Since this is the week leading up to International Women's Day on the 8th of March, I thought I'd continue in my litany on men...
I am very well aware that I do engage in some serious male bashing every now and then...and I do it on purpose...because I have a message that needs to be rammed into men's heads, -- namely that they have forgotten their primordial, essential mission here on earth...and their mission is not economic, nor political, nor social, their mission is primarily SPIRITUAL, and all else is derived from that core thing...If I need to simplify it for the layman, I'd call it --- standing in the Vertical ----now am hoping that there are a few intelligent men left on the face of this earth who'd understand what am referring to...
It does not take a genius to figure out that am terribly disappointed in men, on so many levels...and my disappointment is exacerbated by the fact that the discrepancy between the image taught about what a man should be and what a man turns out to be is huge...a case of chronic disillusionment...
Having said that, I need to retain a sense of fairness here...
I am not a kid, nor an immature, imbalanced woman...so I need to use my discernment, and I must give credit when credit is due...
No man is perfect, far from it...the imperfections are too glaring and most of the time dangerously so....
But I am fortunate, lucky enough, to have met some exceptional men...there were very few and far in between, but they did exist...some I have known intimately and some as friends...
The ones I met intimately, however imperfect they were, and they were quite imperfect, were some of the men in my family. Alas nothing to do with love affairs...
These men I remember them because their message to me, has taken root and blossomed inside of me...and to these men I am endowed...
Three men come to mind; my grandfather, my father and an uncle...They all passed away...
For sure they were far from perfect, but when it came to gender, when it came to me as a girl, as the feminine, I saw nothing from them short of respect and encouragement...and that is why I am grateful to them...
My Grandfather, bless his soul, was the kindest, most loving man I have ever met...with an enormous generosity. He passed away when I was still in my very early teens...but for me he remains alive...At times when the world closes up on me, I can feel his benevolent presence re-assuring me that all will be well...
As for my Dad, may he be blessed always -- never, I mean never, did he make me feel I was less because I was a girl...quite the contrary. He alway encouraged me, maybe not in so many words... to be more and that nothing was out of reach for me...he taught me that knowledge was primordial, that ignorance is a devil in disguise and that I was to seek knowledge whenever/wherever possible...and strive for it always...Not once was I told that a particular field was forbidden to me because I was a girl...quite the opposite. I was asked to give my best, my very best always...regardless of outer recognition. My father was a tolerant, generous, sensitive, patient and highly intelligent man. His intelligence scared the hell out of me at times...and he saw things way ahead of his times...and it is him who taught me by example to have a "laser like" vision of the world.... zooming in on it...
And there was an uncle of mine, may God bless his soul, he was always proud of me, proud of whatever achievements I accomplished even as a youngster...not once did I ever hear him put me down, or belittle me. He'd introduce me with pride...I could feel it...he may not have said it words, but I felt it...as if to say - here she is, one of us...no crookedness here. For me it felt like a medal of honor...
As I said, these men were not perfect, except for my granddad, but then I was too young to notice any of his imperfections if at all...and these three men never treated me as "a girl" -- where some things were forbidden to me and where they allowed for the boys...
The shit injunctions came from an else place...from society, from school, from the extended family, from cousins, aunts, and the rest...come to think of it, the shit came more from the women than from the men...which leads me to believe that women are the best guardians of fucked up male notions of what a woman should or should not be...
Things were NOT honky dory, far from it...and it was no smooth ride, by any stretch of the imagination...but the core stuff injected into me by these exceptional men was a like a cushion I could fall back onto, whenever the going got rough ...and by God it did get very rough....
These exceptional men set the standards...even before I realized it...
And it is quite unfortunate that none of the men I met later on in life matched up...they were your standard run of the mill machos or machos in disguise....easily intimidated, insecure in their masculinity, making up for this insecurity with empty hot air muscle flexing, false bravadoes and concocted romance stories --- a no match, really...
But then things had to happen that way, so I may be able to recognize the exceptional from the riffraff ...so I may recognize the ones who "stand in the Vertical " and those who will just live the rest of their lives in the Horizontal...and again am hoping there are a few men with some intelligence left, to understand...
