JourneyMan and the Magnificence of the Journey

Storming

2011-07-18T08:26:00.001-07:00

The reality of the world is that there are things that need to be done every day. Some are real mountains to climb, others are created by our own imagination, the ones that we put there and that have no substance. As people, however, we give them ‘reality’ status and so the struggle begins!

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Energy is that with which we wake up every morning, it is ours to use constructively or to waste. Actual mountains need determination. Ray Crok of McDonald’s fame had a plaque behind his desk, and the last line states, “persistence and determination are omnipotent” – all powerful! Determination to climb imaginary mountains is wasteful and silly somehow.

“Some men (and women) storm imaginary Alps all their lives, and die in the foothills cursing difficulties which do not exist.” Edgar Watson Howe

Sadly the imaginary mountains have dangerous falsely created foothills that lead nowhere. The people who meander there do die imaginary deaths, and waste their energy blaming things that do not exist. Unfortunately these people have fashioned a world where they are doomed to fail and ultimately see themselves as failures and victims of fate. Keep the words of Theodore N. Vail in mind as he says, “Real difficulties can be overcome; it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable.”

Real challenges are different, they require real plans and resolute focused action. These actions need to be grounded in fact, not fantasy. They need to be thought through without the influence of other people who may want to drag you through their imaginary foothills. Negative people love companions who will die with them in their failures. We are bigger than that, we are smarter than that and we have been given magnificent minds to make right choices.

So I guess we need to tackle real mountains and let leave the imaginary ones to people who are determined to sabotage themselves.

A poem about hope after the darkness

2010-11-13T13:57:00.001-08:00

unRun and unHide

The day darkens

At midday

So close your eyes

Shrink out the light

It will be gone

Till you awake

Life flashes by

In blurs of unengagement

Disenchantment

Unreal, surreal, not real

Sleep induced denial

Plays havoc with dreams

Dedream a life

Unseam the fabric

Of who you are

The world awaits

Your wakening

You have much to give

Believe me

Unrun

Unhide

Look straight in the light

And live

Unbridled

Unabridged

And free

I would be telling a Lie if I were talking about Ethics

2010-11-13T13:18:00.000-08:00

“Liar, Liar, pants on fire”! I bet you haven’t heard that line for a very long time. It takes you back to the playground when adults were tall and stories were even taller.

“My dad is a skydiver!”

“Well mine is a submarine commander!”

“No he’s not, he sells cars!”

“Over the weekends he works in a submarine!!!!”

According to Peter Stratheim, there is no such thing as business ethics. I want to agree with him based on experience provided by the School of Hard Knocks. Something inside me, however, desperately wants to fight back.

At this moment in history in South Africa, we stand solidly behind our rugby Springboks, our cricket Proteas and our soccer Bafanas. We proudly wear our national colours (as well we should) on special days and we dissect the action with great fervor both pre and post the great sporting events. Yet we seem to accept that dishonesty is an accepted way of life in Southern Africa and indeed the whole continent.

John L Huntsman has written an inspirational book entitled “Winners never Cheat”. If you need an uplifting book to read, get it now. Perhaps it could become a set work for all those people wishing to or already engaged in business or politics. He managed to run a Multibillion Dollar petro-chemical business globally without once participating in bribery and corruption. His faith had some large part to do with his honesty, and he has a cause in which to believe.

The citizens of South Africa (according to the great majority of critical observers) seem somehow to have lost the cause, lost our faith, and lost the basic spirit which drove us from oppression into democracy – we have lost our sense of “Ubuntu” –togetherness.

Shaka, the oft maligned leader of the Zulus, had a cause – to unite the Nguni people into one unit. You see, the Zulus were a relatively peace loving people, but persistent power struggles and bitter rivalry divided all the people of what is now KwaZulu Natal. He started with a volunteer group of 50 warriors and he was a strong leader with new ideas. A mere 5 years later he had an army of 80 000 warriors fighting for him. He also almost eliminated the people’s long suffering fear of the Sangomas (a powerful force over which they had little control). Say what you may about him, he did many things right, and it is for this reason that both he and Nelson Mandela have been named the two greatest leaders of all time in Africa.

The fear our people have now is loss of control and an seemingly insurmountable inability to protect ourselves from crime, poverty, homelessness, joblessness and HIV/Aids. A once fiercely racially and politically divided country who fought tirelessly for decades against the “enemy” has lost its direction. We have come a long way since democracy but we have lost our way within the freedom it has given to us.

Freedom has given rise to a new breed of rich people from all racial groups, and they just seem to get more obscenely rich whilst the poor become more evidently poorer. The great divide between our people has not become racial, it has become financial. Greed and corruption was clearly present in the Apartheid Regime (the only problem being that the press was not free to report it). Greed and corruption is starkly evident (and distinctly reported in our free media) in our current business and political fraternities. Anybody can manage but few can lead, and real leaders are hard to find in the corrupt quagmire we see and hear today. We have solid role models in the western world, however, and the words “I never had sexual relations with that woman” seem to ring resoundingly in our ears. Even after the whole Bill Clinton saga came to an end, he continued to stay leader of the great United States of America. I suppose if he could do it and get away with it, the logic of many other people will be influenced and they will follow suite.

And, my goodness, they have. They have taken a leaf from Clinton’s book and sexual lechers, fraudulent members of parliament, and mass-adored figureheads ride roughshod and bareback through the quiet towns of our lives like drunken cowboys, guns blazing, after a day of drinking in the sun and laugh in the face of our sheriff conscience. They are exposed time after time, yet the sentence (if any) doesn’t seem to fit the crime. Politically connected fraudsters are prematurely released from prison accompanied by adoration and ululation and their stature grows day by day. How many honest people in this land will never be free from the prison of hunger and joblessness, and be free from the fear of walking down a road without being killed for their cell phones?

Perhaps we, as a people, could consider putting our energy into fighting crime, corruption, poverty, homelessness, joblessness and HIV/Aids. If we see these as our “causes” we could transform this beautiful nation.

I digress, I was talking about ethics - back to the playground.

“Well my dad is an honest politician”

“Ja right, and my dad is an astronaut”

“For real?”

“For real, it’s more possible than an honest politician!”

I’m sorry I didn’t hear you, I was digesting my toast.

2010-05-18T11:57:00.000-07:00

I’m sorry I didn’t hear you, I was digesting my toast.

Sitting quietly enjoying breakfast with my partner in a busy coffee shop one Sunday morning, the silence in my mind was shattered by her saying, “You haven’t heard a word I just said!”. I must admit, I hadn’t, I was too busy digesting my toast.

Men use few words in a day to communicate (some research suggests 2000 words a day), but women on the other hand use five times as many in 24 hours! I am a shrink and not an accountant, but the benefit of High School mathematics leads me to conclusion (and correct me if I am wrong here) that this amounts to a massive ten thousand words!

Girls start talking much earlier than boys and it seems that we will never catch up – ever! A study of parents changing the nappies of little boys and girls, the filling of which often resembles a kind of butternut stew, has shown that the two sexes are treated very differently. Little girls are talked to throughout the cleansing process and are told how beautiful they are. Boys, on the other hand are tugged, tickled and generally encouraged to be active. It all started in nappies, with boys there was physical interaction and with girls communication.

And that is what I was doing, interacting with the toast, my mind tuned out to other sources of stimulation. My partner did not see it this way, she thought misguidedly that I was disinterested and disengaged. I wasn’t, I was simply single tasking.

Trying to backtrack and ask for a repeat of the string of words that had wafted by me unnoticed the first time seemed both logical and polite. The request, however was met with both scornful look and silent icy rebuke (as noisy as silent can be), the likes of which I had not expected. Simply put, she has ten thousand words a day to use, and just how hard can it be to use a few of them to repeat what was said before?

Putting the most attentive look on my face, and following men’s magazine advice I leaned slightly in to show my interest, I encouraged her to say what she needed to say. To my amazement I was met with stony silence and a tight-lipped mouth that offered no sound at all! Add to that folded arms and body language that can only be described as being somewhat negative and not open at all, my confusion began to mount. The toast was pushed ever so slightly to one side by my left hand as a gesture of engagement, and I started to wonder where she had put the butter.

To be quiet honest, frustration began to creep into my voice as I once more encouraged her to voice her opinion – again! I was starting to eat into my allotted words for the day, keeping in mind that at least 100 words need to kept in reserve for the purpose of suggesting (you may replace “suggesting” with any of the following - requesting, cajoling, light heatedly flirting or pleading) some form of intimate adult entertainment later that night.

A third request ventured from my mouth, and please remember, that as in baseball, three strikes means you are out. Still nothing from the tightly sealed mouth, so I said “OK” (in my mind, however, my arms made a sweeping gesture, and with the sound of the crowd ringing in my mind’s ears my mind’s voice said, “You’re outa here!).

The process of recommitting to the toast is somewhat confusing at first, as I had started the process of covering one the two remaining lightly toasted bread slices with butter, but the question was, which one. A second decision needed to follow shortly, strawberry jam or marmalade?

“You are not listening to me” drifted over me, and I replied, “You didn’t say anything!”

“Oh yes I did, you just weren’t listening as usual.”

Mustering my best Dr Phil voice and the intense stare of Oprah, I said, “I’m here and I am listening.” I must admit I should not have added, “Now please speak in an audible voice, and if you don’t mind, can you take the dive-bomber shrill out of your voice.”

Cast again into the ‘I have picture, but no sound’ scenario, I realized that those one hundred words that I was keeping in reserve for post sundown merriment could now be used for other purposes as their initial reason for reservation would clearly not be happening today or any day soon. You see, men upon awakening consider their chances of achieving an orgasm, and if the prospects seem good, all is well in our world. If the prospects, however, appear bleak we become grumpy. This particular morning, the possibility looked relatively promising, but now grumpiness quickly found a home.

I must admit that I had not done particularly well throughout these particular slices of toast, and that I should have eaten them concentrating less on the process, and more on my partner. I should, instead have ordered the omelet which demands less attention and is more quickly devoured, you live and learn. Making a mental note to self about the omelet, and realising that the a possible second innings may be remotely possible (and hoping deeply that those 100 words could somehow be used as they were intended) I ventured, “You look cute when you are angry!”.

To my surprise she said thank you, but the “I must look cute a lot to you, because you tick me off all the time” came as a bit of a shock. I didn’t say, “yes your bum does look big in that” or anything of that nature, but I might as well have!

The cold war loomed, carnal pleasures faded from fantasy screen view so I did what any self respecting man would do at this moment. I said:

“You should try the toast, it’s delicious!”

Just one question, how do you get butter and strawberry jam stains out of a white shirt?

I wonder - Poems long forgotten

2010-05-18T02:22:00.000-07:00

I wonder

When sun fades

And Smile is Gone,

I wonder if you will miss me

I wonder where

The wonder went

And if it will return

To you

And I wonder

At the wonder

That is there still

But covered now

In anger,

And regret,

And sorrow and sadness

Of what was

And what you

Need it to be

And still

I wonder

Where you went

And if you enjoy it there?

And I wonder

If ever you return

What you will be like

And if

A Poem from long ago

2010-05-17T12:00:00.000-07:00

Soft goodbye

No shouting that I hate you

No regret for what has been

Just quiet soft

And slipping away

Goodbye

No heartfelt and gushing

Thank-you’s

No discussion into the night

Just quiet soft

Fall of things

Into case -

Goodbye

No yelling of get outs

No screaming through the tears

Just soft quiet

Collecting

Of thoughts

And dignity

No knowing I’ll be back again

No last looks at what is here

Just quiet soft

Surrender

To what could never have been

No tugging fears of mistake

The final time has come

To put the keys down

Without the need to run

No head held low in sadness

No turning of my head

Just pick up the bags around me

And forget that I was here

Just quiet soft

Acceptance

I’ll never be with you again

So soft goodbye it is then

And into the night

I’ll walk

This goodbye is forever

No tears need be wasted here

I left in spirit long ago

I hoped beyond all hope

But tonight

I continue my new life

And reclaim my heart

From you.

Just tell me

2010-05-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

Just tell me

Just tell me what you want

Tell me your fears

And dreams

And desires

A hopes for you and me

Just utter words

I can understand

Can absorb

Without fear

Or anger

Or loss of esteem

And tell me

What needs to change

In ways I can read

And translate into action

Without denuding my spirit

Or yours

And I will speak with you

Expose my very soul

Put the needs and wants

Out there

To be spoken about

Just speak to me

And I will listen

And talk

With you

Most things I have learned about good management, I have learned from women.

2010-04-06T09:04:00.001-07:00

Over a period of 18 years, I have been exposed to almost every managerial style and I have to admit that women are better managers than men. In case you were wondering, I am a man.

The privilege of working as a consultant has allowed me to be involved in people-based facilitation and change processes in over sixty companies in this beautiful country. Exposure to almost every industry from forestry to clothing retail has taught me a great deal about management in a diverse range of environments.

When I walk into a meeting, as a specialist in change management, I mostly have the attention of the group of people I’m going to meet. The women who command my respect in these situations are not automatically those dressed in the “power” business suits! It is the woman who looks like a woman, is a woman and who is assertive and sure of herself and her competence who has my attention. If I had wanted to compete with a woman who believes she needs to imitate aggressive men, I would have gone to a woman’s wrestling match.

The major strength of good female managers (and women in general) is that they don’t need to be sent on EQ courses to “learn” effective appropriate communicative interactive skills – they have it already in great abundance. Men, when faced with a question, believe that a solution or answer has to be produced instantaneously. Men are destination oriented, and women (for the most part) are more journey focused and they listen far more effectively and interactively.

A good manager, according to John Maxwell, has empathy, is a leader, is people focused yet does not lose focus on the task at hand. A good leader understands that their people have a deep need for recognition, and how hard is it to use the two simple phrases “please” and “thank you”? Women, in general, are far more open to recognising the other person and to using these simple words, whilst men are more inclined to give instructions as imperatives and demands.

This does not mean that all women are natural leaders, I have met my fair share of ineffective dominant women managers. These women tend to behave like men and believe that the only way to get ahead is to repress the woman in themselves and dress instead in testosterone iron clad “chain-male” armour. It also comes down to personality too, and every facet of our lives have true leaders and unhappy controllers, and they can be men or women.

With the radically changing gender and racial demographics in business in South Africa today the face and faces in management have changed and will continue to change. Women have for many years been held back from roles in leadership and management particularly in bigger “old school tie” organisations and the glass ceiling has been far too evident and limiting. Things have changed, but the question that begs asking is, have men and women changed in their attitudes towards each other? I can answer that from experience and the answer is for the most part, no!

Women are dealing with cultural gender noise too as some men in some cultures do not take kindly to taking instructions from women - it has been like that for thousands of years, why change now. Men have found that they are now made to report to, and take instructions from women, and this becomes extremely difficult for both men bound by tradition. As South Africans, we are blessed with the most advanced Constitution in the world that is superbly culture and gender fair. As a nation, we are still unfortunately only learning to apply the principles and make it work effectively for all the people for whom it was designed to protect and develop. I have a specific rule when it comes to business, “I don’t mind where you come from, or what you believe - you have a job to do, now do it to the best of your ability for the benefit of the company, your colleagues and lastly yourself”.

More women have taught me what it means to lead than men, and when I was one of the permanently employed many years ago at the start of my career I had a number of female and male managers. I’ll rephrase that, I had men bosses and women leaders from whom to learn. I have taken and applied many of the principles of leadership that I learned from women, and I learned not what to do from many of those men. The factor that made the women different was a level of respect and trust that I did not experience from men. Men are born competitive, and competent work from other men can be threatening!

Men are feeling a general sense of loss of direction and control today, and this is as a result of rapid change socially, economically, politically and personally. Men can learn from women, and women from men, it is that simple. We have a nation to build, relationships to heal, past hurts to forgive and dreams that need to become realities. The battle of the sexes, if left to rage on, will not benefit anyone ultimately. I suppose the single message that I have is that we need to stop relying on our past insecurities and instead bank on a better future by working productively together daring to look beyond sex, race and culture.

I just don't seem to get this

2010-04-06T08:56:00.001-07:00

As a man, I really don’t seem to get it. Try as I may I work really hard to be that which she expects me to be. How do men compete with contemporary pop magazine culture where the idealisation and pontification is clearly evident and available as to everything philosophical regarding managing the “Ideal Man”? We also find ourselves falling desperately short of the fairy tale tall, handsome hero who rescues the damsel in distress and they live together in unending bliss for ever after? You see, she wants a knight in shining armour to adore her, which I do – if she would let me.

She also wants (as part of the armour) an unarmoured man who will dare to show his spirit and heart, a gentleman or gentle man. She has dreamt a man who will talk and share deep into the night and talk of dreams and hopes and fears. This I would do – if she would let me.

Being blessed with way above average emotional intelligence is a blessing and a curse. The blessing lies in the capacity to recognise our emotions, recognise the other person’s and the ability to respond appropriately. The curse is found in having to be ever mindful and ever careful regarding the words and intonations that emanate from our mouths. I am a psychologist and it is my job to do this, but I don’t ever want to be a shrink in the relationship.

Yet the man who will (out of story land folk lore that has been deeply ingrained since diaper time) stand bravely in the face of certain death is not allowed to show fear! Men have emotions, we feel them but don’t often recognise them for what they are. Even if we do recognise them, we have been conditioned not to acknowledge them or deal with them constructively.

We mere mortal men have more chance of falling pregnant by wind pollination than coming anywhere close to the “Loving” and “The Bold and the Beautiful” square jawed, broad shouldered, whisk me away on your private jet and wine and dine me in Acapulco on a whim man. He has all the right words, but haven’t you got it yet, they were written for him by a bunch of “oh so creative” scriptwriters whose sole work is to elaborate and perpetuate a glittering soft light fantasy. He has the luxury of redoing the scene as many times as the director sees fit to get the “perfect” scene. The rest of us only get one shot at it, live TV if you would like, and if we screw it up there are no edits, no reshoots and certainly no second chances.

The villain in this false fantasy world, despite his evil intent and obvious treachery also gets the girl, and his charm is noted and admired. He can be evil, but his devilish charm shines through. If I behave in any mild way (even by inference) like this bad man, I am condemned forever and am told that my parents weren’t married! He has faults, so do I, so why are his acceptable and mine not?

Take a peek with me, if you will, at the Hollywood stereotypes. Granted the Hugh Grantish iconoclastic Hollywood hero shines through – and he usually survives (with an injury or two which makes him quaintly endearing). The question I need to ask in all sincerity is how many times can a hero dare to show his true heart without being impaled for the sake of love?

The same hero may die, yet he is raised from death to live again in another movie to fight another series of battles, raging on in the name of some earth saving ethical epic with a love interest thrown in – again. Blood and guts abound, bombs explode in the air, the time bomb has ten seconds to world destruction, and a woman appears and love is immediate. Amidst the acrid smoke with nuclear decimation fast looming, the hero has time to talk with, fall in love with and kiss the girl. To top this, he always seems to get the girl for good irrespective of any unkindness he may have shown either intentionally or unintentionally!

So do I, but I always seem to forget the last scene of the last movie where I died! Battered and bleeding I lay on the battlefield surrounded by smoke and guts and gore and said it was all worth it.

Having gone through what I did in the last production, you would have thought I may have learnt a thing or two, and that I would only accept a new role with a new leading lady where I changed the rules, to selfishly suite me for a change. But oh no, not me, the shining daring caring knight has to rise over and over, only to be slaughtered again and again. Strange how we accept the same old scripts as our ongoing reality.

For once, I would like to be the man who dares to be a sensitive hero in a world that allows doors to be opened graciously, and not have it slammed on my fingers. You can’t flip the bird if your fingers are dismembered!

So I don’t really get it do I, or perhaps it is better to say that I shouldn’t accept the part if I am not prepared to die for love. Dying is, however, overrated I have found, and good parts are few and far between. Any actor has to do his share of histrionic soap operas to get a shot at the really big roles.

A simple poem

2010-04-06T08:22:00.000-07:00

This moment

The path that I have made

The footprints I have left

On beach, on soil

On lands

Are there for a moment

But

Shifting tide and wind

Have changed and they have been covered

Over

And Over

The footprints left

In hearts of others

Are

For the most part

Kind and gentle.

Some will stay

Some forgotten

Some walked over

Some swept clean

I have too

Left bruises and marks

Through own self-centred words

And actions

Some will stay (I fear)

Some forgotten (I hope)

Some walked over (In repetition by others)

Some swept clean (I trust)

Yet I choose

Not to regret the past

Nor close those doors

And loose the lessons taught

And I choose to live

This moment

Magnificent as it is

To be

To live

To love

And to celebrate

All that I am

All that I have learned

And leave more honest footprints

Today

Why affairs happen - a sad tale of percentages.

2008-12-31T03:32:00.000-08:00

Why affairs happen – a sad tale of percentages.

Someone asked me why men are so fickle and why we can’t keep our peckers in our pants. I knew the glib answer would be “Because we can” but I quickly recognised the hurt in her eyes and said , “It’s because of the 85 – 15% principle.”

All human beings want to belong, to be able to love and be loved in return, but what seems so simple in theory is so hard to live. You see, our basic human needs can never be fulfilled by a single human being, and the “white picket fence and living happily ever after” is a fantasy created by children’s story books and Mills and Boon novels. Normal is seriously non-evident and I still stick with that great philosopher Paul Hogan who says, “The whole world is insane except you and me, and half the time I’m not sure of you”. Perhaps the world is an asylum run by the inmates.

Knowing where we are, who we are, who we want to be and where we want to go in life seems so inexorably complicated and confusing to men and women. Getting what we need from our partners is even more elusive and seemingly impossible. The pressures of modern life and the demands of work, families, relationships have somehow overwhelmed us and so many people are just simply bored with life.

It is the boredom and a need for challenge that seems to drive people to find solace in the arms, hearts, minds and beds of someone other than their partner. Often it has something to do with a perception or feeling of fantasy “love” (love by definition is something which tickles the heart and buggers the brain!), but most often it has to do with recognition. Recognition by definition in this context is somebody who “cares” enough to ask me how I am, what I am feeling, and who values my opinion as my valid perception of the world.

We most often get between 80 and 85% of what we need from our partners emotionally, physically and cognitively, the rest we get from friends, family and our children and our community. No single person is able to give more, and we really should not expect more of them. People make lousy gods, yet we worship them unnecessarily despite the fact that they will disappoint us at times. The problem essentially lies with the remaining 15% and who gives us what we need to make us more feel more “whole”.

Wholeness is found in peace, often in solace and in a feeling of being together in mind, heart and spirit. Being the “thinking, feeling, acting and spiritual beings” that we are, we strive somehow to find balance and harmony between the different elements of ourselves. A solid sense of balance often goes hand in hand with maturity and learning form the lessons given by the University of Life. The confusing, hectic, all-demanding lack of humanness in the world around us can very often lead to a sense of disconnectedness and alienation. We need to feel we have a place in this world, we desperately desire believing in something – in essence, having a cause, a reason to be. It is when we do not feel like this, when we feel alone or lost that we are at our most vulnerable.

Imagine this: A man or women in a relationship that is not ideal nor perfect nor completely satisfying at a financial, social or intimate level due to the pressures of life. Along comes somebody of the other sex who simply finds a small (say 2 or 3%) place in the other person’s world. That small percentage is definitely missing at home and suddenly finds a “legitimate” place, or a foot-hold if you like. Once any person feels recognised, attraction may soon follow, more time is spent with them and the 3% percent very quickly becomes 5, then 10, then 15%. I don’t think I need to spell it out to you, but once a 20% threshold happens, the affair blossoms too.

The original partner no longer gets the time and emotional attention that the new 20% person gets now, and the older relationship fades in significance. Very quickly the new relationship by force of human nature has to take on the 85% , whilst the expectations of both new partners is an unrealistic 100% (the full 85% and the new 15%). It is for this reason that men and women in this situation seem to lose focus and abandon friends, family and children during this phase. So many affairs that lead to break ups in marriages do not lead to satisfying relationships and most times they fall apart too. Unfortunately, one hundred percent is more that any person is capable of giving to another, the pressure builds and that all powerful element of trust is brought into question (“if you could do it with me, you can do it with someone else”) immediately causing new issues of its own.

I guess that many people by choice have sporadic meaningless sexual encounters with other people when they are married, and human libido is what it is and may, at times, determine what we do. We do, however, have a conscience, we have available to us a set of standards, a personal moral code if you will that is ultimately determined by ourselves. Being laws unto ourselves, however, is a privileged and precarious place to be, and with it comes awesome responsibility. There is no condemnation here, just observation.

So much that is significant in this beautiful world is reduced to numbers. We are identified by our unique ID Number, everything we do is scrutinized and reduced to figures and sometimes meaningless statistics. At school we achieved passes or failures based on percentages, and we work with numbers all the time as a measure of success or defeat. If you are contemplating an affair, think about the numbers before you slip into, or slip her out of, that sexy little number.

2000 and Mine - The Dawn of Possibilities!

2008-12-30T05:04:00.000-08:00

So many people live lives of probability. “If I do this, then that will happen!” - “If I say this she will say that.”

We look at the situation, work of what will probably happen, and go with it. We see situations as given, as complete, as the way we see them. Someone said, “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are!”

We have the choice to entertain possibilities. The world is full of possibilities, so think outside the box, look at what can happen if there are infinite possibilities! We are so often stifled by our own limitations and thinking that options get blocked by the unconscious mind due to our “probability” scripts. As a little postscript, we have written these scripts, they are of our own making.

I am speaking of dreaming, seeing and wanting something so intensely that we create options, possibilities and new paths of feeling and thinking. We feel it, we own it and we become it.

So, the 2000 and Great was not all we expected it to be, the world economies have come crashing down and there is doom and gloom in every conversation. I say don’t go there, I say see 2009 as 2000 and Mine. It is the time when possibilities are endless and options abound. Dream a wonderful future, explore yourself and determine to own everything about yourself. Set goals, make them happen.

When we are in tune with ourselves we find ourselves in a place to be there for other people.

I Don't seem to get this

2008-12-08T01:10:00.000-08:00

I don’t seem to get this

As a man, I really don’t seem to get it. Try as I may I work really hard to be that which she expects me to be. How do men compete with contemporary pop magazine culture where the idealisation and pontification is clearly evident and available as to everything philosophical regarding managing the “Ideal Man”? We also find ourselves falling desperately short of the fairy tale tall, handsome hero who rescues the damsel in distress and they live together in unending bliss for ever after? You see, she wants a knight in shining armour to adore her, which I do – if she would let me.

She also wants (as part of the armour) an unarmoured man who will dare to show his spirit and heart, a gentleman or gentle man. She has dreamt a man who will talk and share deep into the night and talk of dreams and hopes and fears. This I would do – if she would let me.

Being blessed with way above average emotional intelligence is a blessing and a curse. The blessing lies in the capacity to recognise our emotions, recognise the other person’s and the ability to respond appropriately. The curse is found in having to be ever mindful and ever careful regarding the words and intonations that emanate from our mouths. I am a psychologist and it is my job to do this, but I don’t ever want to be a shrink in the relationship.

Yet the man who will (out of story land folk lore that has been deeply ingrained since diaper time) stand bravely in the face of certain death is not allowed to show fear! Men have emotions, we feel them but don’t often recognise them for what they are. Even if we do recognise them, we have been conditioned not to acknowledge them or deal with them constructively.

We mere mortal men have more chance of falling pregnant by wind pollination than coming anywhere close to the “Loving” and “The Bold and the Beautiful” square jawed, broad shouldered, whisk me away on your private jet and wine and dine me in Acapulco on a whim man. He has all the right words, but haven’t you got it yet, they were written for him by a bunch of “oh so creative” scriptwriters whose sole work is to elaborate and perpetuate a glittering soft light fantasy. He has the luxury of redoing the scene as many times as the director sees fit to get the “perfect” scene. The rest of us only get one shot at it, live TV if you would like, and if we screw it up there are no edits, no reshoots and certainly no second chances.

The villain in this false fantasy world, despite his evil intent and obvious treachery also gets the girl, and his charm is noted and admired. He can be evil, but his devilish charm shines through. If I behave in any mild way (even by inference) like this bad man, I am condemned forever and am told that my parents weren’t married! He has faults, so do I, so why are his acceptable and mine not?

Take a peek with me, if you will, at the Hollywood stereotypes. Granted the Hugh Grantish iconoclastic Hollywood hero shines through – and he usually survives (with an injury or two which makes him quaintly endearing). The question I need to ask in all sincerity is how many times can a hero dare to show his true heart without being impaled for the sake of love?

The same hero may die, yet he is raised from death to live again in another movie to fight another series of battles, raging on in the name of some earth saving ethical epic with a love interest thrown in – again. Blood and guts abound, bombs explode in the air, the time bomb has ten seconds to world destruction, and a woman appears and love is immediate. Amidst the acrid smoke with nuclear decimation fast looming, the hero has time to talk with, fall in love with and kiss the girl. To top this, he always seems to get the girl for good irrespective of any unkindness he may have shown either intentionally or unintentionally!

So do I, but I always seem to forget the last scene of the last movie where I died! Battered and bleeding I lay on the battlefield surrounded by smoke and guts and gore and said it was all worth it.

Having gone through what I did in the last production, you would have thought I may have learnt a thing or two, and that I would only accept a new role with a new leading lady where I changed the rules, to selfishly suite me for a change. But oh no, not me, the shining daring caring knight has to rise over and over, only to be slaughtered again and again. Strange how we accept the same old scripts as our ongoing reality.

For once, I would like to be the man who dares to be a sensitive hero in a world that allows doors to be opened graciously, and not have it slammed on my fingers. You can’t flip the bird if your fingers are dismembered!

So I don’t really get it do I, or perhaps it is better to say that I shouldn’t accept the part if I am not prepared to die for love. Dying is, however, overrated I have found, and good parts are few and far between. Any actor has to do his share of histrionic soap operas to get a shot at the really big roles.

Maybe I should try my hand at following my dreams and become a rock star or published writer, but that’s another story.

Perhaps I should write that love song that will express my deepest emotions.

I don’t get it do I !

A poem about the Journey of Writing

2008-12-02T23:59:00.001-08:00

Invisible Ink

Words that lie
In deep cerebellum dark cave
Memory hidden
Collective unconscious archive
Source of good and evil
Black and white
Shades of grey
Invisible Ink

Sparked by emotion
Image suddenly clearer now
Soaking into itself
All that went before
And dreams of things
To come
Avalanched from synapse
To synapse
From cleft to cleft
Tendril flooding
Emotion laden
Sparking thought and action
To reaction
In flash flood, sudden surge
Of invisible ink

Through muscle
And Cartilage
To hand
Flow to finger
And out on page
Visible ink
Raw emotion
Shaping words
And images
Exposed now
To see
And feel
And be
Set down for all
To see

Lost to found
To see lost
And become found
In lostness
Visible now
Transformed
Now formed
To be seen
To become
To be
Cruelly visible
All that is me
Indelibly done
Irreversibly
The sum
Of me

Mike Lacey-Smith
4 Feb 2006

If I had a Feminine Side, I would play with it a whole lot more!

2008-11-24T03:22:00.000-08:00

My fascination with mainstream women’s magazines has grown over the last five years. The initial attraction was most often the brightly advertised covers with something about sex which grabbed my short-term male imagination. “How to achieve an hour long orgasm” was one, and the other was “Teach him to love like Sting”. Look, I have to admit that he is one of my favourite artists I can add to my claim to fame that an ex-girlfriend who was an artist painted a picture of me walking into the fields and turning everything behind me to gold. But, and this is a very big but, I don’t want to have to endure five hours of foreplay to get to do what comes naturally!

The notion of what the modern woman wants still confuses me. I mean she wants a real man, a rugged adventurer, a gentle considerate lover (who needs to know when she wants more urgent loving), and she wants a man who is “in touch with his feminine side”!

I have to place this on record, I do not have a feminine side, and men (in general) find it mildly insulting to suggest we do! Before you tear your hair or this page out, let me elaborate. I am a man, I believe a solid man. Women say that they find it easy to have a relationship with a gay man because she feels safe with him in that he doesn’t want anything sexual from her. I have an earring, so I must be gay. I am at ease talking to women, so I must be gay. I wear pink at times and take care of my appearance, so I must definitely be gay. I am a psychologist and I am equally at ease and thoroughly comfortable in the complicated world of emotions as I am talking rugby with my mates, so I must be a little gay. Again for the record I am not gay, not even mildly gay, not even a tad gay, I am straight.

Men and women have at their disposal the full spectrum of human emotions, and women seem to have discovered far more of them than men. Let’s be honest, men have six basic emotions, happy, angry, horny, sleepy, watching sport and playing sport (horny deserves another mention as we link it to happy, and playing sport and after having sex we become sleepy). The lack of sex seems to make us angry, so I guess our primary emotions are angry and horny.

Women, on the other hand seem to far more easily understand the root causes of their anger, their happiness and they seem to have a completely different set of emotions that are considered mutual bed fellows with the emotion horny. Feeling loved, feeling safe, feeling recognised and feeling at peace seem to lead together as one towards the perhaps notion of the possibility of nookie. Just licking your lips gets us blokes going, and your cleavage does strange things to our blood flows.

When women are cooking, the best thing for us is snuggling behind them and cupping their breasts – something that seems to make women mad. You see, we are fulfilling the women magazine article headers, we are touching our feminine side, you are our woman and we are touching what we often consider to be your best side. Before you try to find my address in the phone book so that you can skin me alive, I say this tongue in cheek. I think.

You see, we are genetically wired differently, and if you want to get it from the horse’s mouth, just read “Why men don’t Iron” by Anne and Bill Moir. From before birth our neurological wiring is different, and after we as men and women struggle from a warm womb into this hostile cold world we are treated differently according to the visible presence of a penis or the lack thereof. At the birth of my son, the Argentinean Pediatrician raised my son up in the air and pronounced loudly “Ees champion, ee as weely!”

Getting back to the emotional “thing” as men prefer to call it, we are often totally lost in the sea of wave after wave of seemingly disparate emotion that women experience (and we are equally confused at how they string them together in their own logical way). This connectedness and illogical flow of emotions usually has us looking shell shocked and we naturally, as men are wired to do, try to find a logical solution to the problem presented to us. We have the answer, it is clear as day to us but we get frustrated when women say, “Why don’t you just listen!” We are not wired for listening, we are programmed to find a solution, to prove we are worthy. All this listening solves nothing in our minds, the answer is right there.

So we follow modern wisdom, we say little, nod and absorb a lot. After about half an hour of empathetic “uh-huhs” and well meaning looks we are allowed to speak and give the solution that we conjured up at the beginning of this roller coaster ride. Our disbelief turns to dismay and inevitably to sarcasm after our partners say, “Why didn’t you say that thirty minutes ago!”. So much for empathy. Let’s go back to the cave, me man, you woman, me hunt buck for dinner.

This feminine side that women say they desperately want to experience in men is something that women already have in enough abundance for both of us. Have you ever heard a man say to a woman, “I want you to think like a man, no I demand that you do, it will make you complete!”. The last thing we want is competition from you, we get enough of it from other men, all day, every day. What we need to do is celebrate your femininity and learn from your intuition. We rely on you to teach us the nuances of your expression, and we can only but learn and try to apply it in our own male way. Be honest, if you had a male partner who constantly asked you emotional stuff and behaved like a girlfriend, you would dump him for a more balanced man, albeit a confused man.

It’s late, it’s time to touch my feminine side, “Honey are you coming to bed?”

A Poem based on Imago Therapy

2008-11-23T01:55:00.000-08:00

Too Much
Water under the Bridge

Ebb and flow of water
Tide driven,
Moon willed
Under the bridge
Means change
Constant - Never ending, Predictable

Yet, taken to heart
With matters of the heart
Too much water
Under the bridge
Means end of tide and flow
Taking on Tsunami resembled
Soul destruction
Break in life line - Over

The question
That nags at Psyche
What is the bridge?

Love!

That’s it.

That spans across
Religion
Culture
Upbringing
That connects
Two spirits

Both bound to their shores
Their past
Their hurts
Yet reaching out
Across divide
Against own nature
Over nature
To connect

And, on reaching centre
Without fail
Creating beautiful bond
They turn again to own shore
Not stepping across
Into other unknown territory
In faith and trust

And on safe journey
To own past lost longing
Pick up the heavy weighted baggage
And
With effort and pain drag it
To mid-span
Bridge

Once past belonging, un-belonging
Weighty unresolved issues unpacked
Sit with amazed awe
As Bridge creaks and moans,
And bends,
Screaming in agony
Of unwanted strain

Until back breaking crack
Felt through universe

In recoil
Baggage is flung
Back to own shore
Neatly packed in bags again
Till next time.

Too much water
Under the bridge?

The water is innocent
The bridge makers
At fault,
I’m afraid

Mike Lacey-Smith
January 23 2006

The Middleman

2008-11-22T05:34:00.000-08:00

The Middleman
By Mike Lacey-Smith

About eight months ago, somebody told me about a new book by Jed Diamond entitled “The Irritable Male Syndrome”. I was also told, ”Read it, it sounds a lot like you!”. I went on line and completed the questionnaire and my score was 112 out of 120, and being a competitive man, I was rather proud of my achievement. My elation was short-lived as I discovered that low scores are positive and high ones bad! It was confirmed, I am officially an irritable male.

As for the infamous mid-life crisis, I have been there, done that and rebelled for the t-shirt. Not that it did me any good, I still feel like the middleman – half way between childhood and death with so much to do before I die.

Forty-six isn’t a bad number, unless you see age as a limitation. I live in South Africa and I am a White Male. For many men in the same situation this is a confusing age, filled with fear and a sense of urgency. A hollow empty black feeling often washes over men when added to this is dread of redundancy not only at work, but also at emotional, physical, cognitive and spiritual levels.

The “naughty forties” expectation is oft-time replaced by the “fraught forties” reality of existence. This is many men’s current perception of their situation, and feelings of helplessness and frustration become daily spirit-gnawing, energy-sapping realities.

The sarcastic response to this is often, “Ag Shame, poor men, it’s about time they got what was coming to them!” In many respects, I don’t criticise this response, as the pendulum was bound to swing as a result of equity and empowerment initiatives. We live in a multicultural democracy where Affirmative Action processes have far exceeded expectations and been actioned quicker and comparatively more effectively than a 200 year old United States.

The stark reality of possible retrenchment or ceiling limited careers has set many men on a tail spinning, out of control roller coaster ride. Their nightmares seem to be evolving into “daymares”, and this simply amplifies their own perceptions of the crisis of existence. Crisis prevention and containment plans seem to be sadly lacking worldwide as is evident in the New Orleans debacle. The Tsunami tragedy in Asia could have been better managed if the world had listened to the frantic warnings by an Oceanographer.

Men have traditionally been socialized to do, and women to express emotions. Tim Plewman calls men “hunters” and women “gatherers”. Men are destination oriented and women are more journey focused. Men today are at a distinct disadvantage as the goals they used to aim at have moved and the rules of the game have changed everywhere – at home, at work – everywhere. The male species is less adept at adapting, and we handle change with far greater difficulty than women.

It is time we stopped reacting and started responding. The world is changing at an ever increasing pace and men in general are simply not equipped to handle this change. We are instructed through male folklore to “knuckle down” and get on with it, but many men have simply never been given the tools to talk about their fears and frustrations. Men tend to look for quick fixes and often prefer survival skill training to life skill facilitated leaning. We often look to our peers for support and little useful wisdom is found because so many men don’t enjoy talking about deeper things.

Another tragedy is that men feel alone in their experiences and tend to clam up and adopt a stoical façade of being in control. It is the silence that becomes deafening and men sink faster into themselves in the hope that it will all go away. The most common male response is anger and rage, sometimes expressed outwardly, but most often driven inwards and we become the predictable non-communicative creatures that women always said we were. “You never talk to me”, and “You are always miserable and angry” are statements thrown about more and more. Men would like to respond with “I am miserable and angry because I am afraid”, but instead we react with anger, sarcasm, spite or even more silence – the vicious cycle of despair.

Women are blessed with greater capacity to exercise their emotional intelligence as they have, after all, been prepared for this through expressing themselves with other women without fear of ridicule. Men, however, would rather appear to be doing than expressing themselves emotionally. Herein lies another minefield, women are still talking but are ever increasingly taking over more traditional male roles and are doing for themselves. The poorly perceived and misguided perception in men’s eyes of the balance of “power” having moved not so subtly into the women’s camp is estranging as we are competitive creatures and don’t like losing. Nobody likes a sore loser and we don’t wear defeat well.

We have, I have to agree, become “Irritable Males” and many men feel like men in the middle – Middlemen! The good news is that not all men are like this, some of us experience the frustrations of life throwing things at us but we choose to respond, not react. Men tend to react and choose “exits” by drinking more and becoming less communicative. Others of us choose rather to respond, become proactive and do something about it. The world will not change for us and it will never be the way it was ten years ago. Aristotle got it right when he said, “To be angry is easy, but to be angry at the right person for the right reason at the right time, and know when to stop, that is hard”.

If men only realised that so many of us are in the same place, started talking about it and then actively sought new ways of coping constructively with the change we would be in a better place. Let’s hope we can do this and get beyond our fears, I believe men can be as good listeners as women and we can work together without the risk of ridicule. Let’s continue to be doers, but let’s do it differently.

Something I wrote a while ago, glad I'm not there anymore

2008-11-19T10:38:00.000-08:00

Depression – my subjective experience

Time seems to slow down in this place. Only the barest, tiny murmurings of anything seem to exist dulled somehow by the even thud in my head. The urge to do anything seemingly nudged from my consciousness and mindless monotonous activities fill my time.
My brain seems disconnected somehow, areas which house memory and useful information have shut down leaving a void for rush of self defeating emotion. That which brought joy seems mundane, laughter is a fantasy and fulfillment left empty at every level. Silence drowned by negative fear driven thought fills the spaces between the spaces. No stopping it, no solving it, no solution at hand so just wait it out. Every second wasted brings with it new guilt heaped on guilt of years past.
Can’t remember where anything is anymore, can’t recollect why I entered the room in the first place, just bewildered spinning looking for vague clue that drove the action in the first place. Leave the room, brain searching for answers, they flood in and the action gets repeated.
Then there are the floods of emotion, sadness, anger, fear disgust and shame all at once. Body responds at gut level and the tsunami rises from intestines rushing headlong to my chest. As if in perfect rhythm, my heart starts to pound faster and the veins in my neck take strain. Breathing more shallow and tangible heart beat in chest and throat force me to hold my breath in the vain hope it will stop. It doesn’t and the deep pounding becomes more intense and emotion grips my throat tighter and tighter.
Brain screaming now, intensely searching for a way out, but thoughts race down unwanted all too familiar unhappy alleys. Narrowed vision and dull ears make it harder to look to the light, mind preferring dark quiet corner to hide.
Thoughts rush round like water emptying from a basin, swirling down gathering momentum. Gurgling they rush down the plug hole of unfulfilled dreams, lost chances and bad choices all gathered into one tornado of hurt. Unlike a basin the swirling doesn’t stop, the basin never empties.
Find a distraction for a second, find anything to stop the wild horse charge of emotion that chokes my throat, strangling it in a vice grip that starts a pain in my temples and creates a pit in my stomach. Do anything, do nothing, just make it stop. Yet it will not be stopped, will not be slowed, will not be deterred. Nothing changes, all seems the same, just the noise gets more dulled in its loudness.
Writing it down helps but does not change the vacuum that draws blackness towards me, black on black, deeper black on deeper black. Layers of black, each one blacker than the one before, darkening with each moment. Violent storms within the layered dark erupt in teary eyed throat choking mind spasms.

Glad I wrote it, sad I know how.

What is Love?

2008-11-19T10:33:00.000-08:00

What is Love?

In our upcoming book, “JourneyMan, Man’s Journey into Wholeness” the definitive statement about love is deeply philosophical and reads “At the heart of love lies commitment. Commitment is more than fidelity, greater than the sum of the feelings, and more reliable than the seasons. The assumption of mutual relationship is concomitant with love. The external ramifications of love are the holding of hands, the loving looks, the passionate kiss. The internal reality of love is the surety, safety and strength of belonging.”

Taken at face value, this is idealistic, naive and truly beautiful. Within it is all the hope, joy and excitement of falling in love - an incredible plus in this cynical world. The naivety is clear, in that the world is intolerant of emotionality. The beauty rests in the sum of the both.

Love is overrated and exploited and the only true love we have is for our higher power and for our children – we give them both our whole spirit and this is a fact. Any parent who is unable to give this love is psychologically challenged and has some core deep personality defect or worse. Psychopathic and sociopathic parents don’t care about love, but understand the abusive manipulative power of love to get what they want. They bring up children who often do the same by learning through observation even when they themselves are not diagnosed with these crippling disorders – sad isn’t it!

Every person will have a different definition of love, and Annias Anin clearly says that we “don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are”. So how can we all see love the same way, it is impossible. Media has told us, however, that love Hollywood style is simple, so easy and so readily acceptable.

The modern poets today are the musicians, who for all there style and genre differences express love in gentle and savage ways. The young people of today, and the older ones like me who still appreciate music of any form, can hear their sentiment and their angst.

The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference, a feeling of I don’t give a damn. Somehow, it is easier to walk away from someone for whom you don’t give a continental. But you loved them once, and what has changed, what has shifted, what has devolved, what came undone? I would hazard a guess that we realized that our needs weren’t being met, and in an attempt to be heard, expressed these needs. Other people often read our needs as demands and will react in a childish almost predictable manner of non-compliance. Strange how a need expressed is seen as hard work by someone else, the same person who confessed undying love and adoration – once.

In high school, saying the “L” work was so difficult, but as we get older, it becomes easier and easier to say, often to the wrong people. Many times it is said for the wrong reasons and at the wrong time, but hey, if someone loves me, there must be something to it? Wrong! Love is two-way thing, and it does not come with demands or rules. The guiding principles behind love are “love as you would like to be loved” – don’t expect it, it seldom happens. Nice ideal though.

“I love you” can often be substituted for I need you, I am lonely, I don’t like being alone and sadly I am desperate to be loved. Admittedly if the need is so strong for both parties, the relationship may just work, dysfunctionally maybe, but it may work. The real problem is when one person’s need is legitimate and the other person’s dysfunctional. A recipe for disaster.

Real love is expressed on Valentine’s Day, and I hear you laugh out loud with me, and with flower shops, card manufacturers and restaurant owners alike (did I forget Jewelers too?). Tokens of love are not love, card professing love are often contrived, and flowers die. Real love can die too.

Erich Fromm says that we only have 3 basic needs as human being, “To Love, To be Loved and To be Recognised’’. You can love someone, and they can love you too, but if you don’t recognize them for who they are, leave, you are wasting your time. Expecting someone to change to be the person you want them to be is tantamount to manipulation, blackmail and subversion. Like me or leave me, your choice, but don’t demand that I change to make you happy, who do you think you are?

A friend of mine for this reason says that he believes in “Serial Monogamy”, and I believe he has a point. I don’t necessarily believe that he will be happy all his life, but believe me he is a hell of a lot happier than other men trapped in unhappy, unloving relationships

So for all the honour and integrity in the well meant, accurate and idealistic statement about love, the principles apply, but most often are not applied with integrity. Integrity means you mean it without expecting anything in return – look it is good being loved back, but it rarely happens. Someone once said that the greatest dishonesty you can inflict on another person is to tell them that you love them when you don’t. You are also a fraud if you utter those words “I love you” and don’t show it in your attitudes and actions. You see, love is all or nothing and somewhere in between doesn’t cut it. Real love is a diamond (albeit with its faults) and dishonest love is a pure flawless zirconium – looks the same, but it is a cheap replacement for the real thing.

“She loves me, she loves me not” has destroyed many perfect flowers, will you let it destroy you?

Bitter Sweet

2008-11-19T10:26:00.000-08:00

Bitter Sweet

Dream on
Bitter Sweet
Lost Love

Memories linger
Good
And bad
Ecstatic to sad

Black and White
Become shades of grey
Merging and swirling
Smokey lines
Rise to light
And blur in curls
Gone
Yet hang
In clouded shroud

Sweet to sour
Bitter sweet
Made me complete
For a while
Once upon a time gentle smile
Now
Curled down scowl

Day to night
And light to dark
Sweet to Bitter
Bitter Sweet
Lost love

Curled in a ball
I wait for the dawn
And new day,
Another chance
To taste
The fruit of love
Quiet before storm
Rather quiet after storm
In stillness
Spirit waiting
Patient as never before
Bitter sweet
Free