Masculinity-Movies blog
posted by Eivind on March 23, 2010, at 10:06 am
After writing the review of Boy A, I have been thinking a lot about the tremendous hurt we are bringing down on boys in our society. The clearer I see how deep it goes, the less capable I become to adequately express how sad it makes me feel. So when I heard my colleague play a song at work today by Swedish band “Ingenting” about the experience of being a boy today, it really hit home.
He sings about how when he was little, his female teacher warned him to “do what she said, otherwise you’d be sent to a class you don’t want to be”. Then he went to church and the parish priest warned him to “do what he said, lest he end up somewhere he did not want to be”. Then a woman wanted him to buy her a gold ring and then she warned him to “shape up and stay home”. (“My love turned into a prison cell”).
The chorus goes “it ended up with them saying, you’re Satan’s right hand man” and concludes with him reflecting on all the news of global warming and how if it gets as hot as they say, maybe they all will have turned out to be right – that he’s Satan’s favourite child.
This is the burden of the more sensitive of the boys and men out there. “It ended up with them saying you’re Satan’s right hand man” is an allusion to the feeling that the boy integrates, not the actual words spoken. And yet somehow, he just doesn’t understand why the world hates him so and towards the end of the song, the young boy sings “But Dear Lord, I’m doing as well as I can. Yet I’m Satan’s right hand man”.
It’s an incredibly moving song if you understand the Swedish language and what it really points to (the man who sings the song still sees himself as that young boy who is Satan’s favorite child, and thus he cannot grow up to be a man for fear of the consequences). Click the link below to listen.
Satans Högra Hand
posted by Eivind on March 18, 2010, at 10:14 pm
As I’ve been home from work sick these last couple of days, I have started looking into how I can invigorate my reviews with more use of video clips from the movie in question. I think that the text will become easier to understand, more engaging, and more convincing and I’m looking forward to offering you my reading of Boy A – featuring at least five video clips hosted on our new Youtube Masculinity Movies channel – by the end of the weekend. I think you will really enjoy this new feature.
I thought I’d also tell you about a couple of cool applications I found on AppStore yesterday: HomeBudget is an absolutely ace piece of financial planning software. I finally I found one that suits me! It is becoming ever more pressing for me to keep real good track of my finances. After all, I have things to accomplish and that requires good financial control (it is also a prerequisite for creating further abundance, whose efficacy I intend to prove within the end of the year). I also found some fascinating brainwave technology by pzizz: pzizz relax and pzizz sleep. It truly does put my body in a good state.
Being ill isn’t always all bad.
posted by Eivind on March 14, 2010, at 5:13 am
I have just arrived home from a night out on town. It’s 04.15 which is pretty damn late by my standards.
I write this processing what is to me a personal victory. I went out on town ALONE tonight. You may sympathize with my feeling that going to a bar alone is a little scary so I gave myself a way out – if it went poorly, I only had to endure the misery for 90 minutes.
The odd thing is that I’m a pretty confident guy normally, but I’ve linked the night life with a lot of anxiety in my past. So this was an important night for me. As I’m now a single man, it’s vital that I confront these fears and put myself out there again. I was surprisingly calm as I went downtown, almost in a zenlike state of no-mind. And my heart was wide open. This surprised me, but I think it had to do with the fact that I set a very clear intention of serving everyone I met that night before I went out and to be authentic in all my interactions. And still, despite this inner calm, I felt an undercurrent of tension. I arrived at the bar and did not have a solid plan of action. Having been in a relationship so long, I’m a bit unused to being the single man out on town. I defaulted to heading for the bar, where a cute little lady sat next to me and looked a bit lonely and an instant later, we were engaging in conversation.
We spent four hours together. At the bar, our connection served as a sort of home base while I effortlessly connected with loads of other people around our area. I was having fun and was enjoying myself. At the other end of the bar, a big macho guy was standing all by himself drinking. He stayed there for the rest of the night, never to talk to any woman, looking lonely.
When the topic of what I work on came up, things got a little charged. Turned out she was a sociologist – and being a Norwegian sociologist is a big red flag in my book, mainly because they’re part of the politically correct academia which is causing so many problems in our society. She resisted my thoughts on men and masculinity, which didn’t really change the fact that she was quite charming. But I understood that this right here was a gamebreaker – that if I kept talking about my work, the conversation would end. And I didn’t really want that. I was pleased that I had the awareness to leave that hornet’s nest and start connecting on a deeper level. I felt that I was serving her well – that I was showing her a good time and that my presence provided a safe container. In short, I felt I was handling this first night out alone really well. And I felt heart connected to her and the people around me.
But then when the night started nearing its completion and I invited her to go somewhere to grab a bite to eat, I realized that my intention was unclear. I didn’t know what I wanted. Did I want to see her again? To enjoy a night of passion together? I wasn’t sure. And I certainly wasn’t acting at this point in a fashion that made the latter a likely prospect. All I knew is that she was a sweet girl and that I was enjoying her company. So as the inevitable end of the night approached its end, my consciousness took a nosedive. But I still had to confront the situation because there was some tension building around it, and I tried to stay as authentic as I could and said “I’m stuck in an unfamiliar situation with a nice girl and I don’t know what to do.” It was about as authentic as I could get at this point and it served its purpose. But we both knew it was over. My intention was unclear and she was subtly resisting me because of it, as she rightfully should. Why should she go to bed for a night with a guy if he didn’t even know if he wanted to? I was not at this point a trustable man. Our goodbye was of a somewhat mediocre quality.
Nevertheless, sitting here right now, I feel genuine appreciation for her. I felt her heart through her layers of resistance and she had a lot of beauty in there. Plus she really served me well by hanging out with me for four hours on a night that could potentially have been quite scary to me. The lessons with her will be integrated and next time will be easier.
Sitting here writing this, I’m present to the fact that even though the night overall was a victory for me, I feel a little sad that I lost my capacity to serve her towards the end of the night. I must spend some time reflecting on what I really want when I meet other women in the future.
So thank you little lady for our time together. There is a huge heart in you waiting to emerge in full bloom. May it happen soon.
And for me – another barrier bites the dust.
posted by Eivind on March 13, 2010, at 12:30 am
I just had an experience on the train home that has really made me think. I came onto the train and sat down next to a father and a son. First I thought nothing of it, but then I realized there was something special about these two. I sensed there was a really strong father-son connection between them. It was very tangible to me. The father was solid, open and loving, a man I could trust. And the boy was sat free and protected in the space provided by his father.
I started feeling into that and felt how happy the sight of them made me. How great the bodily feeling of sitting right next to the space that surrounded these was. Almost a form of relaxation. And then I realized – I couldn’t remember the last time I saw anything like it. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen a father provide that kind of space for his son. It struck me as being very strange.
Then as I considered telling them how happy just seeing them made me, I realized that they were speaking French. They weren’t even Norwegian. “Bummer!,” I thought to myself.
Then this gang of Norwegian teenage boys entered. They were around 16-18 years old and drunk. It was very surreal – the father and son sitting to my left, and these confused teenage boys doing their teenage things. As my French heroes left the train, the Norwegian boys sat down next to me, and one of them starting speaking in a loud voice about things you could do to women in bed. He was telling his mates about really crude acts of sexual violence towards women. He told them enthusiastically about the “Angry dragon”, which is when a woman gives you head and you are about to come. Right as you are about to unload, you shove her head brutally down the shaft of your penis, and then you come so hard, the sperm comes out of her nose. Charming, I thought to myself. I’d like to see you try that.
Not to mention the other charmer. He didn’t have a name for it, but the fun part about this one was to have the woman riding you and then, just after you come and she is getting ready to unmount and snuggle up, you pull her face down as if you are about to kiss her and tell her “I’ve got Aids”. “What the fuck?!,” I thought to myself, and was starting to get real close to giving that kid a wakeup call. But then it was his stop and he was off, and all I was left with was telling his friends “Nice buddy you have there. You should challenge him to do any of those things, and you’ll find that he is all mouth and no balls.” Plus his heart of course wouldn’t allow him to. But I kept that part quiet.
I realize that boys need some room to be crude and uncivilized to form a healthy masculine identity, but this was a level of crude I did not appreciate. It was pretty sickening actually, and I wondered what kind of parenting he was receiving to run around talking shit like that. What sane father would not come down on him real hard for thinking that bullcrap? Same for the fathers of his buddies – who were laughing enthusiastically (while they probably thought he was a big shithead, and the boy himself hated the crap he was spouting).
It was just such a shocking contrast – this wonderful experience of seeing this strong, mature father and his happy and protected son – and then seeing these dumbnuts right after. I really hope this says a lot less about the difference between father-son relationships in France and Norway than it seems.
posted by Eivind on February 25, 2010, at 9:01 am
Ultimately there’s only one thing that defines a man’s trustability: the depth of his consciousness. This concept has become a lot clearer to me lately because of my challenge in dealing with men who are sleepwalking through life. I have no problem dealing with it when the man whose presence is fading is clearly working on improving his consciousness. That means he is open to being called on it. Even better (for me), he is capable of calling me on it when I’m the one fading out, which happens frequently.
But then there is the guy who is living unconsciously and who is showing no signs of wanting to do anything about it. He can even be conscious of his unconsciousness and base a lot of his identity on it, almost to the point of being a little proud of being a dumbass. This guy can really throw me off my center. He makes me tense up and get heady. Not so much in normal interaction, but when I have needs whose fulfillment require his consciousness.
This man seems to be the norm in today’s world. He runs countries, organizations, corporations. He is also a father of boys in need of initiation into manhood. It’s not that he is totally inept, it’s just that he is not in the driver’s seat of his own life. His every decision has elements of randomness, absent-mindedness and a longing for comfort and safety to it. And since he has not made a decision to do anything about it, he is by default feeding his superficiality. He does this through such things as negative self talk, self-trivialization, saying such things as “you know, I’m really not that smart, so don’t listen to me, but..”, and never doing anything to change the things that make him unhappy.
I’m very frustrated these days because I have no satisfying way to deal with this kind of man. I become inauthentic. What I really want to communicate to them (which is pretty close to “as long as you are committed to unconsciousness, I cannot trust any part of you”) feels way too much, like I don’t dare to say it. Instead I short circuit in my own inner confusion. I feel that I’m out of integrity with myself in the absence of good ways of maintaining my consciousness while talking with this man. I’m not conscious enough to go unaffected by his unconsciousness.
What I do know, however, is that in meeting men who are conscious – and working to become more so – something in me relaxes and a deeper part of myself becomes accessible. I feel like I am home. Such men are a huge gift in my life. I would be insiginificant without them. This is something I’m really present to lately, after having spent a weekend in Malmö with two guys – Pelle Billing and Peter Kessels – who are really in life to participate. What a gift masculine consciousness is to me is a man. What an inspiration! What a relief…
I remember hearing a clever man say once that you have to be the gatekeeper of your own masculine consciousness. Meaning if I’m somewhere that makes me more unconscious, then I must remove myself from that place. I’m not really living up to that advice yet – I cannot see how – but as I’m pushing ever closer to my edge, something seems to be happening.
Soon I hope I can deal with masculine unconsciousness without losing my own consciousness. That will be a milestone in my own development. It will open a whole range of new possibilites.
Does any of you have any reflections on how to deal with this issue?
