will. Those guys didn’t care enough to be effected.

As an outgrowth of the movement, already considerate men began getting sensitivity training from increasingly insensitive women. They began learning how to become girlfriends, rather than husbands, to their wives. They began the accelerated process of losing their egos, of compromising their maleness, of subjugating themselves to a socio-political movement. As the men were becoming what the women were demanding them to be, the women began to lose respect for the men and turned to each other for love, for their primary relationships, and for companionship. The men, as they were now conditioned to do, followed their lead and also turned to one another for companionship, and sex. Both sexes realized ‘wow, this is a lot easier than trying to relate to the opposite sex’. And all of a sudden everybody was gay from birth. For the women, being gay enabled them to usurp, and adopt, the male egos that they had a hand in surgically extracting from the men; and for the men, now no longer a threat to the women, being gay enabled them to be ‘best friends’ with women, to be included in the private lives of females, while, at the same time, being able to indulge themselves in all the sex they wanted with other males, ‘any time, any place’ kind of thing. Worked for everybody.

What I find disconcerting is that, rather than doing the necessary psychological work to understand the reasons for the choices they were making, and to understand the implications of feeding a social movement that those coming up behind them will be influenced and affected by, so many choose acquiesce to the illusion of OK-ness rather than to embrace the reality of their own conflicted predicament. I’m not talking about a sexual identity conflict, but of a pain/anger/hostility/acceptance/forgiveness process, leading, ultimately, to a reconciliation with the past. In its absence, the next generation will be faced with the same agenda, only more advanced, and they will eventually have to do the hard work that their parents circumvented in their reluctance to look honestly at themselves.

Now, don’t everybody get your BVD’s (or panties) in a bunch over this commentary. It is not an accusation, it is not a judgment of you, and it is not a sociological doctrine to be taught to your children in the primary grades. It is my observation. I was there. It is what I saw. And much of it is what I see today. Although the angry feminism of the 70’s has now transformed itself into what I now call ‘spiritual feminism’, it is still the same feminism, but with a knowing kind of self-righteous smirk. It continues to emasculate men, and young men in particular, by leading them into the egoless realms, and domains, of ‘the new spirituality’. Yoga is at the forefront of this charade, with bogus psychobabble philosophies, compliance doctrines, dependence psychologies, and political correctness leading our young men along like lambs to the proverbial slaughter.

If you were there in the 70’s, maybe you saw something different. In which case, maybe you could write to me about that. And if you weren’t there, maybe you’ve at least read the studies that have reached different conclusions than mine, the ones that were done by those same women, now with P.H.D.’s, who, by the way, ended up living in close personal relationships with one another after they lost their husbands. Collateral damage. Choose your own conclusion.

A feminist, or feminist group, put out a bumper sticker many years ago that narcissistically proclaimed “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle”. They later introduced the “Size DOES matter” theme as a means of further emasculating any man with an already fragile ego. That about sums it up.

After seeing the devastation that has been inflicted upon men over the years, I say
“Men without egos are like spiritual feminists without Oprah”. The difference is we can recover our egos by disassociating ourselves from the feminist agenda, but they will always need another Oprah, or a Suze Orman to tell them what to do, or even another, innocuous, Elizabeth Gilbert to tell them how to feel. A man with his ego intact does not need anybody to lead him around by the proverbial nose. He follows the beat of his own drum.

My assessment is not about any individual. I don’t make judgments about individuals, their personal choices, lifestyles, or preferences. I observe culture and mentally record my observations. I know what I see. It is when a cultural dynamic affects and influences people, and young people in particular, that I feel the need to define the dynamic for those same people flirting on and around its fringes. In describing any such dynamic, somebody’s feelings are going to be hurt. It is not now, nor is it ever my intention, for that to happen. Those men and women, many of whom I love, who are involved in perpetuating a movement I may give voice against, already know that it is possible to separate a person from a particular consciousness. They have, in fact, shown that themselves by their love for me. I hope they can regard my love for them as equally valid.

Each of us, as individuals, are adrift on the same current, but upon our own raft. It’s just that some have built into their rafts more consciously reliable rudders.