Short Circuits Page 5
We all have closed doors in our past we wish we could reopen, to change what lies behind them. Yet we never think that if we could go back and change just one thing, from that point in time on, all bets are off. For you cannot change the past without changing everything that then follows. Tossing one small snowball of change onto the steep snow-covered slopes of time could trigger an avalanche which would inexorably sweep away everything that followed. And one problem resolved would open up an infinite number of new and different problems.
I used to wonder, after I moved from Los Angeles to the Great North Woods of northern Wisconsin and bemoaned my subsequent lack of…uh, let’s say “social contacts”… what would have happened had I stayed in L.A. Then I realized that had I done so, I could quite probably had a contact which would have resulted in my contracting AIDS, which is more a game of Russian roulette in large cities than in rural communities.
So many things I’ve said to people that I wish I either had not said or said differently. So many situations to which I wish I had reacted differently. But if I had, how might that have changed my then-future (but-now-present)? Escaping one unpleasant situation undoubtedly would have opened the door to countless other unpleasant situations I could not possibly foresee.
There are things, however, I would risk a subsequent unknown future to have changed. The most recent was when I did not have my cat Crickett put to death when she developed a cancerous tumor. Instead, seeing no evidence that she was in pain, I let her live far longer than I should have. And before Crickett there was my dog Duchess, whose death was solely due to my stupidity in not recognizing the clear signs of diabetes which killed her. How could I have done that? How could I not have seen she was seriously ill?
But the greatest regret of my life—the one single thing I wish with all my heart and soul I could change, would be to let my mother die several months before she did. I think I may have spoken of this before, but when she was diagnosed with lung cancer after being a smoker all her life, she and I agreed that if it reached the point where nothing more could be done, I would instruct the doctors to let her go. But I did not. “We’ll try this,” the doctors would say, and I’d let them. When it didn’t help, they’d say “We’ll try this,” and I’d let them. And mom, out of her love for me, said nothing to me, though she told a friend that she just wanted to die with dignity. She did not. She died a withered doll hooked up to tubes and machines which only prolonged her suffering, of which she never spoke, and all because I would not…could not…let her go. I still cry when I think of it, and will never forgive myself for that selfishness.
And ten years from now, we will all look back at regrets for things which will have happened between now and then, and there will be no way we can come back and change them, either.
So what is the answer? There is none. All we can do is, as we hopefully already have been doing, the very best we can. We cannot see the long-term results of our actions, but perhaps we can give them just a bit more thought before we take them, and hope for the best. I wish us luck.
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THAT WHICH I SHOULD HAVE DONE
My favorite painting, as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, is Ivan Albright’s That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (subtitled The Door). It is a somewhat-larger-than-life oil painting of a distorted, weathered door with a withered funeral wreath hanging from its center. From the left, an old lady’s arm, in a wrist-length, lace-cuffed grey dress, reaches for the knob.
What there is about this particular painting that fascinates me so, I do not know, but fascinate me it does. And for equally unknown reasons, I identify with it. (Ivan Albright also painted The Picture of Dorian Gray featured in the 1945 film of Wilde’s book.)
Missed opportunities and regrets are part of the fulcrum which gives balance to life, and without which we could not fully appreciate the bright joys of our existence. (Actually, far too few of us appreciate them anyway, but that is another matter entirely.)
For some reason, the highs of remembered joys do not carry us the same distance above the center line of emotion as the memory of our failures take us down. It’s just one of those odd facts of life we may not like but have to accept if we are not to be consumed by them.
When I look back on the choices I have made through life, I have to force myself to weigh the “yeah, but if you had” factor. I have always regretted my having been dropped from the Naval Aviation Cadet program. Had I studied harder and paid more attention to the things I should have been paying attention to, I may not have gotten the boot. And yet I knew in my heart of hearts that had I remained in the program I would have been killed, as were so many of my fellow cadets during that particular period.
I have often regretted the fact that, in my really active days in the gay community, I was not more aggressive in approaching people to whom I was attracted, or that perhaps I moved from Los Angeles too soon. Yet this was at a time when AIDS was raging like a brushfire through the gay community, killing everyone it touched. I lost far too many friends and acquaintances not to realize that, had I been more aggressive, or had I stayed in L.A., the next person I went home with may well have been the one round in the chamber of the game of Russian roulette all gays played at the time.
So even regrets may have their balances.
On a personal, day-to-day level, I regret not being more thoughtful of others than I am. I regret not going out of my way to be kind to my friends and family nearly as often and to the degree that they go out of their way to be kind to me. I regret my too-frequently hair-trigger temper which causes me to do things which immediately cause me shame. I regret my tendency to react in kind: if I say “hello” to someone in my building and they ignore me (for their own reasons, whatever they may be), the next time I see them, I do not speak. Petty. Childish. But me.
I regret not being more generous; not volunteering more of my time or money to causes I know are worthy. I deeply regret passing by a panhandler on the assumption that they could get a job if they wanted to, or would just drink away anything I gave them. I am fully aware that of twenty panhandlers, at least one is sincerely in need. But how do I know which one? And that lack of knowledge engenders anger at the rest. (But, again, against which of the twenty should it be directed?)
Life is full of choices which come at us like raindrops in a thunderstorm. In attempting to catch them, we are bound to miss far more than we catch. There are so many things we should have done that we did not do it is easy to forget that there are a lot of things which we should have done and did do; opportunities taken, acts of kindness unremembered or unnoticed. What we should not do is to be too hard on ourselves. Leave that to me.
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POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
I’m sorry, but I’ve more than had it with “Political Correctness.” Our society has become one gigantic exposed nerve end. It wasn’t bad enough that we are among the most anal-retentive nations on earth and a classic example of “the double-edged sword” in almost every aspect of our national life and attitudes, but now we dare say nothing that might possibly be construed as being an insult to one group or another. Enough is enough!
There are two quotes I dearly love and have repeated over and over, one Alexander King’s observation that “there are those who find obscenity in the crotch of every tree,” and the classic definition of puritanism as being “the deep, abiding fear that someone, somewhere, might be having fun.”
When I was a kid, licorice was available in small pieces shaped like a child. They were called “nigger babies.” I loved them. Did that make me a racist? Was I in some way asserting my superiority over Negroes/Blacks/Persons of color/African Americans? No, damn it, I was eating licorice!
Brazil nuts were called “nigger toes.” Good lord!! But when I ate them, was I making a symbolic statement of one race’s superiority over another? Please!
A popular laundry detergent, The Gold Dust Twins, featured the faces of two Negro/Black/Persons of Colo
r/African American children on the box. The little girl had her hair in small ribboned knots. A blatant, inexcusable racial slur and insult, since it implied yet another terrible epithet: “Pickaninny.”
Many traditional American ballads, most specifically some by Stephen Foster, are never, ever heard or played today. “Old Black Joe”? Horrors! How dare Foster have done such a reprehensible thing?
A favorite children’s story was “Little Black Sambo” about a small boy and a tiger. But the little boy was Negro/Black/Persons of Color/African American and today’s children are therefore forbidden enjoy what is simply a charming story. Do you suppose if they changed it to “Little Absolutely-No-Discernible-Racial-Or-Ethnic-Background Fill-In-An-Acceptable-Name” it might be allowed back on the shelf? I doubt it.
I’m using examples of Negro/Black/Persons of Color/African American only because they are the focal point of Political Correctness. I can cite lesser but equal examples where we never ever joke about the Polish or the Irish, or Jews, and any sort of dialect used in telling jokes. Any joke featuring anyone of an ethnic or racial minority is considered shockingly bad taste.
As a member of a minority myself…I’m a homosexual, just in case someone might not have already known…I find references to “Queers,” “Fruits,” “Pansies,” and “Fags” deeply offensive if they are used or intended in a derogatory way. But I’ve noticed that members of many minorities use among themselves exactly the same words they would not tolerate from others.
We don’t even call policemen “policemen” any more…they are “law enforcement officers”; the heads of committees are “Chairpersons.” Oh, come on!
Political correctness has its roots in good intentions but too much of a good thing is a bad thing. As with all things, some degree of moderation is indicated. Common sense, already in such scarce supply as to be an endangered concept, really should prevail. We have, in our zealousness not to offend anyone under any circumstances, in effect robbed our culture and our heritage of the flavor and spice which made this gigantic melting pot of a nation of ours palatable. It is rapidly turning from a mulligan stew (“Mulligan…that’s Irish, isn’t it? Are you insulting the Irish? Shame on you! Shame!”) into a weak and tasteless gruel.
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REJECTION
The stories we tell over and over of our experiences in life tell a lot more about who we are than we probably realize. I know I have a number of stories I cannot seem to stop retelling. One of them, which, if you’ve followed these blogs for awhile, I know you’ve heard before. It is the story of going shopping with my mother when I was probably around eight years old. She was looking for a new throw rug for the kitchen. She couldn’t decide between two, and asked me which one I liked best. I did not tell her…not because I didn’t prefer one over the other, but because to choose one would hurt the other one’s feelings.
I hate rejection, a fact that has strongly influenced my life in keeping me from making any move which might result in it. I’d been painfully aware since elementary school how very much it hurt to be rejected...to be the last person standing there while sides were being chosen for a game.
When I decided to stop by PetSmart the other day to see about possibly adopting a cat, I walked in knowing full well that I was going to be miserable. I knew my heart would go out to every single animal there, and that having to actually choose between them would be excruciatingly difficult, and that I would feel sincerely terrible for the ones I did not choose. (I know, I know…they’re cats…or throw rugs…they aren’t aware they’re being rejected. But I am.)
I’ve told, too, the story of how, before I was aged out of the gay community’s bar scene, I was constantly frustrated because I could not bring myself to approach someone to whom I was attracted unless I had clear indication that the interest might be mutual. My single friends had no such constraints, and as a result I would watch in frustration as time and time again they’d go off to approach someone—sometimes the same person I was interested in—and strike up a conversation. Often they’d be back a few minutes later, unfazed by being rejected. But just as often, they’d end up going home together, while I just stood there, afraid to take a chance.
I went so far as to sign up for a seminar promoting itself as being specifically designed for gay men with rejection issues. There were at least 50 guys there, and after a half hour of general mingling, one of the two psychologists moderating the session said, “All right, now. The first thing we’re going to do is a series of exercises to make you feel more comfortable. We’ll take three minutes for everyone to select a partner for the exercises.” Excuse me? I paid $50 to attend this thing and the first thing they want me to do is pick a partner? I was instantly furious, but a guy I’d spoken with briefly who’d said he was as uncomfortable with rejection as I was standing near me and we looked at each other with mutual unhappiness and partnered up.
The exercises were basic…uh…basics. “Tell your partner three things you like about yourself,” etc., then the partner would do the same. Neither I nor the guy I was with paid much attention, both being too angry to do so. But after about twenty minutes of this crap, the moderator said: “All right now, everyone stand up and mill around.” I figured the next section had to be better than this. They’d come nowhere near to addressing the issue of rejection. Five minutes later, the moderator was back for the second half of the program. “All right, now, we’ll take three minutes for everyone to pick a partner and….”
I walked out the door without looking back. It was one of the most excruciatingly uncomfortable and infuriating evenings of my life.
One would think being an author would be an odd career choice for one who feared rejection, and they would be right. But having a potential reader pick up my book in a bookstore, then put it down in favor of another has the distinct advantage of the fact that I’m not there to see it. I can live with that.
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THE DOCTOR IS IN
One of the best things about self-analysis is that there’s nobody to tell you you’re wrong. I have a doctorate in the subject, issued by the prestigious Dorien Grey University and Storm Door Company, and I have been my patient now long before I received my degree. The results of my efforts are, as you may have noticed, published on my website every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
I also, of course, am well qualified at analyzing others as well and consider myself something of the Jiffy-Lube of psychoanalysis. You have a problem? Just bring it to me for resolution.
In my active-in-the-community days, I seemed to be a magnet for people with problems, which I was more than eager to take on. It bordered on being a Messiah complex: “Suffer little emotionally insecure gay men to come unto me.” Lord knows there were enough of them. I’m quite sure that one of the major reasons I did it was that in devoting my time to their problems, I didn’t have to spend too much time concentrating on my own (one of which, of course, was why and how I really felt qualified to tell other people how to live their lives). I have occasionally looked back with true regret on the amount of money I spent on these people.
It really was rather fascinating: I would walk into a crowded bar and some sort of mystic sonar would start radiating from me across the room: “Emotionally needy? Right this way.” Apparently those who responded saw something in me…a certain stability, perhaps. And compared to some of them, I was indeed the Rock of Gibraltar to their sand castles.
Perhaps there was something of the Pygmalion complex involved. I’ve always secretly enjoyed control. By taking on people with damaged psyches, I was in effect playing Savior of Lost Souls.
Let me say in my own behalf that occasionally I really do feel that I did some good. For one thing, I genuinely did care and I did try to do something to help. Unfortunately, too many times they were shattered into such tiny pieces I doubt anyone could ever have put them back together.
And there were, of course, disasters from which I never fully recovered, specifically with
one-who-shall-remain-nameless who cost me far more than $10,000 over a calamitous two-year relationship. I think I’ve discussed that one before, but my only excuse for having put up with it was that it was at the time that my mother was dying, and I had far more important things on my mind.
But the fact of the matter is that there are so very many people out there who are, truly, lost and who really can benefit from the help and advice of others. Just listening with an open mind and heart can do a lot. And it is also true that, having led the checkered life I have, I do believe I have a high sense of empathy and can understand how and why people feel like they do. I should point out that this is far more true of gays than heterosexuals who, though I have lived among them all my life, are still largely incomprehensible to me.
Being out of the gay mainstream now, I don’t have the opportunity…or as much of a desire…to play Lucy van Pelt sitting on the curb with her little “The Doctor Is In” stand. But, hey, if you have a problem, I’m willing to listen.
RULES OF THE ROAD
AN AGNOSTIC’S CHRISTMAS
Writing this on Christmas morning, while having my morning coffee and chocolate donut (remember “Ruts and Routines”?) and listening to “What Child is This” on public radio, I was thinking of what a short shrift is given to agnostics, who are invariably and totally erroneously lumped in with atheists. Atheists don’t believe in God: agnostics just aren’t sure based on logic, but definitely don’t believe in organized religion, and the atrocities created throughout history by religious fanatics strongly supports this stand.
I love Christmas. I really do. I love the concept of Peace on Earth, and of hope and promise. I find the image of a sky full of angels lovely, as I do the thought of Santa coming down the chimney with a bag of toys. But while Christianity—rather smugly, I’m afraid—assumes it holds a patent on the Golden Rule and all that is good and noble in the world, in truth it does not. The principle of the Golden Rule is shared by most of the world’s religions.