Post Category → psychology

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.

Love is Hard…Even for the Open-Minded

polyamory

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gracie-x/compersion-a-polyamorous-principle-that-can-strengthen-any-relationship_b_6803868.html?ir=Weird+News&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000022

Polyamorous relationships are kind of like two primary codependent alcoholics.

I’ve been sober 4 years, but have no tokens as testaments to my sobriety. This, I assume, is because “sex addiction” is still considered a compulsivity disorder, not an addiction.

Nonetheless, I’ve had a monogamous sexual relationship with the same woman for 4 years…and counting.

This is a first for me, quite frankly, and I’m proud of it.

If I were “off the wagon,” I’d openly support polyamorous couplings. I’d be an idiot not to.

If I were a pedophile, I’d support lowering the age of consent to like 9, or something.

We all do what enables our compulsions, addictions and/or perversions whether we choose to admit it or not.

You think the relationship between Bonnie and Clyde was a coincidence? Please.

 

On Dating Men in Their 60’s [or older men, in general]

549b4f06a8262_-_elle-60-year-old-men-dating-v

http://www.elle.com/life-love/sex-relationships/advice/a9/dating-men-in-their-sixties/

In my particular socioeconomic niche, inter-generational dating is considered normal. A lot of this, as expected, has to do with financial security. But it also involves other things tangential to getting older, which I will cover.

In my mind, the only reason not to be open to dating older men is child-bearing, which is often a non-issue as many women these days either forestall, or avoid it altogether. Needless to say, most 60-year-old men are going to be less inclined to put up with raising a family, unless it involves dogs and cats. They’d rather focus their attention on the young women in their lives, which is the point of this article.

My new soon-to-be-available book, Urban Dystrophy, covers a lot of this, but suffice to say, it just makes sense when you balance the commodities of youth and beauty with maturity and appreciation.

I’m in one of these relationships. My girlfriend is 30 years my junior, and we’ve been living together for 4 years. Do her friends wonder if she’s lost her mind? No. In fact, I’ve noticed that many are intrigued as our culture changes.

As for the math, it’s irrelevant. When I’m 70 and she’s 40, we will have been together 14 years. This would constitute a record by today’s standards.

If she stays healthy, she will outlive me. If she doesn’t, I may spend years at her bedside. The point is nobody knows. We all want to run the numbers, but they often don’t pan out.

This is why I don’t think about it. If I did I would be dating someone my own age who would probably kill me long before I was physically dead.

So here are my top 5 reasons for dating older men:

1] Maturity

2] Appreciation

3] Security

4] Desire to please [and pleasure]

5] Experience and/or worldliness

It also bears noting that my SO and share tastes in music, embrace technology and live a healthy lifestyle.

Relevance is not just measured in years.

 

Birth of the Middle-Aged “Moderation” Mantra

moderation1-600x314

No matter what we do to stay in shape, eat right, get enough rest, and take time out of our busy lives to have some semblance of a functional personal life, a Nor’easter is on the way.

So two days ago I got news that my new book, Urban Dystrophy, was on press. That afternoon I hit a personal record [PR] in the gym, and late that day, I heard news from my Internist that my blood work was excellent.

What could go wrong? Right?

At 7:PM I had a great meal at home, cleaned up, walked in the dark [always a bad move] towards the bedroom to watch Criminal Minds on my Macbook Pro, and out of nowhere slipped on a plastic coat hanger.

See, normally I don’t leave coat hangers in the middle of the floor, but my French Bulldog, Zeppelin, does.

So everything is suddenly in slow motion except for the subtle “POP” emanating from my knee. Specifically, the meniscus.

Now folks, if I were 22, this would be no big deal. Back then I was injured more than not, and didn’t think much about it. It would heal, and in the meantime I would do whatever I did around it.

I didn’t lapse into some existential hell-hole assuming the worst: I will never recover, my quality of life is shot in spite of my best efforts, the stars have it out for me, God is pissed.

But this is what middle-aged guys tend do when anything goes wrong. We assume the worst because we’ve spent a lifetime hearing news of the worst, which seems to happen to people more and more frequently as they age.

The psychological impact of even the slightest injury is magnified a thousand times.

The primary reason for this is academic: We recover a lot more slowly than we did back when we were in our 20’s, and at this juncture in life, we have less time to heal. 

This is why so many middle-aged guys practice “moderation,” otherwise known as living to avoid injury.

The problem with this practice is that it takes life down a notch to a level of competitive mediocrity, and thus, yields mediocre results. Eventually, time advances at twice the pace of the body, and instead of spraining a knee, I break a friggin’ hip. This is why you have to train hard, but smart.

Having said this, the “coat hangar” will always be there, waiting to throw us off guard. Our job is to be ready to handle any eventuality to the best of our ability — no matter what it is, and moderation only assures an even more disastrous result.

POSTSCRIPT: This morning my cat attacked my leg.