Shiny Brass, First Dates, and people like Jake

If men thrive off of feeling necessary, then maybe the problem with men is that they, collectively, have work themselves out of a job.

The roads are already paved, computers already work, somebody already figured out how to toast bread. Medicine already comes in bottles, water already comes from the faucet, and someone already figured out how to make carriages move without a horse. What else is there to do? What can I do?

Well... I can cook, clean, do laundry, change diapers, sit here, stand there, write this, and I can do what I'm told. I can learn what you tell me to learn, then stack and arrange the elements until something works like its supposed to. I can be perfectly appropriate, socially acceptable, and I can even look happy on command. I can sleep and think that I am awake, and I can be awake and think as though I were asleep.

I am bored.

I remember when I got my first 22 caliber rifle. This may sound silly, but it completely changed my perspective. Something about the shiny brass of those cartriges communicated to me that I had a new right of passage: I could excersive a privilege reserved for adults - and one that involved great responsibility. I could walk down the riverbank, past fishermen and other shooters, and people respected me, but didn't fear me. I was like them.

As a 17 year old, I was not so regarded so highly as to be allowed to be out by myself at certain times. I was living with parents, and was therefore naturally forced to live up to a lifetime of childish impressions that I had left upon them. When I was out in remote places walking with my rifle though, nobody knew me. I could walk out there without fear of snakes, of the wild dogs and coyotes, and I could have power and choose not to use it.

Choice... Maybe that's what this is all really about. Maybe boredom is not the shortage of engaging activity, but of choices to be made. The more choices that are made for me, the more I feel like that 17 year old living back at home.

I went on this one date one time - and I mean "one date" literally: it was a first and only date (she decided she didn't have "feelings" for me), but it still did me some good. Just going on the date, again, changed my perspective.

Her name was Kelly, she was very pretty, and was smarter than me. She didn't really know me, and I didn't really know her. We had just met at a mall in Dallas about a year before and had some coffee, and seemed to enjoy each other's company. When we met the first time, I was wearing a stupid shirt with a big picture of a cow, appropriately labled "Cow." Kelly liked that, and things went well from there.

The important part of the actual date is that this idea sunk in for me - that Kelly didn't owe me anything at all, and I didn't owe her anything. She was driving down to spend time with me because she wanted to, and there were no demands placed upon me. This intelligent, pretty girl wanted to drive an hour just to come see me, because she thought I was worth her time... wow. Why? Well, I don't know... but just like being handed that rifle by the old guy across the counter at WalMart - I was being entrusted with somebody else's interests, and that felt good.

It made me happy to have the fresh start on that date. Like the fishermen at the river bank where I shot cans, Kelly didn't have any developed conception of me, and I didn't have to live in a response to any particular past on that date. It was new territory, pure, and I was a real person there.

Otherwise, in other places, I felt that I was mostly the collection of my past experiences and childishness, and I assume that my parent's felt the same. Neither the fishermen nor my date knew that though, and it was liberating.

I bought Kelly some dinner and coffee, and we went for a walk near my dad's house. Shortly after that, she told me that she liked me but didn't have any feelings for me... whatever. I wrote a mean song about her and sang it to me friend Jeff, then moved on. She showed me what men feel like though when they feel free to feel whatever they want to. That helped.

Finally, there's this friend of mine - Jake, who has a way of reminding me what being a truly liberated man feels like.

Jake is a software developer, jumps out of planes, drinks beer, smokes cigars, doesn't eat healthy, and he went something like 2 years without a bed just because he didn't feel like buying one. That is awesome... I don't share all of those habits, but I appreciate the imagery they create.

Jake came down to visit a few months ago and we got to catch up. It had been about two years or so. What is memorable about time with Jake is how there is never any drama with him. Men don't like drama: Adding drama to time with a man is like adding water to wine, like having to ask to use the bathroom, or paying taxes on your income. It depletes the quality of an otherwise pure and honest experience.

Some of the things Jake and I have done together have been really miserable - a grueling river camping trip, freezing in the desert overnight sleeping next to a railway, then spending the day scouring for shade in the sun... Jake fell over a fire pit once in the dark when we were camping, and got this horrific gash in his leg. We went flying once and our plane's instruments and lights went out at night over a remote part of Texas... We had to land in a dark cockpit with everything broken and no radio, on a runway that looked like it was made by girl scouts. Strange thing is though, I don't have any negative memories of time with Jake, because Jake doesn't like drama, and social time without drama makes me feel like a real man.

So I need to go on now and do some laundry and feed the kid... Maybe its not all that bad though. I have a right of passage to go into the wilderness undefined, my wife loves me and spends time with me because she wants to, and I am blessed with a few good friends like Jake. God has been kind to me, and I must admit that life really is ok.