Post Category → Exisitentialism

Middle-Aged Men and Double Lives, Explored.

goldfinger460

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4295037.ece

Whether it’s a struggling college student in Washington, D.C. trying to make ends meet, or a “manageable” pill problem no one needs to know about, double lives can be a full time job for the older man of means.

With a middle class in America on life support, and article after article telling young people that in order to become really rich you have to start out really rich, you can see how things can become demoralizing after a while. 

Advertising flaunts the lavish lifestyles of the rich and famous at every turn, and the fact shows like The Kardashians are among America’s favorite “reality” pastimes, you can see where the average person might feel like a civilian in a war they can’t win.

Okay, so this is the playing field.

Enter the affluent and entitled middle-aged man with time on his hands and penchant for youth, and beauty and a new market is born.

In this world everything one might imagine is usually the norm.

“Michael” has been married to the same woman for 20 years. They have 3 kids in college. At 55 he’s proven all he needs to prove to himself and the world around him. He’s been financially successful, sits on corporate and charitable boards, and is a member in good standing of a prestigious country club. What more of life could one ask?

A lot.

“Michael” is bored. He wants more out of life. But more of what?

Excitement.

He wants to feel “alive” again. He wants the higher highs, the ones that kept him motivated and in the saddle all these years.

So he stumbles around a bit.

He tries to retire, but that doesn’t work because boredom – and that sense of irrelevance – start creeping into the subconscious until he’s ready to climb out of his skin.

So he goes back to work, but still finds holes in the plaster. There’s got to be more. This can’t be all that’s left of what once was.

It’s time for an assessment.

NOTE [s]:

1] This mental process is uncommon among ordinary men.

2] However, it is quite common among politicians, athletes, entertainers, high-octane suits, and other libidinous creatures, otherwise known as men who expect more because they feel entitled to more.

Using #2 as a template for this brief discussion, it doesn’t stretch the imagination to understand why playing life close to the vest is endemic to success in any and all endeavors.

In this sense, business and pleasure overlap and what we see are happily married men with mistresses in luxury apartments in other cities, for example.

They do not consider this cheating.

In their minds, its like a tax credit for providing their wives with high-end lifestyles they would not otherwise experience.

So it’s a win-win.

This level of compartmentalization is common among high-functioning sociopaths, who did not climb to the top being kind and compassionate.

With this as a backdrop, one can easily see that certain psychological profiles lead to certain behaviors, which is why criminal profilers who hunt homicidal sociopaths might open a division just for affluent older men who lead double lives.

While they don’t dump bodies along lonely stretches of freeway, they drop souls all over the place.

 

Jimmy Page [71] Dating Scarlett Sabet [25]

jimmypagepoet_zps96635d0b

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2915901/Led-Zeppelin-heyday-girlfriend-14-limos-young-groupies-middle-class-girl-25-fallen-71-year-old-Jimmy-Page.html

Okay, so it’s pile-on time once again as a senior celeb takes a young lover; in this case Jimmy Page and Scarlett Sabet.

Why does this bother people so much? Why do people care? It’s their lives. They live them as they see fit. Both are consenting adults and neither appears to be complaining. if something goes way south as is common with most relationships, age-relevant or otherwise, they can split up and start over. But for reasons that TMZ, Daily Mail and every other celebrity news outlet in the world know all too well, “never pass up a story about an older man dating [or marrying] a much younger woman!”

See, what makes these stories so interesting to me is not that Page and Sabet are dating [or whatever], but that news outlets bait readers with stories they know will inspire controversy, no matter that they are merely two consenting adults having a nice time together.

Jimmy Page is an outlier.

In the world of rock music, his contribution was a game changer, legendary. He has everything a young woman might find – at the very least – interesting.

If there is a downside to such a union, it is that he will, in all probability, die long before her.

And if that’s the story, it’s called scraping for news because all relationships are tenuous at best.

At least in this case, the commodities appear evenly distributed.

Had it been back in the day, Ms. Sabet would have been standing in a long line…

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Testosterone Nation

testosterone

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/04/should-the-modern-man-be-taking-testosterone/274663/

“Step right up! Right this way. Whether you take your “T” by injection, gel, patch, or subcutaneous pellet, the promise of eternal youth can be yours for the taking!!!”

Most guys in my particular socioeconomic demographic are on some form of testosterone, usually cocktailed with Human Growth Hormone [HGH], and sometimes, anabolic steroids.

This is considered proper maintenance, and therefore, normal.

…………..

The testosterone debate is as heated as politics and religion. Everyone has an opinion.

But the biggest problem is that everyone is also a “research scientist” armed with a battery of affirming studies touting the benefits, while downplaying the side-effects.

In this sense, it’s like the global warming debate.

Did you know that Houston has had its coldest Winter in 30 years? In New England it’s more like 100 years.

Having said this, it has also been the warmest in general, which may or may not have to do with SUV’s and Dick Cheney.

There’s an angle for everything, which brings me back to my point: Testosterone has become a kind of lightning rod for people who want to take advantage of what science has to offer without having to necessarily prove it’s overall safety record.

This is why people carry around talking points to validate their addictions, the main one being baselines. If i keep raising the bar, suddenly everyone needs more testosterone. Get it? This is the hook.

This is why testosterone supplementation has become its own religion, practiced and promoted by pharmaceutical companies, physicians and the patients who carry the “word of god” into gyms across America.

I’ll be straight with you about something: If I were to inject 1 cc of testosterone per week, my body would begin to bleed fat and build more muscle with half the effort I currently put forth in my workouts. How long this would last I don’t know. How long I would last I don’t know. Is it worth the risks given the fact that my livelihood does not depend on winning bodybuilding competitions or the Super Bowl?

No.

If I were a professional athlete, would it be worth the 5 million a year to stay competitive? Probably, which is why most use and then end up in wheelchairs, or worse.

The human body will only give us so much before it starts subtracting the gains.

Nonetheless, the men I’m referring to are NOT professional athletes. They may be athletic. They may want to look and feel better. But from what I have seen, the risks they are willing to take far outweigh the gains they expect.

This is irrelevant to most of them. They live for the moment. For now. Tomorrow will take care of itself.

Indeed.

Postscript: In case you’re wondering what all the fuss is really about, take a look at these three steroid users and their preternatural physiques, courtesy of the drugs.

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The Normal Aging Process Versus the Preternaturally Fit.

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http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/07/how-exercise-keeps-us-young/?_r=0

“As it turned out, the cyclists did not show their age. On almost all measures, their physical functioning remained fairly stable across the decades and was much closer to that of young adults than of people their age. As a group, even the oldest cyclists had younger people’s levels of balance, reflexes, metabolic health and memory ability.”

From the perspective of chronological averages, my script has been written and what’s left is fading fast.

Fortunately, I’ve never been a fan of averages.

…………

Admittedly, there are days when my age bothers me. I’m smack in the middle of the Baby Boom Gen and sometimes the psychological ramifications of being this far down the road sucks. People are dying all over the place and everyone seems to have some horror story to share about their health.if they just shut up about it for five minutes I swear they’d feel better.

It seems like just yesterday I was a carefree young man, the world at my feet, with endless promise ahead of me.

I thought of people my age as dead men walking, and dismissed them summarily. It’s not that I was unable to see their strengths, but that I resented their competitive presence in the game of life. After all, this was my world. Their time came and went, so why are they still here?

And then it happened: I woke up one day the object of my own adolescent scorn.

Wow. I didn’t feel any differently, but here I was, an older man.

And while there was absolutely nothing I could do about chronological stage in life, there was everything in the world I could do about how I wanted to live it.

So I started power lifting.

I found a top trainer and focused on a goal.

See, an important aspect of physical fitness for older men is having a goal. Without one, you get lost. Motivation dries up because there’s nothing to work towards, and eventually, you’re back on the couch reading history books before dying of heart failure before your 60th birthday.

Power lifting, like Cross-fit, and other competitive endeavors makes goal-setting a integral part of the training process.

Adding to this is the camaraderie often lacking in an older man’s life, which you have to feel yourself to really appreciate. You stop drawing inward and resigned, and instead experience a reawakening.

For me it was an easy segue because I’ve been athletic all my life, but I have seen frumpy middle-aged men morph into competitive athletes with entirely new outlooks on life. In fact, you wouldn’t recognize many of them from their former pathetic selves.

The moment you give up on yourself and your abilities, you’re dead in the water. The missives from young men are now accurate, and you become the helpless poster-child for irrelevance.

Life is all about choices. We can choose to fade, or we can get back in the ring and compete.

What I’ve noticed is that men of all ages respect older men who fight for themselves, who challenge the forces of time, and set examples for future generations.

Now they have something to actually look forward to, which no one will dismiss.

……………

I’ll leave you with this: The following is a video of a 78-year-old man doing leg lifts at my gym 3 days ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MsO2lqgvZ4&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop 

 

Is Aging a Disease?

 

0bba1e9bdhttp://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/the-narcissistic-injury-of-middle-age/283602/

To the normal person, aging is considered a natural process that one accepts.

To the normal urbanite, it’s a disease like leukemia that one fights tooth and nail with testosterone, dermal fillers, plastic surgery and 6-hour kickboxing classes.

With this in mind, I can state unequivocally that aging is the crucible of my generation.

NEWSFLASH: We are NO LONGER the center of the universe.

Now the only way we get that level of attention is by doing something that lands us on the evening news.

Many refer to this phenomenon as “invisibility.”

Some describe it to be a lot like death, but more expensive.

Whatever it is, though, sucks.

In the article, the answer is to “use our accumulated wisdom and experience to help guide the next generation.”

For some, this is enough. They coach Little league, get involved in charitable causes, move to Florida.

But for millions of others, this is not how they see themselves, or the balance of their lives, which could very well span several decades.

For me, it’s about getting up everyday and putting one foot in front of the other.

Think of it as the first step in a twelve-step program.

If you can’t get out of bed, you just as soon swallow that bottle of Xanax in the closet.

Your next step is to take stock of what you do have and balance it against what you don’t.

I use a Magic Marker and draw a black line down the center of a page: The good is on the left, the bad on the right.

If the “good” column has more entrees than the bad, it’s a good day.

The next thing I do is eat clean. It’s a pain in the ass, but you get used to it.

Then I sit down at my desk and write. This constitutes work, which is critical to any man’s self-esteem. You can’t just drift. It will obliterate whatever is left of you in a heartbeat.

Now you know why people like The Stones still tour. They hardly need the money. It’s about relevance, visibility, and purpose. You have to have a reason to go on.

Okay, so now that you’re eating right and doing something professionally challenging and meaningful, you have to go to the gym.

This does not mean get a gym membership and participate in some senior’s stretching class. It means going to the gym and busting your ass alongside people half your age.

Then you have to rest and recover. This takes longer than it used to and that’s just the way it is no matter what the hell you do.

Next, you will need a life beyond yourself to soften the blows of aging, which involves another human being. Living alone works great for homicidal sociopaths, but not middle-aged men.

If you’re in a dead-end marriage, you owe it to yourself, and your spouse, to either improve the situation or move on.

Putting a hooker on the payroll [like a lot of guys I know] only insures that the already disastrous relationship with your current wife will end up in the hands of attorneys. It’s a downward spiral.

Finally, count your blessings. Remember the list? Read it, over and over and over again until you memorize the good stuff.

I have to do this every day and believe me when I tell you, it keeps the pity party at arms length, which is exactly where it belongs.

By the way, I’m competing again in the USAPL power-lifting competition this July in Houston to hold my state record in the dead lift. Here’s a video of my progress so far…

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Distinguishing “Contentment” from “Happiness” as Jaded Adults.

Google Contentment and this is what comes up:

Contentment..Sign-of-a-True-Believer-1024x640Google Happiness and this is what comes up:

happiness

I dunno. Happiness kind of sells itself.

Merriam Webster offers the following definitions:

Contentment:

a: the state of being happy and satisfied : the state of being content

Happiness:

a: a state of well-being and contentment: JOY

b: a pleasurable or satisfying experience

………

After reading this, it is clear that these dictionary definitions and actual life [for adults] are two entirely different things.

When I was a kid, happiness was what I felt the first day of Summer, or Christmas morning, or racing into the surf on a family beach vacation.

I entered a state of bliss indescribable by today’s standards. Life seemed to open up like an endless universe, without boundaries or restraints of any kind.

Of course, I wasn’t paying the bills, cleaning up the Xmas mess, or worrying about making and keeping dinner reservations…to name a few.

I was just along for the ride, and a ride it was.

Then I got older…a lot older…and things changed.

While I got used to paying bills and dealing with responsibilities that came with adulthood, I never felt completely happy anymore. Something was missing, but what?

I had money. I had my health. I had friends and interests. What else was there?

LOVE.

That’s what was missing: Love. I needed a relationship to complete my life, to make me happy.

Then it happened and I was happy…for a while.

I say this not because I became less happy with my relationship, but because I became more and more content with a life lived in what felt a lot like emotional captivity.

Was I then a prisoner of my own delusions? Was this contentment really a kind of resignation that I wasn’t strong enough to walk away from someone I loved in order to find someone I loved even more?

In other words, was there something better out there?

PARADOX.

When you love someone, you automatically fall victim to psychological paralysis that forces your hand.

You don’t leave because the enduring comfort it brings far outweighs the excitement that burns fast and dies. At least, that’s the hope.

None of us make it out of this place unscathed, so there’s a good argument to be made for finding refuge from a storm that is best left to novels.

CONCLUSION.

Once you reach adulthood, happiness is something you work towards. It doesn’t come to you the way it’s used to.

It’s a series of fits and starts that, in the end, should leave us somewhere in the plus category.

It’s no longer one long string of ecstatic moments, not that it ever was. We just remember it that way.

In my life, instead of running the streets 6 nights a week like a banshee from hell, I am for the most part home with a woman I love, with 4 animals and a Macbook Pro streaming “Criminal Minds” through a set of Bose headphones.

This is as good as it gets, folks.

Life is no panacea. It’s just life, a place you mold for yourself, not what molds you.

If that were the case, we’d all be institutionalized.

The good news is that life has never been better, which you have to reality-check on a daily basis.

Our fantasies have a way of running away with us, which is why they’re called fantasies.

DEFINITIONS REDRAFTED FOR ADULTS

Contentment:

a: the state of being happy and satisfied, all things considered.

Happiness:

a: Moments of hyper-mania followed by life. [The same experiences it was when we were adolescents, but don’t remember, bills notwithstanding].

Who Do Some Men Just Get Better With Age?

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2970768/Liam-Neeson-George-Clooney-Pierce-Brosnan-Hollywood-stars-awesome-age.html#cid=55367783552

When many people envision a 62-year-old man, they don’t see Liam Neeson.

What they do see, quite frankly, is a stereotype many of us in this general chronological ballpark don’t resemble.

Not even close, actually.

So what’s our secret?

1] Eat clean. Lots of fruits and vegetables and high quality protein.

Comments: Eating clean will become a part of your daily ritual. You will eventually learn that while cheat days are occasionally acceptable, it’s best to stick with cheat meals. An entire day of bad eating will cost you a week of rehab.

2] Get plenty of rest. 8 hours a night is like not having to pay a plastic surgeon before their time. 

Comments: In the days before I had a live-in girlfriend, I was out 6 nights a week. My sleep habits were all over the place, but the “running the nights’ rush helped mitigate whatever I lost in REM 4. Of course, I was also younger, which helped. See, the older you get, the less help you get. If this is lost on you, go back to therapy. If you’re more comfortable with an internist, they’ll probably refer you to one.

3] Hydrate. Hydrate. Hydrate. With water, not vodka. You can squeeze a lemon in it if you want a vague reminder of what it was like to down a lemon drop martini.

Comments: The function of the kidneys, which helps to regulate fluid, declines with aging. The ability to recognize thirst decreases with aging — sometimes older people don’t realize they are thirsty. With aging, the amount of body water decreases. So even a small change in fluid intake can cause dehydration. The fallout from dehydration just isn’t worth it.

  • dry mouth and nose
  • loose and/or dry skin
  • skin “tenting” in the forehead
  • increased tiredness and/or weakness
  • restlessness
  • sudden (acute) confusion
  • concentrated urine
  • dizziness and orthostatic hypotension (standing causes sudden drop in blood pressure, feeling dizzy, and even fainting)
  • increased heart rate
  • loss of appetite
  • constipation
  • nausea and vomiting

4] Workout every day of the week: 3 days of weight training, 3 days of cardio, 1 day of stretching and recovery.

Comments: Don’t freak out. I’m not telling you to spend your entire life in a gym. I’m asking for one hour a day: 3 days a week of resistance training for strength, flexibility and bone density, followed by stretching. 3 days a week of cardio at 60-85% of maximum, followed by stretching. 1 day a week to recover. I spend a little time with foam rollers and lacrosse balls to break up the fascia and improve blood flow.

5] Manicure your face: trim eyebrows, nose hair, ear hair, and whatever other hair you may or may not have.

Comments: There’s nothing that says “I’m oblivious” than a lack of personal grooming. A lot of old guys look like tree moss. It’s pathetic. Clearly, they’ve given up. But just remember, when you give up, people give up on you. Put another way, you disappear.

6] Use quality skin products. Borax won’t cut it anymore.

Comments: A lot of guys give me shit about my rather robust regimen of skin products, but they never fail to suggest that I’ve gone under the knife, which is not true. What is true is that I take care of my skin because it no longer takes care of itself. My suggestion is that you see a dermatologist for an overall assessment and product suggestions.

7] Keep “toxic” stress levels low. There’s a difference between good stress and bad stress. One gets you out of bed. The other one puts you in the ground.

Comments: One of the many downsides to getting older is that stress is not something the body handles as well as it used it. The good news, however, is that you don’t have to put up with as much crap as you used to, so use that to your advantage as much as possible. I use the line, “at this stage of the game, I’ve earned the right to just say no.”

8] Choose you gene pool carefully. Unfortunately, this one’s out of your hands, which is a drag since it also happens to be the most important one and the main reason why you have to follow all of the aforementioned rules.

Comments: Your genes will determine the lion’s share of how your life plays out. Some say that only 15% of what you do changes the course of destiny, but I disagree. With perfect genetics I could overdose on heroin at 18.

9] Never let a photographer with an on-camera flash get within ten feet of you for photo ops. If you do, you’ll understand why you should not have allowed this in the first place.

Comments: Understand that you cannot compete with your 25-year-old face. This is why professional models tend to be children in adult clothing. With this in mind, the closer an on-camera flash gets to you, the worse you will look. So either tell the photographer to lose the flash, or step the hell back.

10] If your girlfriend is significantly younger than you are, come to terms with the fact that you will get older as she appears to get younger.

Comments: This is a very real problem for both genders who date inter-generationally. The upside is that the younger of the two will always be appear physically beautiful. The downside is that you will always look like their parent no matter how good you look. There is a hidden cost in every seamless transaction.

Final remarks:

Liam Neeson was photographed on a set in flattering light, which makes the most of his appearance. But understand that no matter what the lighting happens to be, if you live your life like Keith Richards, you will look like Keith Richards no matter what the lighting happens to be. 

 

Aging Takes Toll on the Male Psyche

10q_0425

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/robin-williams-in-a-group-facing-higher-risk-of-suicide-older-white-men-with-depression/2014/08/12/8e1164d6-225e-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html

One reader commented:

“White middle aged and older men suffer from depression and commit suicide at a higher rate because their life centers around career, status and making money…”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/baby-boomers-are-killing-themselves-at-an-alarming-rate-begging-question-why/2013/06/03/d98acc7a-c41f-11e2-8c3b-0b5e9247e8ca_story.html

The writer commented:

“…many Boomers are reluctant to accept the realities of aging.”

I’m gonna’ let you in on a little secret: Nobody accepts aging. Nobody. It’s something we all deal with either through denial or prescription medications.

There are exceptions:

1] Those who manage to keep themselves so busy [and distracted] in their careers that they don’t have 5 minutes to think about it.

2] People of low ambition and correspondingly low expectations in culture groups of similar mindsets.

The rest of us have to fight our way through it with varying degrees of success.

I have no way of knowing what Robin Williams felt the day he took his life. No one can stand in another person’s shoes, to inhabit their lives.

But what I can say with absolute certainty is that successful older men do feel intense pressure to maintain relevance, both physically and professionally, and when either one of these falters, the emotional fallout is usually disastrous.

Most people visualize successful older men sitting on a beach in Tahiti, waiting for the gulls to drag them out to sea. But what they fail to consider is that the very things that got them to where they are still burn. Beaches are nice for a weekend, but boredom is usually just around the corner, and, after that…indignity.

Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.

Napoleon Bonaparte

 

At 62, Mickey Rourke Redefines “Living Life to Its Fullest”

rourke

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2989264/Mickey-Rourke-playfully-gets-knees-hangs-friends-Hollywood.html

I’ve always been a fan of Mickey Rourke. He lives life like there’s no tomorrow [literally] … like he already knows there will, in fact, be no tomorrow.

Mickey’s a few years older than yours truly, but we’re in the same ballpark, generation-ally speaking.

We also share a certain playful audacity that comes with the territory when you’re an older, successful actor, artist, entertainer, writer, photographer and the like.

We are what civilians refer to as “out there,” some more so than others, but still.

Many people probably see Mickey as some drug-addled psychopath with delusions of relevance. What I see is an extraordinarily talented man who believed in himself, and through sheer force of will, lived to see another day.

What’s left standing is not a man in his final hours, but a man who wears the scars of his life like a badge of honor.

After all, not everyone is a normal, well adjusted adult with reasonable expectations, and thank God.