Showing posts with label essay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label essay. Show all posts

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Special Announcement: Not “The End” – Just “To Be Continued.”

Tune In Next Week
If you’ve read my essays over the last few days (and apparently someone has, according to the site – thanks, whoever you are), you know that a commitment I made to myself for 2011 was to publish something every day, without worrying whether it’s perfect or making it fit into a self-imposed format.

All well and good, right? But it put me in a bind. As it says on the right hand side of the screen, I had a “plan” for this blog. Out were diary entries, link-fests, cute cat pictures, and three-sentence punditry. In were long-form essays, cultural criticism, and archives of previously-published work. This blog would be a sort of fully-curated virtual portfolio.

Frankly, I still like that plan. The problem is that I haven’t been doing a good job of using the blog at all, let alone “curating” it. Over the years I’ve only published a handful of entries here.  Meanwhile, on Facebook, Twitter, and just about everywhere else, I’ve posted often – maybe too much – but those posts have been brief, and were directed at a (relatively) limited audience, since I don’t “friend” people I’ve never met.

So: How could I keep this blog my “website of record,” while also sharing less “historic” thoughts with the public? Simple: A new blog. More importantly, a different sort of blog.

This week, unknown to all but a few, I’ve been learning how to use Tumblr. Not that I haven’t been satisfied with Blogger – I think it balances versatility, ease, and affordability better,  than WordPress or other blogging platforms. However, Blogger is pretty specifically designed for blogs like this – not too short, not too heavy with graphics or photos, and not worth the effort it takes to post one or two sentences. Tumblr, on the other hand, has a different focus. It can take what I post to other sites – like Twitter, Youtube, and, yes, this one; combine it with stuff I post directly via the web, phone, or email; and then spit it all back out in a feed, or on Facebook, or back on Twitter again. In other words, I can post the same exact kinds of stuff I post on Facebook and bring it to a larger audience – and it will still go to Facebook, anyway.

Let me be clear – this blog isn’t going away. I’ll continue to post long-form pieces, and I hope to start doing what I intended all along and post some of my older stuff, as well. This will still be a “virtual portfolio,” but I will no longer feel the kind of pressure (and guilt) I’ve had about maintaining it. Meanwhile, when I post here, Tumblr will automatically be updated, and when I post on Tumblr the headlines will show up on the right side of this blog.

And, if you’re a Facebook friend, you’ll still be seeing the same links to news stories, videos, and other things I find interesting – but they’ll now be sent via Tumblr.

I hope that, if you find what I post here or on Facebook interesting, you will visit thestansfield.tumblr.com on a regular basis, and perhaps subscribe to the site’s feed or e-mail newsletter. My “official” first post is up now at this permalink

Here’s to keeping resolutions!

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

New Year, New Actions- Do, Or Do Not

"Do. Or do not. There is no try."
In talking about the years prior to 2011, and the year still to come, I’ve been focusing on the idea of “resolutions” –  not as agents of guilt, but as agents of change. Simply saying out loud (or writing down) where you are and where you want to be can make those ambitions more real, and therefore, more achievable.  So far I’ve shared my ambitions to be more present; to be more aware of myself in how I look and how I “come across”; and to take more control over my relationships, both platonic and otherwise. That said, even though I‘ve written about how I want to look and how I want to act, but I’ve said very little about what I want to do.

It’s not enough to want something. It’s not even enough to be something. As human beings, it is important to be an “action figure.” And, as one of my favorite action figures once said, “There is no ‘try.’” And yet, I find over the last few years that I haven’t been “doing” what I want to. In 2011 I want that to change.

Something I want #3: I want to stop caring about being great at things, and start caring about just doing them.  Ever since childhood, I was the kid who didn't want to do something unless I was already good at it. That’s deadly thinking, and a good way to avoid doing anything meaningful. This actually leads into two “sub-resolutions”:

I want to sing again. Solo. That’s pretty straightforward, actually. I used to be a pretty good singer, once upon a time. Other people seemed to think so, anyway. As the years have gone by and my range has shrunk, I’ve become more and more reluctant to sing by myself in front of people, and I haven’t pursued it. It’s a vicious cycle –  the less I sing, the less robust my voice gets. The less robust my voice is, the less eager I am to sing. Well, I’m going to sing again this year. By myself. And you’re going to enjoy it or you’re going to stay out of my way.

I want to write. Every day. This is, I think, the hardest resolution for me to keep. I’ve always been someone who likes to “express myself,” but actually sitting down and writing is not something I do easily. Part of it is laziness – there’s always something else I could be doing. But a lot of it is perfectionism. I started this blog in order to have a place where I could display “good” writing. The problem is, “good” writing requires rewriting, too – so, by the time I’ve been happy enough with pieces to call them “good,” they’ve ceased to be particularly relevant or timely. Once again, it’s a self-defeating pattern. If I wait to be good all the time, nothing ever gets published. And so I never get better, and I give no reason for anyone to read what I have to say. I don’t want to stop caring about quality – but I have to become willing to accept when “good enough” is…good enough. For now, I’m going to keep this blog for “good” stuff, but I have decided that I need a place to just write, too, without worrying about it being good. There will be an announcement in this space about that tomorrow.

Ultimately the last three days’ worth of resolutions have shared something in common. They have all, ultimately, been about fear. Fear of doing, fear of how others see me, fear of loving, and fear of trying to be the best I can be because of fear of failure. Ultimately, then, I have just one resolution:  I want to – no, I will – live my life without fear in 2011. And to do that I will work on three-to-five “SMART” goals. Too many? Too few? Who knows. But, at least they’re goals. Next time you see  me, put me on the spot and ask me if I’ve been working on them, and maybe tell me some of yours. But not when I’ve been drinking, please – I’m saving that one for 2012. Happy New Year!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

New Year, New Relationships- All You Need is Love

All You Need is Love
Yesterday, I talked about the conclusion I came to this year, that there is no shame in wanting to look better. It doesn't make you a narcissist to simply want to send the message that you care about your appearance. My second resolution is also about shame.

Something I want #2: I want to stop being embarrassed about the love I have to offer. I know there are some people who think I have no sense of embarrassment at all, but I’m not talking about my ability to make bad jokes or get very drunk and say inappropriate things. I’m talking about the embarrassment I have had for a long time about “putting myself out there.” In the past, when I have reached out to friends and potential friends, I have been shot down enough that I adopted an attitude of “let them come to me.” It seemed sensible at the time, especially since I have been told directly that there are people I’ve reached out to who actually don’t like me very much. So, even though I don’t hesitate to make the occasional wry comment or political argument or curmudgeonly quip, I have avoided letting people know just how much I like them and want to be friends with them. It can look desperate.

Well, so what – I’m desperate, then. If you don’t want to hang out with me or talk with me or be around me, that’s up to you. It’s not going to stop me from asking.
 
This is true both for friends and for potential romantic relationships, by the way. This past New Year’s Eve was better than a lot I’ve experienced, but I noticed something. There were at least four people in the room who, now or previously, I had enough of a “crush” on that I could see myself dating them. They were all kissing other people. What a bloody waste – it’s possible each of them would have rejected me if I’d asked them out. But it’s also possible they wouldn’t. I think I’m now less worried about rejection than I am about uncertainty.

There is, of course, another side to the coin, however, and that means knowing who deserves that love. Eventually, you have to know when to give up. This may sound mercenary, but the truth is that we only have a limited amount of time and resources for people. Those resources should ultimately go to people who care as much about you as you do for them. Do people deserve second chances? Sure. They even deserve third ones. But it is time to stop worrying about whether people like me, or why they don't like me, or if they like me as much as they like other people. If people are not going to give back what you give out, then start giving it out to someone who will.

This year, I am going to be less afraid of reaching out to people – and less guilty about walking away.

Next: The last part of the series. Why Yoda was right.

Monday, January 17, 2011

New Year, New Goals- Want Something




So, to recap, celebrating a new year got me in the mood to look back over the old one –and I ended up getting two for the price of one. 2009 was dreadful. 2010 was an improvement in every way. But why, then, do I sometimes feel so crappy? I have a job. I can pay my bills. I even have a social life. And yet, the same words keep coming up when I want to describe the down times. Lonely. Unattractive. Unfulfilled. Treading water. Do those feelings ever go away, totally? I don't know – probably not. But I think it's time to try to do something about them, or at least mitigate them.

Which brings me back to 2011 and, inevitably, resolutions. I’ve tended to be one of those people who think New Year’s resolutions are a waste of time, and so I rarely make them. And yet, after the year I’ve just had, I’m finally beginning to see the point. It doesn’t matter if the promises you make to yourself are impossible to keep. It doesn’t matter that they are inevitably broken. It doesn’t matter that you end up making yourself guilty over not accomplishing them once the New Year comes around again. What matters is that you have some kind of goal in the first place. To borrow – okay, steal – from a forty-year-old Broadway musical, when you blow out the candles on another year you should “want something. Want something.” So, keeping in mind my current employer’s insistence that goals should be “Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound,” here is what I want in 2011.

Something I Want #1 – I want to care about my appearance. I’m not saying I want to become narcissistic or shallow. I’m just saying that a person needs to look like he gives a damn.

2009 was depressing. Not clinically – I’ve experienced enough clinical depression to know it when I see it – I’m talking about perfectly legitimate and justifiable misery. When you don’t have somewhere to go every day, you stop dressing to go out, and you stop doing anything that requires that you look in a mirror. When nobody wants to see you, why worry about how you’re seen?

As I said, 2010 was better. I found a job, and I ended up with a boss who doesn’t really care what I look like. That's to his credit – I’ll never know if any employers passed on me because of my weight or my thrifty suits or my thinning hair, but I know enough about the world we live in that I wouldn’t be surprised that they did. So, that's one big thing from 2010 to be thankful for – but between the inertia carried over from 2009 and the fact that my office is less-than-strict about appearance, I can’t say I’ve made a whole lot of effort to look my best.

Well, in 2011 I want to start caring again. What does that mean? Sure, it means losing weight like everyone else on Earth wants to do, and I’ve already gotten a jump on that by walking every day and rejoining the gym. But it also means putting in my contact lenses more often. It means shaving every other day instead of whenever I feel like it. It means getting a monthly haircut, and trying Rogaine, and putting my Toppik on even when I’m reasonably sure everyone I’ll be seeing has already seen my bald spot. It means saving up to get my teeth whitened. And it means dressing up occasionally, even if I don’t have to. I have some great ties- why should I only wear them when I’m forced to? I don’t need to look like everybody else does, but I want to start looking like I actually looked in a mirror before walking out the door.

If you don't look like you care about yourself, why would other people think you could care about them?

Next: Being unafraid to love, and being wise enough to let go.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

The Pilates Experiment

My calf hurts.

No, that's not specific enough. It's not grand enough a way of describing how my calf (actually, come to think of it, both of my calves, and also my thighs, and much of my lower back and my abs and, yes, my chest, too…and my ass) feels. My calf (along with all those other body parts) feels like it's been rung through one of those old fashioned laundry presses you see in Colonial Williamsburg or on those PBS shows where a family is force to pretend it's living in a different century (admittedly, I've never watched those shows, but I see the commercials, so I know what that sort of press looks like). It feels like the grapes must have felt like when Lucille Ball and that fat Italian woman stomped on them in that episode of I Love Lucy where everyone goes to Italy and hilarity ensues. If feels like the vein in Alberto Gonzales's head must feel like whenever the Attorney General testifies before Congress. (If I want this piece to have any relevance a few years from now I'll have to change that last line, but for now I'll leave it in.)

Why do various muscles that I never really noticed I have (and that no one else has likely ever noticed I have) feel so wrenched and twisted and pounded upon? Simple. I took a "Pilates For Beginners" class.

Taking a pilates class has long been one of those things I told myself I'd eventually get around to doing, like learning conversational French, watching all of Fellini's films, and getting hair transplants. As in most of the odd-numbered years of my life (and some of the even-numbered ones) I'm slightly out of shape- like a beanbag chair is "slightly unsupportive." And even though I grew up to a height of 5'10" in college, a perfectly acceptable average male height, I was, for much of my childhood, smaller than most everyone around me, so the idea of making myself look taller through lengthening my vertebra and improving my posture is extremely appealing. That said, I can't claim I ever went to any great lengths to fulfill my pilates ambition (if by "great lengths" one means actually looking up the times the classes were offered.) However, when an acquaintance of mine sent out a bulletin saying that he had recently become a pilates instructor and was looking for enrollees for his class, I happened to be online and happened to be slightly drunk, so I said "sure" and told him I'd be there for his first class. After all, I wouldn't only be helping myself, I reasoned. I'd be doing a good deed by playing guinea pig and giving a nice guy a boost in his career.

I wasn't at all dissuaded: not by the fact that I was told the workout would be intense; nor the fact that I was warned to make sure I had underwear on if I planned to wear shorts; nor even by the fact that the instructor has spent a large portion of his professional life dressed up in a variety of blue-colored bunny rabbit costumes and platform shoes. In fact, I was encouraged by that last bit, as I reasoned that a seven-foot tall blue rabbit was not likely to be a particularly didactic or harsh instructor. I was also encouraged by the fact that he had recently lost a great deal of weight and was thus fitting into smaller (though still blue) bunny costumes. If pilates was the way he did it, then hell, maybe I too would eventually look good in tights and long ears if I followed the same route.

I don't want anyone reading the next few paragraphs to think I was hopelessly ignorant or naïve about what I was getting into. I did have some idea of what pilates actually is. I've often heard that it's all about strengthening one's "core" (whatever that is) and paying more attention to one's body as a whole (rather than avoiding the very thought of one's body as a whole, as I've been doing for much of my adult life.) I knew a lot of dancers did it. Who doesn't want to look like a dancer? (Well, maybe not Fred "Rerun" Berry, but all of the other dancers.) And I knew there wasn't any weight lifting or running in place or sweating to the oldies involved. I thought it was vaguely like yoga or tai chi, where one stays in one place and somehow gets all the physical benefits a marathon runner gets, without the heavy breathing, blisters, and chapped nipples.

So, I was really rather excited. I was doing something proactive. I was able to swallow my fear of group exercise (correctly assuming that nobody would really be able to watch what I was doing since they would be too busy paying attention to themselves.) I knew I wouldn't be perfect right off the bat, but I was prepared to be grown up and work hard at it until I was the best damned pilates practitioner I could be.

I was, in other words, completely delusional.

Pilates hurts. I don't want to dissuade anyone from taking the classes, especially anyone who wants to take a class with a giant rabbit instructor, but pilates really, really hurts. It especially hurts if you're someone who is overweight, not especially coordinated, flat-footed, and have been walking on the balls of your feet your entire life, making your calves and hamstrings as tight as a G-string (on a musical instrument, not a stripper). I was right about the exercises largely taking place within a small user-defined area, but that doesn't really matter when you're asked to do things like lie on your back with your feet a couple of inches off the ground, your hip and shoulder bones dug into the mat, and your neck straight but off the ground. Read that last sentence again and see if you can follow what I'm saying. Now try to imagine being an overweight person who is asked to go directly from flat-on-your-back to sitting up without rolling over or using your arms for support.

The instructor, who is freakishly tall even without the platform shoes and rabbit ears, looked even taller as he loomed over me. I was right that he wasn't a harsh taskmaster. He was reassuring, positive, upbeat, and encouraging, a little like high school gym teachers are supposed to be and exactly like high school gym teachers never are. And yet, I found myself irrationally hating him every time he came to stand on my feet in an effort to help me "roll up" into position. I resented his cheer as my sweat literally dripped off of my head and on to the nice clean new gym mats that had been installed for the occasion. Every time he said to me, "I bet you never knew how tight your hamstrings are," visions of Elmer Fudd and his double-barreled shot gun popped up in my head. I wanted Bugs Bunny dead. I wanted Peter Rabbit dead. I wanted the Easter Bunny and Thumper and every other cheerful member of the order lagomorpha exterminated.

Even as I sit here, a tightly coiled bundle of pain, I can acknowledge that, in retrospect, I was being unfair. And yet, as mature and self-improving and low-pressure as the workout environment was, I simply couldn't help my feelings. I'm 15 again, standing under the ropes course at my high school, watching all the other students having fun walking on rope bridges and swinging from cables and eventually getting to use one of those neat ziplines James Bond's always hanging from- and I can't do it because my fat, weak body can't climb the rope ladder to get to the course, no matter how many times I make the attempt. In the pilates teacher's warm encouragement I see Mr. Butler, with his cheesy moustache and cleft chin, rolling his eyes and looking exasperated. I promise myself I won't give up, but as I struggle to keep from weeping with frustration I wonder why I, an adult, have to put myself through this shit.

As I relive both the events of the other day and the events of my childhood, the question of what makes an adult an adult keeps coming back to me. Throughout my childhood, I was always ahead of my peers in some ways and horribly behind them in others. I was a gifted reader and writer, had an extraordinarily retentive memory, and, according to some, I was also a pretty decent performer and public speaker. Those things came easily to me, and I was able to coast on them well into junior high school. But being able to coast in some areas can set one up for defeat in other areas, unless you have enough character and work ethic as a child to push yourself in the things you're not immediately talented at. I didn't have that character as a child. If I attempted to do something and I ended up looking foolish, I did my very best to avoid doing it ever again.

I can remember days on the beach playing catch with my father (a talented and athletic man, and, like the Blue Bunny, uncommonly patient and encouraging.) Despite the fact that he never lost his temper with me and did his best not to ever make me feel bad about my lack of hand-eye coordination, I simply couldn't stand how it felt when the ball would fly past me, or land in the sand at my feet, or, worst of all, land in my "lead hands" and bounce out again. My father would have been willing to practice with me for hours if I had asked him. I never asked him.

I never had any immediate talent in athletics, so I decided I didn't like athletics. I didn't like athletics, so I didn't ever practice them, and thus, I remained untalented. This Catch-22 not only led to me being a fairly graceless mover in my daily life- it also played a large part in the recurring struggle I've had with my weight since my pre-teen years. I resigned myself to being the last picked for every team. I resigned myself to taking "breaks" when the others were running laps. I resigned myself to standing under that rope ladder and never making it to that damn zip line. I simply resigned. And I never got any better. I told myself I didn't care. I cared. I care.

As I headed into my delayed adulthood, I resolved that I was going to be a better adult than I was a child. I would no longer give up on things just because they were difficult for me- I would push until I got as far as I could. In many ways I've fulfilled that goal. A kid who was so modest and embarrassed about his body in high school that he never changed in front of the other kids can now go into a gym locker room and calmly put on his shorts in front of better-built, better-looking men. I can (and do) workout regularly (okay, semi-regularly) and I don't worry whether I'm lifting as much weight as the guy next to me or whether my treadmill is turned up as high as the anorexic blond girl's is. I'm still not good at it, and no matter how many people tell me that eventually I'll "love it," I've never loved it in my life and I doubt I ever will. But I do it anyway.

I've worked hard on other areas of my life, too. There was once a time when I would see someone I was attracted to for friendship or romance and, scared of rejection, just accept that nothing could ever happen. Anyone who knows me nowadays would never accuse me of being shy or scared- that took work. That took working on my personality and forcing myself to socialize, rather than blithely accepting that I'd "never fit in."

I've much to be proud of, and that's why I keep coming back to the question: when you're an adult and you try something new, is it more mature to press on no matter how bad you are at it and how crappy you feel afterwards? Or is it more mature to recognize your limitations and give up before you make a bad situation worse? I want sticktoitiveness. I want to fight. And yet, the five foot walk from my bed to my desk to write this was so excruciating that I feel I must have been doing something differently than the others did. I clearly need more strength and flexibility in my legs, if I'm ever going to become accomplished at this pilates stuff. So, do I keep going to classes, slowing them down while the instructor sits on my legs, or do I choose, instead, to try an exercise that comes easier to me? The "comes easy" thing scares me- I want to be a better adult than I was a child. But when is it more adult and rational to take the easier way out?

I've decided, for now, to split the difference. I know now where the most problematic areas of my very problematic body are, and they are surprisingly not the ones I thought they'd be. I'm going back into the gym, working on the stretches my orthopedist gave me and that I long ago grew bored of. I'm making sure I wear my orthotics all the time, even though it means swapping them in and out of various pairs of shoes. I'm going to make my legs and abs strong. And I'm going to go back to pilates class. Just not next week. But I will. I promise. And if you're reading this, you have, unbeknownst to you when you started reading this, entered into a contract. Every time I see you, or at any interval of your choosing, you are to ask me- "Have you gone back to the class yet?" Shame me into it. Because I promise you, I will be a better adult than I was a child.



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