amiss leftovers

(a follow-up to http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2014/11/amiss-conceptions.html)

Do i want to share deeper (or at least further) insights into the psychological underpinnings of "amiss conceptions"? Well, apparently. But i'm ambivalent, as i'm trying to evolve away from navel-gazing for its own sake. Not that there's no merit therein...naked self-revelation is an honorable art, and can trigger profound resonances (particularly in a culture where most people are seldom honest with themselves, never mind the world at large). More and more though, the standard for my writing is public-speaking potential. Nor is it simply a question of entertainment value - there's a part of me that finds prattling on about myself boring. Not that there isn't some level on which my favorite subject matter is "ME" (like everyone else, i'm too wounded and needy for it to be otherwise), but to a considerable extent, i'm one of those people who are generally eager to deflect attention away from themself. I don't need it like others (or at any rate, i don't need more of the crappy substitutes for real attention this society affords - unless it involves getting my recliner upholstered...but i don't want to make my point before i make my point...i don't want to expose my edifice before the groundwork gets laid...i don't want to suffer from premature articulation...).
Sorry, my mind wandered.
There are at least a couple additional levels to my recklessness. I would say "sexual recklessness", but there's also an element of simple self-destruction - a part of me that's tired of living. These impregnation fantasies are so pervasive, i'm currently having them about a woman i've not even met yet. I may be acting in a play, in the part of her older husband. The fact that we'll be a mixed-race couple feeds into my rainbow libido (and desire to have the world fuck away all skin differences). I dream of sweeping her up in such a mind-bending rush of sexuality (combined with the most emotionally naked intimacy she's known), that the first time we make love she'll want me to cum in her, and hold her on the day she dies.
Care to bet against me? I've got hormones and her crippled self-worth on my side.
I write that with a gentle smile around these haunted eyes...for it's hard to imagine my reservoir of nurturance ever being truly depleted.
But i do feel like i'm holding up the world with nine broken fingers.
Part of this is just about reclaiming my identity as a sexual being. Sex is an integral part of human nature, and we're only beginning to understand the ways in which we've tortured and denied that aspect of ourselves. What could be more natural, more primal, than the moment of conception between woman and man?
Rational? Of course not. Elemental, dear watson.
Is there something a touch predatory in this fantasy? Yes...and that's rather the point. Predation is the foundation upon which romance exists in this society. I've avoided this...and, rather than being rewarded, have found increased loneliness as the result. The notion of romantic predation is amply romanticized (ahem). All's fair in love and war...faint heart never won fair maiden...i resisted and resisted, but he won me over...THE BACHELOR, THE BACHELORETTE, THE BACHELORD OF THE RING...as children, we learn to perceive romance in terms of winning or losing. Women are just as corrupted. You set your sights on the one you want, and you "win" when they're yours! But mostly, i've refused to play this game - refused to treat another human being as a prize, or a commodity. And sometimes in the long lonely nights, that starts to feel like foolish naivete. The biggest romantic scars of my life are the two women with whom i've been in love - full, hormonal love (which is the only way to talk about romance honestly, as a function of hormones). There are other kinds of love, including companionate (yay!), but i've felt the sweeping grandeur of hormonal love with two women, and with each, there was a point (or multiple points) when they were ready to "give themselves". And i demurred. They were offering themselves for the wrong reasons, or weren't truly ready to love another. I knew how good it could be if we waited and came together in loving mutuality, but in each instance, the relationship ultimately crumbled (while all the while users and controllers held the keys to their carnal kingdoms). And that's typical of the rewards for being "nice". Many (women, especially) would protest that that's not so. But it is. Deep down, we're confused when a potential lover refuses to treat us as a prize to be won. Ultimately, we shun the non-predator.
So why should these two relationships torment me? Aren't i better off, having held out for healthy? It's hard to manifest that attitude when you look back and see the normal human sexuality you were supposed to live, that never came to be. Days, weeks, months, even years spent unheld. Or held, but almost always with the underlying tensions and fears that surround the "battle of the sexes". Humans weren't made to live like this. In ways science is only beginning to understand, this isn't the way our ancient (and recent) ancestors lived.
And thanks to our cultural penchant for post-romantic immolation, i don't even have the consolation of the memory of these two women thanking me for loving them more than they were capable of loving themselves. I never got to hear vanessa say "Thank you for not taking advantage when i just wanted to lash out at vlad". I never got to hear amanda say "Thank you for refusing to allow me to be less than the person i hope to someday be." I don't even have those tiny, healing gestures.
So a lifetime of being a non-predator starts to feel like the act of a quixotic fool. Never mind being a "player", had i simply taken what was offered, i'd have the memory of sharing the most intense human intimacy with the two women i've desired most. And who knows how many others? For really, in a world like ours based on selfishness, "healthy relationship" is a contradiction in terms...and more and more, it's getting harder to not think that bad sex is preferable to none.
It's thoughts like these that propel me toward recklessness.
And thoughts like...aging.
In an ageist society, aging is a degrading mindfuck. And this 46 year-old homo sapiens is showing (as they might say). When i lean a certain way, my stomach skin gets a little squidgy. It might be temporary, because of a shoulder injury that's forced me to abandon my push-up regimen. It might be that...
But i also got my first white hair this year! The fact that it returned to its original hue some months later is neither here nor there, for...
What's incontrovertible are the lines around my eyes. I call 'em laugh lines, which is embracing, healthy, and at least partly true. If all such attitudes were up to me, aging would be righteously venerated. But it's hard to maintain that serenity of mind, when the rest of the world is only too happy to remind you of your aging...and their reminders are more often than not tinged with either mournfulness or gloating.
Anyway...
Don't fret about me abandoning this kind of essay entirely. Even though it's got a smaller audience, that's almost balanced by the intensity of said audience's appreciation. Plus, i suspect that this kind of essay will be of far greater interest to historians of the 24th century.
And the future is ever on my mind...