Well, Jon, I don’t know what’s so yesterday about leaving the toilet seat up -- I had a house guest last year who repeatedly committed that faux pas, and in the guest bathroom, no less. Civilization comes late to some, to others not at all.
I know well that you listen to many males in your occupation -- I think of it as your well-founded vocation, actually. I remember your relating to me how tough it can be to explain and demonstrate to some men the existence, characteristics, and usefulness of Feelings, Emotions and the like. I thought at the time that it was like training someone in the use of a very well-engineered prosthetic device. I have since first posting the above (below? previous, anyway) blog learned that men might very well be hard-wired NOT to be able to express themselves relative to women. In a New York Times review of the book “The Female Brain”, it’s noted that as soon as the communication system within the brain of the male fetus begins to develop, it is immersed -- “marinated” is the word the reviewer used, for God’s sake -- in testosterone, which effectively "prunes away" great numbers of its working connections. I could only think, “Ick.” Then I thought, “Oh, well no wonder.” Then I thought, “My God, men really ARE handicapped.”
After this acid bath, the birthed and maturing male brain is further discouraged from the practice of self-expression by those factors you mention: lack of male models, psychological and modeled patterning by the father of isolation from other and then from self, and then the shaming by women of men’s stunted growth in that area.
It must be extraordinarily difficult for men to learn the skill of communication, to quell their fear of it long enough and consistently enough to get good at it. (Must be like sending a woman through Marine boot camp -- it can be done, but it’s not easy on either the teachers or the students.) The logical teachers of the art of communication are women -- they’re born to talking and listening, using their intuition and emotions as source material, and they become skilled at it very quickly in their lives. Compassion from the teacher is required, and a lot of it; many women are so bruised by life at the hands of silent and judgmental men that there’s not much inclination toward compassion, and that’s a real problem, MOSTLY FOR THE WOMEN. If we don’t exercise our built-in empathy, practice forgiveness, love ourselves enough to stop being so damned defensive, this unhappy chain will continue for yet more millennia.
I did watch Andre Agassi’s exit from the game, and cried right along with everybody else (even Que es mas macho John McEnroe seemed a little leaky). Andre’s trainer and philosophy guru Gil Reyes had a lot (everything?) to do with Agassi’s arrival at the Zen of tennis, and of life. I think that the manner in which Andre comported himself in the second chapter of his career has done a lot for encouraging men to be compassionate themselves, open with their feelings, gentle with children and women, and yet completely Manly Men.
And, yes, dear Jon, you did a great deal for 2 of my sons, at a time when it was sorely needed and deeply appreciated. By all of us. That they are indeed strong, capable, interesting AND sensitive men today is attributable in no small measure to your love and guidance during their adolescence.
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