Anti-Aging Information

There's an old saying that "women never know what they want; men never know how they feel." As men, we've long been taught that feelings are unmanly, and that to show emotion in a discussion or interaction is tantamount to being uncool, even unmasculine.

How we feel about things is important. A useful exercise in times of stress is to inventory your feelings. Let's say you're having a disagreement with your wife. Have you ever tried telling her simply and directly how you feel? I don't mean saying to her, "When you do this, you make me feel this way." That's not only untrue but irrelevant. Only you are responsible for your own emotions. Nobody else makes you feel anything. If she loves you, she will try to find a way to help keep you from feeling that way. But it isn't up to her to find a solution for your pain. It's up to you.

Here we are back to that struggle with feelings again.

A Time of Innocence

Ah, sweet youth wasn't so very long ago. Remember some of your youthful, childish behavior? Such as drinking until your stomach couldn't hold any more and your brain had regressed into the Stone Age? Or searching for that wild sexual adventure? Or experimenting with life-threatening exploits involving motorized vehicles, sporting equipment, controlled substances, or women?

Robert Bly would have us search for this hidden spirit within us by beating drums around a campfire. His discussions about such a search were never more poignant than in his dialogues with Bill Moyers. Bly discusses with Moyers how many of us have lost contact with our fathers. "Who were they?" Bly asks. Many of us never knew.

A lot of men have made similar pilgrimages in their lives. They find emotional benefit in reflecting on earlier innocent bondings in high school or college. Reexploring the sometimes bittersweet experiences of your turbulent earlier years can help you laugh at who you are today, not to mention the progression of history that has brought you to your present existence. It is not surprising that with time those experiences almost begin to feel as if they came from a different life, as if you were a different person then. And you know what? You probably were.

One realization you might come to is that not everything you did back then was stupid, although that may not be immediately apparent. Recall how important everything seemed back thenevery political conflict, every test or paper, every social contact (especially the first ones), every disagreement with a roommate. All took on the gravity of the search for the Holy Grail. Only later could we allow ourselves to realize that the Grail was just a dusty beer mug, and that everything would turn out fine (if not great) nonetheless. We miss those days, even though we lacked the power and the gold that we may have today. Pity, we could have gotten into some real trouble if we did.