This article feels more anecdotal than scientific... but it resonates nonetheless. With my closest friends miles and and oceans away, it hits a little close to home.
I've been noodling these ideas for a while now, as a dude rapidly approaching 50. Up until my mid-30's, or so, I had to constantly be surrounded by noise and action. I was so afraid of being alone with myself that I constantly sought out Things To Do, and packed my schedule with All The Things. In my early 40's I experienced a realization that I had been a bad relationship partner due to this failure to look inside. So I spent basically a year alone, with myself, learning about me. Probing my thoughts. My life patterns. And I found it. One week I went from being panicked about having "nothing to do", to simply being at peace with myself, and enjoying time alone. No music. No TV. No distractions. Just me, being with me. And I gotta tell ya... a calm came over me that was deeply profound. And it is something I can still tap in to at a moment's notice. I can simply shut down all the noise and chatter, and just BE. Absorb the world. Breathe. Be comfortable. The results have been interesting... I have friends, many of them, but I don't spend much time with them. But when we do spend time together, it is rejuvenating. We may do nothing other than sit and chat and watch the sun set... but both of us will find a deep inner calm we needed, and got in each others' presence. I also find that people now assume I own every venue I am standing in. If I go to a bar, or a party, or a fundraiser, or a restaurant, or any sort of gathering, people will mistake me for the organizer/owner. "Hi, I'm Marcy. Is this your place?" or some other similar comment will be made to me by multiple people throughout the event. There is something about someone who is fully present, and not "performing", that makes people think you own the place. It is truly weird. As my wife and I have "nested" in our house, and messed about a bit with the garden, and gotten into a good CSA that delivers us fresh food to cook every week, I find myself happier and happier to simply sit in a chair in my back yard, and look up at my Douglas Fir tree, and simply BE. (Note: I do also go to live shows, like on Saturday, and drink far too much with old friends from elementary school who I haven't seen in years, and I have a fantastic time there, too. So I don't think this is a repudiation of other people's lifestyles, or anything, it is simply me finding my "comfortable place" in any situation, because I am comfortable in my own skin. I think. I dunno...?) Friends are great. Being your own friend is an inexpressible joy.
Thank you for sharing the insight. Could you elaborate on that one? What is it precisely that makes you stand out as the owner of the venue?I also find that people now assume I own every venue I am standing in. If I go to a bar, or a party, or a fundraiser, or a restaurant, or any sort of gathering, people will mistake me for the organizer/owner. "Hi, I'm Marcy. Is this your place?" or some other similar comment will be made to me by multiple people throughout the event.
My guess is that it is my comfortable "air", or posture. That I'm just chilling. Not "performing" or putting on an act. That's generally the sign that someone owns the joint, and is just enjoying watching people interact in their space. At least that's my guess... What is it precisely that makes you stand out as the owner of the venue?
Interesting that you use the word performing. In Dutch (I don't know if it's the same in English), 'to wear a mask' refers to acting unlike your true self, often used to describe people in social or corporate settings. One has different masks for different settings. I think a lot of people, myself included, wear their masks more often than they would want. I've always struggled with revealing my truer, incomplete and imperfect self to the people around me - the fear of rejection by my peers has long been one of my greatest fears. When I went to Canada as an exchange student, I both had a lot of time on my own to reflect and had the freedom to be myself to everyone. I won't say it wasn't a struggle at times, but I do think it made me realize that I can be at peace with myself. That the masks aren't really necessary. Becoming at peace with oneself is a long and arduous process, but every process has a first step. “Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” - not Dr. Seuss.
Even more importantly, everyone NOT wearing a mask can see everyone who IS wearing a mask. Rooms becomes WAY more interesting when you aren't "performing", and just being genuine, because then you can watch everyone else performing. Which is really everyone just announcing their own insecurities at the top of their lungs. Like monkeys in a cage, man... ...the masks aren't really necessary...
Yeah, this one messed me up for a few days back when it came out. Primarily because my social network is a thousand miles away, while my wife picked up at the top of the food chain in a very cloistered order (midwives are a catty, insular bunch and midwives who own birth centers are the undisputed silverbacks). I'll say this - the happiest older men I've known were Shriners. The second-happiest older men I've known were bikers. This didn't used to be a secret.
Have you by any chance read this one? Part of it was manadatory reading for one of my urban planning courses. The title refers to the fact "more and more people take up bowling as a recreational sport, but fewer and fewer belong to organized leagues" which he uses as a metaphor for urban life in general. He argues that the general trend of U.S. urban society is towards less civic engagement, not more, and that meaningful human moments of contact are becoming a rare thing.
Motorcycle or bicycle? I've been going to a Tuesday night run. It's so much easier to run on my own schedule, but I go to the run just to be with people. A co-worker does a summer weekly bicycle ride, and while I suspect you meant motorcycle, I think it applies to cyclists, too. I think he rides for the same reason I do the run. These are activities where one can be themselves but do things together. I'm not about to join the Stonecutters, but it helps to force myself into social situations. My open request to you and all of hubski is if I ever join a PT Cruiser group (and I saw one Sunday, a group of folks in their 50s), please just put me out of my misery.the happiest older men I've known were Shriners. The second-happiest older men I've known were bikers.
Harley guys. Or, as a Moto Guzzi rider I chatted with in a parking lot once called them, "Hell's Dentists." One of the more interesting things I got to watch in LA was the tectonic shift in Harley riders after Wild Hogs; prior to that movie it was all white guys of various states of ill repute (Seattle has a number of "one percenters"). After, though, LA was wall-to-wall affluent black men on dialed-to-the-nines Harleys of positively impeccable build. But I can't really get behind the Harley stuff. They're an embarrassment to engineering. And I can't get behind the Ducati fucks; Ducati is Italian for 'Harley Davidson.' And I can't get behind the crotch rocket fuckers, either and pretty much everybody else rides alone. It's the same problem I have with bicyclists - Critical Mass has made me hate the lot of you, and I say that having logged over 3,000 miles last year. I also rode through this catastrophe about 10 minutes after it happened and it was basically a horde of entitled dipshits in lycra howling in pain and yelling at me to slow down (like I was the one who ran over Mrs. Yun, who was always on the bike path, who was always moving slow, and was impossibly easy to avoid running over). In my abject flailing to find an aspirational car to lust over, I've learned an embarrassing amount about Porsche 911s. Them guys are chummy. Thus I'm left where I'm always left - any group that would have me is deficient simply for having me.
The Critical Mass story I tell is talking to a guy who did the rides (I never have) and him saying "yeah, we ride down the street, following all the laws... except red lights and stop signs" with a shrug. Wow. I think that kind of mindset ruined biking. Maybe I'm just getting older, but I feel like drivers have become more aggressive toward bikers. I'm thinking of replacing my road bike with a generic hybrid if only to distance myself from the stereotypical road bike and their riders. Is "Triumph" the British English pronunciation of "Harley Davidson?" I've been trying to crack the nut of outdoors clubs, but I find either I care more than they do or they're way more intense than me.
That is so very much not their mindset in San Fran and Los Angeles. There? Well, it's like a funeral procession in that they'll block intersections and chase you off the road... except they're also hauling ass, snarling at everyone and being abject dicks for no reason. As in, they are deliberately aggressive, pointedly provocative and legit dicks to even pedestrians. That said, every problem I've ever had on a bicycle in LA is all about distracted drivers. Worst experience I had (aside from being hit three times) was a guy who honked at me in Silver Lake for being stopped at a light where he wasn't expecting me. I honestly think he was just shocked and startled by my presence because he was so busy VWing his way through 5pm traffic. It would not surprise me if your perception of more aggressive drivers is actually more drivers with their faces in their phones, but I picked up riding again after the proliferation of the iPhone so I can't really make that statement with authority. Triumph is an odd duck because they ceased to be through aggressively shoddy workmanship (their assembly workers were so surly they'd put metal shavings in the engine cases) and were then restarted 20-odd years later. They also make a whole buncha different styles of bikes, while Harley makes nothing but bog-stupid standards. That said, I'm not a fan of Thruxtons but that's all me. Lemme know what you figure out about the outdoor clubs. There may come a time when my wife has time off again and at that point, we've got some serious hiking to catch up on.
Two of my friends moved to Pittsburgh. The last time we spoke was August. This hits close to home for me, too.
I'm lucky to see good friends fairly regularly, but it's largely through work. It's almost never that I go out with my good friends just to chill out and relax. Once each year a few of us gather for a long weekend somewhere. One of my favorite events of the year.
I can relate to the built-in activity connection. Being in a band means there's a group of guys I see multiple times a week, the extended connections of those people I see with less frequency, and the built-in comraderie that comes with it. Thanks to that I think I am a lot more connected than I would expect for my personality and lifestyle. I also don't have kids which I suppose helps a lot. That said there's only a few relationships outside the ones affiliated with an activity that get much attention.