Follow the Leader

    On Ossington Avenue, Toronto’s latest “cool” spot, sitting chatting with a pretty Danish singer from an old Copenhagen friend’s band. The band, a three piece Euro electronic fusion group, (the best quick description I can come up with) were set to play a show later that night and beforehand we were all smashing down beers. First, I’ll point out that the Danish people are different than North Americans... beyond language they’re much more communal and FAR less competitive and individualistic, because of this they are VERY open, giving people. In most circumstances Danes aren’t trying to impress when they talk to you they’re just being open about themselves and their point of view. You’ll always seem to get a deep conversation out of them. This night was no different... 

     She and I sat talking while the other two band members chatted in Danish beside us.  Before long, as it so often does, the talk turned to relationships.  She presented a fascinating point of view that most North American’s would be reluctant to admit... even if they silently thought it to themselves. Her point was that if one romantic partner inherently wanted the other to take charge of the relationship and be the dominant party no amount of kindness, attempts at equality, or romantic gesture heaped on them could stop them from feeling frustrated and unsatisfied if that wasn’t happening. Intrinsically, they need to be the one doting rather than being doted on. In relationships there are people who naturally love more; they’re hardwired to do this and prefer it. To them being on the bottom of the relationship looking up in a kind of wide eyed admiration is where they want to be - not being put on a pedestal by another person. This line of reasoning does have explanatory power when you think of that “nice” guy not getting the result he wants or why some people let themselves get utterly dominated by their partner without complaint. A person’s nature does not just mold itself to egalitarian principles of evenness. People have roles they feel most comfortable in and not to play that role is to create an incongruence inside them.

    Have I seen or heard other corroboration of this effect she spoke of – oh yes. Mainly I have heard from girls – a large cross section of them of different ages – saying how they don’t like the present crop of so called: emasculated men.  This phenomenon that they speak of has cultural and historically underpinnings as previous to the modern era, let say post 1960’s..., men were expected to be more dominant in relationships. Present day reality has had two surprising effects though. First, many woman have been given the chance to have more agency in their lives than ever before, and secondly many men have jumped at the chance of having less. The reality is there has always been men that wanted to be led and woman who have wanted to lead... now each are having a much larger chance to do that.My Danish friend and I agreed that this effect is not gendered per say really what is at the heart of it is personality types. The real problem resides when a person sticks to unflinchingly to the role they “think” they are suppose to play. Exuding externally a self that does not meet the inner person is a sure fire way to romantic calamity and overall unhappiness.

   In the end it was just talk over beers. Did we reach any definitive answer?.... nah, but still exploration of different ways of seeing the world is art and a joy in of itself. I've never been one to think that reality fits into the nicely constructed boxes that the media tries to place it in. The truth is far more varied and animalistic than people comfortably would like to admit.

Those Other Addictions

     A lot of thoughts coursing through my head at the moment, it feels like I have to many things to write at once...  So the possibilities: descriptions and my thoughts of major cities I have lived in; a collection of some of the paradoxes of life and things you only learn through direct experience of them; and, my most recent thought about the mind and body connection and how that connection leads to different types of addictions. I have thought about the latter a fair bit over the years so I’m going to try to expand upon it more now.  I see addiction as an individual compulsively trying to return to a previous feeling, or body state, through some form of ritualized behavior. The paradox of this attempt is that trying to replicate a body state from a previous moment is impossible, which ironically makes the person try more, not less, using the same tactic...   

    I remember being intrigued a few years ago by the film: “The Hurt Locker.” The premise of the film was a man addicted to the adrenaline he receives from war and risking his life to defuse bombs. His addiction is to the extent that he constantly asks to be reassigned to combat zones despite having a wife and kids. Crazy right? Well here's some perspective on it. When I was 12 years old I use to fantasize about living forever. Back then everything had the golden hue of newness; possibility was everywhere and I thought it would be that way forever... such is youth. Adulthood, and the brain alterations of the teenage years, leads to a superior ability of pattern recognition but a loss of much of that youthful, magical thinking and the awe it inspires of life. Vice, and the addiction that springs from it, comes from a person trying in vain to return to those child like feelings they held once of excitement. The lead character in “The Hurt Locker”, in a rather brazen way, was doing just that; he was reaching out for his own variety of pure excitement and the sense of REALLY being alive it gave him.  Now society throws out the term addiction rather loosely mainly just using it for perceived negative vices like drink, gambling, sex.... etc. I see a wider application for the term. I think it stretches much further and actually is a central dynamic of personality. People become addicted to specific ritualized action for the alteration they perceive it to generate in their environment, in people around them, and most importantly inside their own body. Finding and creating opportunities to act out these ritualized actions consistently will become a central tenant  of their personality.

      Over the years a lot of people have told me the things they were addicted to: drugs, alcohol, travel, being nice, power, sex, extreme sports, physical pain, cleaning, being sick, positive affirmation, self defacement, altruism, victimization, approval, superiority, reading, timidness... the list stretches into infinity. The central dynamic is that routinized actions are fallen back to as a method of changing ones present mental state. People covet certain chemical states in their brain as alterations of chemical mental states are what generate physical memory. Those memories are more definite than verbal memories. As an example, think of that feeling when you scored a big goal, or fell in love... it was not the event itself, it was the physical reaction in your body to the event that makes those memories so salient.  Addiction comes into play when people act and think in specific ways in order to try to recreate those same feelings again artificially.

     So stepping back to the “Hurt Locker” the feeling of adrenaline and the clarity it produced in his mind was what he loved most. He loved it more than safety, more than his wife and child, and maybe even more than his life. What I couldn’t realize when I was 12 years old is that life is remembered in terms of major moments that illict strong sensations and feelings... not the hours of placidity. Of course, contentment in the absence of excitement is the sign of mental health, but how many people really know that contentment? How many people aren’t in some way or another tying to shake things up in their world for a return to whatever that feeling when they really felt alive was? My perspective is skewed like everyone else, but my answer to my own question would be – not many.