Diving deep into the depths of men

**Percy** · 30th-December-2008

Have a Good New Year, everyone.

My new year problems have just started.

ChristianJ is a bastard, A right royal bastard who has been leaning on me to do a podcast. He has been leaned on in turn it seems by John Dias, another bastard.

Bastards. They are making me think !

Now my son is in on the act. He has given me an all-singing, all-dancing professional microphone for Christmas and got the damned thing working for me. I have no excuse. Paying a months rent might have helped better ! (Ok, he gave me a small hand there too).

Writing comments on forums is easy. Most people on this site have wonderfully interesting things to say even if the place does sometimes get repetetive, and it makes a chap like me dig deep sometimes to find clarity. And to find reality. It makes me unpopular sometimes. Pedantic bastard that I am.

I take few prisoners. Even inside my own thoughts. Especially there.

Even finding someone elses splendid writings and posting them on here - with Percy's arcane and sometimes vitriolic comments - is easy.

But trying to find the right things to say with a voice, oh my. I have great respect for people like Bernie Chapin who does it all the time.

I have been trying to find things to say. Meaningful things.

I know, I try to be meaningful. I often take the tack that others don't. Not to be obtuse, mind you, but to explore the depths that men - ordinary chaps, like me and you - have within them.

I look around too.

I have been watching 'Long Way Around' and 'Long Way Down', recently. Euan McGregor and Charlie Boorman on their motor bikes riding vast distances and being lads. I love those guys. They 'do' for so many men. They do the things in a 'chap' way that most men would just love to do. They 'express' menliness. Chapness. Ladliness as opposed to Laddish.

In their adventures they are not in the slightest bit 'surface'. There is hardly any 'acting' in what they are doing even though both are accomplished and acclaimed actors. They are chaps. Simple, straightforward and deep. They are the very best of mates. And they 'do' things. Tough stuff. Challenging stuff. They are 'there' for one another, whatever. They have a strong affection for one another.

I was watching Euan on Parkinson. (For the furriners here, Parkinson is a TV Interviewer - one of the best). He came out with the most extraordinary disclosure. I think most people would have missed the import of what he was saying, or simply dismissed it. It would have gone over their heads. Just words. Although he did try to put a little context.

He was talking of his role as the young Obi Wan in one of the Star Wars films.

He said that the part he really wanted was the Princess Leah part. !!

!!!

Even Parkinson's mouth fell open.

Then he said he had a crush on the actress. And I knew exactly the psychic landscape he was riding through at ninety knots with stones flying everywhere.

Challenge (before you read on) - does anyone else here get it?

Hint. It has nothing whatsoever to do with jealousy or envy of women or of dismay at being a reviled bloke in this modern age. It has nothing to do with homos or sexual dismorphia or Feminism. It has nothing to do with being an MRA. It has nothing to do with 'actors' all being 'odd' and wanting to wear women's clothes.

It has everything to do with being a healthy man.

He had reached deep and was giving us a Jewel. In him was a deep desire to know this girl that he had a 'crush' on. He wanted to be 'in her skin'. He wanted to stroll in her psychic spaces, her landscapes. It wasn't her acting role that he wanted. He wanted to be her. Just for a moment. To know her from the inside. Because he loved her.

To love someone is to desire to 'know' them.

To 'know' them is to really, truely, deeply love them.

He not only has the courage to ride his bike in Uzbekistan and the watelands of Siberia but to ride it deep into his own soul and show us what is there.

I hear people on this forum eschew marriage. I can fully understand. Marriage today is so threatened and destroyed by Divorce. Betrayal and rejection are clear and present dangers.

I hear people deride marriage. That I don't understand.

It is the only real way in which men and women get 'in each other's skins'. It is the only way that some parts of our psychic landscape can be explored - by having a person of the opposite sex - one that we Trust, totally - explore there for us. It is the only way to 'Know' them, and ourselves.

I have no idea if Euan McGragor will make his way into my poscast, but the landscape of a man's soul certainly will. Other people, a special person of the opposite sex, a 'different' person, is the needed motor bike that can get us into the Tundra and the remote Mountains of our psyche where there are no roads. They can rapelle down chasms in our soul that we can't even see down. They take the camera and bring back the adventure.

It is important.

And thanks to those aforementioned bastards I just might have to think carefully what I am going to say.

Look to the New Year.

**Incognito** · 30th-December-2008

By God, Percy...these words could not be more true.

"To love someone is to desire to 'know' them.

To 'know' them is to really, truely, deeply love them."

**Incognito** · 30th-December-2008

This is also beautifully put, Percy.

"I hear people deride marriage. That I don't understand.

It is the only real way in which men and women get 'in each other's skins'. It is the only way that some parts of our psychic landscape can be explored - by having a person of the opposite sex - one that we Trust, totally - explore there for us. It is the only way to 'Know' them, and ourselves."

**Percy** · 30th-December-2008

As you are trying to grasp this meaning, it must be recognised just what courage is needed.

Inside a person's psyche are deep, dark dank places as well as sunny hilltops. Most of us are too scared of our own dark places to go there. What is revealed are often small creatures that rarely see light. And Dragons.

For men to go into those deep recesses of a woman's mind/soul/psyche takes great courage, and for her to go into his too.

MRAs spend a huge amount of time discussing some of those dark places and slimey creatures of women's that are cast onto the physical world.

In a loving, kind, accepting space that men can make for women and women can make for men, even those dark and dangerous parts can be accepted and loved.

It takes that love for that other special person for the dangerous aspects to be harnessed and allowed constructive expression. A whole, integrated human being can emerge.

**christianj** · 30th-December-2008

Bloody hell Percy where are those audio tracks ?

**Percy** · 30th-December-2008

Keep your shirt on ya bastard.

I do my thinking on the toilet.

**Feckless** · 30th-December-2008

Quote from Percy

Keep your shirt on ya bastard.

I do my thinking on the toilet.

Ah the mental pictures are coming back....thank you sir!

**shaazam** · 30th-December-2008

Quote from TERA

This is also beautifully put, Percy.

"I hear people deride marriage. That I don't understand.

It is the only real way in which men and women get 'in each other's skins'. It is the only way that some parts of our psychic landscape can be explored - by having a person of the opposite sex - one that we Trust, totally - explore there for us. It is the only way to 'Know' them, and ourselves."

better _

"I hear people deride marriage. That I don't understand.

""It is the only real way in which men and women get 'under each other's skins'. It is the only way that some parts of our psychic landscape can be explored - by having a person of the opposite sex - one that we Trust, totally - explore there for us. It is the only way to 'Know' them, and ourselves.

**John Dias** · 30th-December-2008

After the holidays you'll stop being so mushy. It happens to the best of us.

Now... about that podcast. I thought you had given up. Good to know you're still planning on doing it (you are planning on doing it, aren't you?)

**christianj** · 30th-December-2008

Quote from John Dias

After the holidays you'll stop being so mushy. It happens to the best of us.

Now... about that podcast. I thought you had given up. Good to know you're still planning on doing it (you are planning on doing it, aren't you?)

I don't know John, all he seems to be doing is watching a couple of dudes riding bikes in Africa..

When is that program on, by the way ?

**Percy** · 30th-December-2008

Mushy? Me !! Heaven forbid. Timo would be down on me like a ton of bricks.

I have quiet sunlit hillsides that I stretch out on occasionally. I have my steed grazing nearby. I get a good view from there.

Podcasts, gentlemen. Plural.

Having sketched out a few thoughts, I find it suitable to break into two parts. You will have them in a week. I won't promise as a New Year Resolution 'cuz I always break them by Jan 3.

MP3 or OGG OK for you?

Now, if I were to tell tales of an MRA mate of mine who has this Beemer bike...... it might go to three.