always missing deadlines

Sometimes a word is enough. Not often, but sometimes. You'll hear it said or maybe see it on a billboard. You'll see a neon sign with some letters missing revealing a whole new word to you that you'd forgotten. We pick our favorites, sometimes for aesthetics, sometimes for no reason. Words are something we can't do without now, but so few of them seem precious. Even fewer seem significant.

For me, word rediscovery usually comes in the form of song. To hear a word spoken enough times often kills the real experience of it. That can be fixed by extending the sound to a melody. In this case, coyote was a word that didn't cross my mind. The animal itself was never much part of my regular life, nor was I first hand affected by the illegal people movers that have taken on the namesake. Then I heard it in a song, all of the syllables brought out to their fullest: co-yo-te. Of course, it was pronounced kai-yo-tee in the more or less traditional English fashion, but it was something of an experience to hear the word flattened out so much, pulled along notes. It seemed suddenly new, and I had to think to myself: what is a coyote?.

In the context of the song that it was sung in, I'm not sure I know what coyote means. It could be a far off lover calling for her mate, it could be the nature of relationships itself. That word stuck in my head, though. I kept pronouncing it the way I had heard it sung. I let it sit in my mouth while being spoken, tasted each sound and marveled at its completion each time. Infatuation naturally led to research. I read up about the actual coyote, and weirdly enough, I saw one in an open field, broad daylight, on the way to a kind of remote location where youths used to go to express angst in the form of crappy spray painted phrases and curses. Having the thought of the word in my mind, it was an incredible surprise to see the subject of my infatuation, like somehow seeing the animal retooled the word again for a second time. He was a small thing, much less menacing than I imagined a lonesome prowler would be. Perhaps the shining sun distracted me from the mystery that surrounds the far off cry. Still, I was curious as to what would coax a coyote into venturing out into the broadness of day, so easily seen from passing cars. Had he become as desperate as the rest of us?

We take words at face value once we learn them. The purpose of the word is to recall a memory, to describe the things in our lives that we find meaningful so that others can share the experience with us if only second hand. That dishonest shared experience, it seems, no longer takes place. Words are just words that no longer represent an actual thing, but are their own entity, capable of exchange from not conveyance. It is probably that all languages fall to this at some point in its development. Once the discovery period of language is gone, what are we left with but sounds?

I never was able to decide what it is to be a coyote. I do not know what I am evoking in another when I say coyote, nor could I imagine what you will imagine when you read the word. In my mind there is an amalgamation of an animal crying for its love not forgotten. I can't help but think of the kind of survival that isn't proud, that is no longer necessary but still unable to quit. Frustrating as it is to not be able to come to a conclusion, it does fill me with some gladness that there was still some majesty left to find in language. Maybe we should sing all our words.

When you get called conservative for the first time in your life after a relatively unmarked left-leaning stance, it makes your gears turn and then sort of grind a bit at the unusualness of it all. So, for those who may be concerned with my changing political ideologies, I offer you this. Make of it what you will.

It’s easy to take on a holier than thou attitude when it comes to human rights or other philanthropic endeavors. It often manifests itself in the form of environmentalists who are so willing to point out the negative effects of human accomplishment at the cost of a livable planet Earth. I understand all that. It is difficult (although entirely possible) to ignore the results of many of our industrious activities. I don’t ignore them, and am in fact, a pretty firm subscriber to the idea that as there are more of us and we desire to consume more shit, that you can’t really accomplish that without leveling some mountain tops or polluting entire water systems. It’s unfortunate, for sure. However, instead of rallying against rampant industrialization in developing nations that are exempt from international emissions standards, I instead want to focus on one very important element missing from many of the go green rhetoric-repeatists.

What’s so great about human beings that we need to make sure we survive into the future? This is an antagonistic statement, I realize, so I will revise: Is environmentalism really about philanthropy or is it a convoluted attempt at self-preservation? We’ll go with the latter, for now. I think what’s interesting about complaining about the hedonistic American lifestyle or the American policy of bending public policy to meet the needs of various industries is that the groups opposed to leniency in pollutants seem to think that human life, and maybe life, in general, is worth preserving, as if the Earth didn’t exist for such a long, long time before life ever materialized. Life is great, but does the universe really care about such a tiny ecosystem in one of it’s countless star systems? It’s just a little bit conceited, is it not?

Instead of facing the reality of just being scared shitless that we will one day die and that somehow we can perhaps prevent this by polluting less is idiotic. At the heart of the matter is the fact that embedded deep within all of us is a desire to survive at all costs, no matter how horrible the life we preserve may be. It stands to reason that there will be no permanent solution to pollution. So long as there are people on this earth, they will pollute it. Human beings are one of the most successful viral species considering how complicated an organism we are and how hilariously long it takes a human being to reach reproductive maturity. It’s baffling, if you really think about it. Given that, life on Earth will continue to become more and more horrible. Our air will slowly become unbreathable, our water undrinkable and our opposite, or same genders, undoable. Why exactly, are we trying so hard to slow down the inevitable?

In this case, I think biology trumps our more rational thought processes. Why do couples who don’t want kids fight about how they don’t want kids? Why do homosexual couples want to adopt or have kids using artificial insemination? Our genetic predisposition for care-giving and passing on our DNA is remarkably resilient. I, personally, think that those who are able to ignore those impulses have evolved to the next level of humanity, while the rest of us just remain hungry, horny beasts who use the excuse of polluting as a way to placate responsibility from ourselves to some outside force.

But I understand that, as well. If we are going to keep on living as a species despite nature trying so desperately to kill us, then it doesn’t make sense to just trash the Earth as if there were no tomorrow. With a little effort and planning, I do think that we can at least have a few more tomorrows than we would if we just dumped with reckless abandon. All I want is for the environmental radicals to stop for a second, think about whether or not it’s the most important thing in their lives to pass judgement on the rest of humanity, and hopefully come to terms that the real reason they “care so much about the Earth” is because what they really really want is to reproduce with the guarantee that there will be an Earth for their offspring to reproduce on. You sick bastards.

I think it’s safe to say that we all know why affairs are appealing to us: sex. There is something fundamental to our humanity that is attracted to physical relationships that are deemed inappropriate by our peers or society as a whole. It’s not hard to figure out why stories of forbidden love and infidelity have remained such consistent standards in our collective conscious. Even in the stories that involve an actual love between two people who have obstacles (like marriages or family ties) are only interesting to us because we are waiting for the moment when those two lovers give the world a big middle finger and succumb to their libidos.

I don’t find those stories all that interesting. Although the moment when the forbidden physical love reaches realization is satisfying on some level, there are so many dynamics that usually get pushed out of the visible spectrum because they “get in the way” of the true love message. So instead of investigating why it is that we are attracted to affairs, I want to explore what happens when two people find themselves in a deep level of commitment to each other outside of the romantic or platonic spheres. While I can’t promise you tantalizing scenes of no pants dancing, I can tell you that human beings are about as weird a species as can be found on planet earth.

During the course of a two year relationship, I knew that I was attracted to another. There was a physical component to this attraction, it would be a lie to deny that, but in truth, the compelling part of this “affair” wasn’t the possibility for sex (indeed, the affair never did truly become an affair). What was so compelling was the bond that I believed was shared between me and this individual. On my end, at least, it seemed as though my true personality only came out when I was with this person. Our shared interests fueled this feeling of co-dependence and eventually the draw brought out a lot of issues that I was having in my co-existing standard relationship. Naturally, the time I was spending with a woman who was not my romantic partner caused said partner to feel jealousy and suspicion. I can say that I did not cheat with honesty, but it doesn’t seem to be much of a point of pride because my extracurricular relationship ended up being hurtful, and was therefore, wrong.

What’s strikes me as fundamentally different between what I experienced and an affair, is that there was no rush for physical affection with this other person. What I found in her was a friend with whom I could share myself. Maybe the absence of a physical component allowed for that in this case. Maybe if a physical component had been added it would have elevated this relationship not only to true affair status, but also to a more meaningful satisfaction. Instead, I began to realize that what I thought was a genuine love was not only not that at all, but was probably almost wholly one-sided for the majority of the time. All of the pain and suffering that often lies in the wake of an actual affair I, and the people I was involved with, suffered. On some level you could say that I ended up with all of the negative side effects and none of the reward, however sordid.

Maybe stories like these trouble us more than straight affair stories because without the sexual gratification, there is no way to justify the actions. Maybe we all just really like porn and a story about an affair with a boss or secretary is a safe enough way for us to get that experience. I’m not sure which is true. What I do know is that I’ve never really been able to tell those kinds of stories because I don’t relate to them. What I do understand is being frustrated by a love that is unsatisfying and trying to pick up the missing pieces in another (whatever those pieces may be). I cannot recommend this action as I have found it does not lead to any usable answers. Affairs, whether consummated or not, reveal our unhappiness and insecurities without attempting to resolve them. As for my own problems as a result of all this? I’m still working on them.

I was trying to figure out a better way to introduce this topic than I am having girl troubles. Not only is it unoriginal, but it also suggests that there are problems with my romantic life (there are, but that’s not important now). What I meant to do is say that the word “girl”, to me, is troubling. Of all the age signifiers available to us, “girl” is probably the most confusing and complicated of the bunch. Still, it has become a word so often used that it has taken on a wider and wider set of meanings. Just saying the word “girl” no longer holds any meaning on its own. Only through context can we ever be clear what the word refers to. This type of impreciseness can cause all kinds of problems.

What once meant a female child now has grown to include females ranging from newborn to approximately mid-thirties. With society insisting that we remain youthful throughout all stages of life, it makes sense that we would expand “girl” to include a broader age range of females. As our lifespans elongate the acceptable childhood range is expanding as well. Where one might have become a woman once based purely on biological standards (the age of adolescence signaling the start of womanhood), we have given up on letting nature bully us into terminology we don’t want. Now you can be a girl at pretty much any age so long as you or someone else calls you that, years lived, dignity and menopause be damned.

What I find so interesting about the acceptability of calling women girls is that it complicates the sexual attributes that are reserved for women. In a society where we consider child molesters among the worst members, it is baffling that it is more or less perfectly normal for actual girls (pre-adolescent females) to dress like “adults”, meaning wear clothes that are sexually suggestive and/or revealing. While we commit people who abuse children sexually (which is logical), we can’t help but make girls as sexually appealing as possible. The argument could be made that it is the individual who is responsible for interpreting the way a child is dressed and inferring that there is sexual connotation, but with products like Hannah Montana in the marketplace, I can’t help but question the intent of the creators of these types of female images. While it is up to an individual to act on particular impulses, there doesn’t seem to be as much thought about whether it’s appropriate or not  to put these images out into the world. There has been some backlash, but the public seems much more willing to accept a scantily clad twelve year old than the man who is seduced by the images of that girl.

While there is one push from the cradle upwards for girls to be sexually mature, there is another from the grave down for women to act below their age. Both forces seem to be driving the essential image of the “girl” and “woman” to the magical age of eighteen, an age where legal adulthood has been reached, but the responsibilities of that milestone are still at least four years off. It is this age where women border on the peak of their desirability. What’s strange about eighteen is that biologically it is rather late to womanhood, considering most females reach child bearing age at least a couple of years before this. Stranger still is that while eighteen may be nearer the middle of reproductive fitness, it is starting to seem younger and younger in terms of social maturity. With people living considerably longer than previous generations, people reach the age of eighteen before a quarter of their life is up. Are we to believe that out of a potential eighty years, one has reached their full mental capabilities after only eighteen of them? Not only does maturity seem rushed, but then you have society encouraging childish behavior to continue well beyond what nature has deemed irresponsible, leading to the permanent infantilization of females.

I am convinced that America wants it this way. By fostering immaturity in women (and men as well), there is little threat that things will change. Without a fully functioning personality, women can be manipulated and controlled. They can call the men that take of them “daddy” whether that be her father or lover, and the man (who, let’s face it, is really a boy), can call her his girl. For whatever reason, we have become afraid of women. We admire the cuteness and sexual attractiveness of females, but when one uses traditional methods to achieve success, is responsible to her family (if one exists) and ventures into an area we are not comfortable with, we can’t handle it. That’s unfortunate because if a woman tries to use her sex appeal to gain some kind of advantage, we’re the first to call her out on it and act as if we’re appalled, when really what we’re thinking is, “Why didn’t she try to seduce me!”

Call me crazy, but I find mixed messages confusing. I’m not really sure how to deal with our existing gender inequalities, but I’m pretty sure perpetuating the use of the word “girl” to describe women isn’t a step in the right direction.

I also want to point out that during the writing of this essay I was listening to “That’s the Way Boys Are” on repeat.