My friend asked my opinion about Instagram models who have tens of thousands of men drooling over them, in the comments of the photos they post. So I added five models and began following their posts and fan interactions to let an opinion fester over time.
I was reminded of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. In Lolita, a middle-aged professor named Humbert Humbert falls in love with a twelve year old girl, Lolita, who he later step-fathers. And after becoming sexually involved with Lolita, there’s a sense of desperate dissatisfaction within Humbert. He has Lolita’s body, but he discovers he’s after he heart, which he’s not acheiving.
I’m merely speculating when I say this, but I think the inverse may be true for these models. The most primitive desire amongst humans is acceptance and the greatest fear is rejection. And the purest form of acceptance is love, which manifests as sacrifice, honesty, and selflessness. I think there are a lot of people who think they have love, but are restless within their experience of it because it isn’t true love they’ve achieved/received. Congruently, I think a lot of these women yearn for a greater acceptance, but misunderstand lust as the love they seek. The attention they garner is primitive and impulsive (and borderline creepy) compared to the genuity of love. And they’re not satisfied because what they receive is conditional, given that it predicates upon aesthetics (which age), competitive (amongst other models), and these women are receiving the manifestations of an impulse rather than the warmth of man’s greatest gift. They achieve something adjacent to what they really want, and the further from the mark they are, the most the desire increases, which manifests in increase of content, which continues to further them from what they really want.
The day after Valentine’s Day, I went on a date with a girl named Natalya who i’d met on Bumble. We met at Fort Mason in San Francisco and walked five miles through Fisherman’s Wharf, had lunch, then walked back. On the walk she clarified that she was only interested in long-term relationships. I didn’t tell her, but I wasn’t. My life revolves around finishing my book, and i’m not willing to compromise that for anything, as lovely as she was. So I thanked her for the date, planning to go my separate way, but as the weeks went on she would message me every couple of days. We would spend the day talking, as we did this past Thursday night before she asked me out again. I finally confessed my current desire for short-term relationships, but told her how much I enjoyed her company and asked if we could be friends. I felt like she was fumbling when she quickly told me she didn’t like me romantically nor had she all along and only asked me out as a friend. I was bothered by this. She bellowed in laughter at every joke i’d made on our date, she suggested plans for the future, she asked me lots of questions about past romances, and she sent me a lot of messages during the month between that date and now. As a writer my objective is to collect observations, and as a psychologist it’s to culimate them idea into a conclusion. So whenever anybody wrongfully suggests I misperceived something, I get frustrated.
I was angry at her. I bitched to friends about how difficult women can be as I fought the impulse to be dismissive while she tried to nail down a date for us to hang out again (“as friends.”) I became more frustrated as the night went on, so I put my phone away and decided i’d speak to her the next morning. I didn’t like how my opinion of her as this esteemed and respected and enthusiastic person had slightly wilted when I considered how she’d most likely lied to me. But then I had a moment of clarity. Maybe after hurting somebody’s feelings, I can’t expect them to be at her most honest.
Then I began to think about Natalie, another former quasi-romance who’d earned her own Stories of a Stoic entry this past year. Towards the end of our relationship she began playing a lot of games. She would tell me about other guy’s she’d like to be with, experiences she’d like to have, and she would shoot down attempts to hang out with her but then invite me over half an hour later when i’ve already made plans. She left behind a sour taste that entirely consumed my opinion of her. Thursday night after I realized what I did about Natalya, I began thinking about Natalie whom I felt like i’d had similar experiences with, of her telling me something about the reality of us contrary to my perceptions. Then soundbites from her games began flooding back and I started to ponder why she acted that way. Soon a specific sound bite came back from when it seemed like she was going to abandon our limbo for a real relationship with somebody else.
“Why do you care? You’ve made it clear you would never date me.”
“I never said that to her!” I thought. But I did think it. I had a moment of clarity. I did think it. That was my entire mindset towards her. I did want to date somebody more attractive, equally as athletic as me, and somebody more conveniently located to me. And although i’d never say anything like that to a girl, i’m sure it manifested in my behaviors towards her. I took this deep breath, where I realized the responsibility I held in causing harm to another. My inner-monologue began:
“Maybe talking to somebody for two years and rejecting their commitment, their affection, their being, is hurtful. And maybe that hurt was felt as a kind of frustration that manifested through the games a person plays towards another who wants their conversation, but not their romance. Saying yes to her, but also no.”
I thought I had Natalie figured out after our last conversation. I thought Natalie was a bitch. Whether such an opinion should be revoked is something else i’ll also decide in time. But what I can decide is that I thought I understood everything at play when this happened, but I didn’t. It took two years of experiences I needed and reflection of the things I had before i’d learned what I needed to. And by evaluating honestly and thinking deeply, i’ve been handed another piece of the puzzle of what it means to be human.
The brutal reality is that many boxers have been killed by non heavy-handed punchers. Meanwhile Deontay Wilder is arguably the hardest hitting boxer ever. It’s unlikely, but very possible, that his opponent of tonight’s long awaited rematch, Tyson Fury, is living his last day on Earth.
Regardless of me pulling for Wilder, I hope Fury doesn’t succumb to a fatality. That’s one of the two reasons tonight’s fight will be so hard for me to watch.
The second reason is because given that this sports means something to me, as it does all of its fans, these boxers are parts of my world. Boxing interacts with my concepts of fate, consequence, redemption, self-actualization, risk, and glory.
So when one of my boxers lose, given they’re parts of my world, my world tweaks. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. As does my relation to, and understanding of it. Andy Ruiz Jr. beat Anthony Joshua on June 1st, 2019 to become the IBF, WBO, and IBO Heavyweight Champion of the world. His upset victory coronated my last five weeks of training before fighting Phil Lo Greco. My muscles were huge, my stamina had never been better, and I was one of the hardest punchers of any gym I entered. Months after my fight, as Ruiz bought mansions and Rolls Royces and helicopters, I dated lots of girls, and raced my car around California, and spent my days writing my book in beautiful places. When Ruiz Jr. lost the Championships to Joshua on December 7th, my life consisted of treatments for all my boxing injuries, spending countless lonely hours of my life in dark rooms writing, and reflecting into the drab grey sky moodily. So when I penned in my journal: “I liked this world more when Ruiz Jr. championed it,” I meant it.
Sometimes my favorite boxer’s victories initiate phases in their lives congruent to mine, and their victory in my life isn’t causal but rather merely parallel. Sometimes the effects of a win or loss are causal. During Summer 2018 I was obligated to be in 300 hours of classes because a counselor made a mistake advising me of drop-dates. I became fatigued from the intensity of the courses during what was supposed to be my first break after being enrolled in classes year-round for two years. My honor’s streak was traded to fighting for high Fs. The sight of the same campus each day, five days a week, became grating on my eyes. I became anxious and depressed. And the counselor never vied for me to her superiors, nor was willing to admit her mistakes beyond the room. So when Golden Boy promotions robbed Gennadiy Golovkin of his victory against Canelo Alvarez in their awaited rematch that September, thus ending Golovkin’s career-undefeated streak and robbing him of his four championships, indelible shades of unfairness and corruption marked my sense of the world. That’s the effect these matches can have on fans.
The literal do-or-die consequences of tonight’s fight will change the courses of both men and radiate into the worlds of the millions who watch. I respect both men, but I sure as hell don’t envy them.
I was shocked to wake up and find out that Kobe Bryant had passed away. I was also shocked, then soon bothered, by the comments I found from goateed, sunburnt, Trumpists.
“One less rapist on the streets!”
“Not a real loss, he was a rapist!”
And other demeaning remarks. I haven’t followed basketball, nor did I know the man. I have no idea what he did or didn’t do. But that’s the point, it’s irrelevant to the mourning of him. There’s a concept from dialectics (echoed in Christianity) of duality. It’s the idea that two seemingly contradicting truths can operate simultaneously. Meaning a selfish person can do a charitable act, an honest man can lie, a person can love you and be toxic. It’s an important idea because it fractures the dichotomies of good and bad, right and wrong, etc that don’t accurately capture people. I’m not implying he’s a good person who did a bad thing, i’m saying a bad thing doesn’t render a “good” person a fraud. He’s a fraud if those moral truths are contradictory. But they’re not, and that’s where the people making those comments are lost.
The implication of those making derogatory comments is that if Bryant sexually assaulted that woman, he’s not worthy of being mourned. But a person being worthy of grief upon his or her death doesn’t predicate on moral evaluation anyhow, it predicates on whether the world’s natural reaction is grief. And here, it overwhelmingly is.
Those people also imply that if he were to have assaulted that woman, his death isn’t a tragedy. But that isn’t true either. A sport losing a hero, a wife losing a husband and daughter, four daughters losing a father AND sister, is tragic. A man dying at 41, alongside his 13 year old daughter is tragic. And nothing curbs that.
A stain on a man doesn’t constitute the man.
Again, I have no idea what he did or didn’t do. But it doesn’t matter. The idea that there’s reason to inhibit compassion is a brittle, mindless idea that actively hurts the world. And it’s a function of weakness and not strength.
As a boxer, I laud any athlete that’s championed their sport.
When the decade began, all I wanted was security. But tacitly I knew that security came at the cost of the life I had really wanted, the one I was too shy to even admit to myself. A life of academic success, strategic risks, and unprecedented accomplishments. A few years later I understood that passivity was consequential, and i’d earn myself the antithesis of these desires if I didn’t make changes.
Then I did.
And now I have a capacity for excitement where once was comfort, risk for security, and vulnerability for certainty. Even on my worst of days I get to rise to the life that i’ve always wanted, and that’s priceless.
Understanding the overwhelming control over our circumstances gives us control itself. Believing we have little control over our circumstances forfeits control. Our beliefs about our limitations manifests those limitations. And one path leads to happiness and the other leads to everything opposing happiness.
So as we welcome a new decade, i’d like to kindly remind everybody that we’re ever only a few decisions away from the lives we dream of.
Early in Fall of 2017, I met a nursing student from a private university one city south of mine. Natalie (pseudonym) and I instantly became close and shared daily conversation, constant banter, and that special connection rarely found. I was in a hiatus from a long-term partner Alice (pseudonym), and I did enjoy my new friend as a change from my girlfriend. Whereas Alice was impersonal, Natalie was nurturing. Whereas conversations with Alice was usually centered on her, Natalie constantly centered talk on me. Every dynamic of our relationship spoke to joy of a blooming romance. Except we really never graduated beyond that stage. After my two-year relationship ceased, I didn’t wish to find myself in another one. Natalie would try to advance things whereas I tried to tame them to best preserve what we had. Various social dynamics writers emphasize how when a woman is attracted to a man, and a man doesn’t accept those advancements, the woman grows bitter towards him. As this was the case.
Natalie’s passion for health care and healing speaks to her altruism and compassion. She wasn’t, and isn’t, a bad person. But I continued to regard our relationship as it were, while things seemed to grow sour from her end. Her advancements became more obvious, and my elusiveness became more emphatic. This culminated into a series of painful conversations that robbed us of whatever vitality we had together. Subsequent conversations were forced, interactions were strained, and our relationship was a far cry from what had been. But after finding myself without as many friends around, and out of a genuine care for Natalie, I reached out to her this past day. We began talking, but after a delay in her response, I fell into a trance of prophecy. I felt I was able to see her reply before she had sent it. I felt the words in my head, I saw the message being typed and considered what my immediate reaction would be. I received that message near verbatim.
I was washing my hands in the bathroom before dinner when I read this message. Immediately, I felt a sensation of surrealness surge through my body. My feet felt frozen, and my body felt heavy. Staring in the mirror, I felt the heft of my face weigh downward. But after a few seconds (that felt like minutes), I typed that response. It wasn’t a censored, edited, nor revised version of what I wanted to say. Those were the words that my mind immediately manifested, because they reflected what I know.
The Stoic response to these kinds of losses should be how one responses to natural circumstance. Human-beings may be easily influenced. And with a basic understanding of psychology, or an advanced understanding of social dynamics, one can influence another’s decision of this kind. But one never should. Because beyond the moral consideration, we as people are shrouded in originality. And our beliefs, ideas, experiences, idiosyncrasies are analogous to a beautiful harmony playing beneath our skin. This harmony doesn’t speak to all, but those who it does speak to are commanded by it. And as long as we are “good people,” and through respect, kindness, and a basic humanity ensure that we promote the happiness and healthiness of those we interact with (or at the very least, we aren’t a detriment to them), those who care for us won’t leave. It isn’t a matter of decision, it’s a matter of nature. So when other’s do leave our lives, as long as we’re generally good people, we can understand that this does not reflect our social attractiveness nor our worth. It reflects our how they valued us. We didn’t speak to them. The harmony playing within us didn’t interact with theirs. They didn’t “hear it.” Or they did, but it wasn’t “for them.” Because what attracts them is naturally different, and that’s okay. Romantic value doesn’t predicate on a hierarchy of worth. It predicates on a hierarchy of compatibility and relative attractiveness. A key’s value isn’t worthless because it doesn’t unlock all doors. Nor is man for not meeting the desires of all potential partners.
We should accept these losses with pride because our goal should be to live the healthiest, happiest, and most honest lives as possible. And there’s an inherent dishonesty in keeping people around as friends and partners who do not value you as others do, because a tacit principle of holding people close is that they too hold us close. They see us for what we are and they value what we are. So if another person discards our relationship, thus clarifying what they see and how they feel about what they see, this serves as a natural process to cleanse our circles of those who we aren’t meant for. And thus, those not meant for us. This process enriches our circles by ensuring those in our orbit are ones who are meant to be there. Because they hear the music we play and they like it.
And to those who are single, I’d like to say something.
Society has misconstrued romantic love and has certainly misunderstood love in general. What we believe to be romantic love is actually attachment, lust, and fear (of loss). Society preaches passion as a function of romantic love, and passion CAN be a function of love, but it functions where one demonstrates heroism, selflessness and sacrifice to benefit the life of another. It has nothing to do with touch nor sexual desire.
Love is everything. Life teeters on the spectrum of love and fear. Love is multidimensional, beyond the experience of mere emotion. Love is a hand extended to the shoulder of a distressed stranger, the smile of a child, it’s the gratitude towards something beyond ourselves when circumstance benefits us.
Anybody who has told you that you need another being to supplement your experience of love has misguided you. To live meaningfully is to celebrate love everyday.
Last week, I felt like a destroyer in the boxing gym. Tonight, I felt destined to be destroyed.
Nights like tonight capture life.
Tonight my new sofa felt warm and the gym felt cold.
The cute soccer moms were replaced by hard breathing, sweaty Latino guys.
The clumsy Russian with outlandish power seemed daring to hold mitts for last week, but nightmarish this one.
The host of awed kids who asked me how I kick so hard last week, had their airpods in tonight.
But I did tonight what I did last week anyway. I blasted the bag. Then the mitts. Then my sparring partner. Because boxing is analogous to life. Misfortune doesn’t wait until you’re ready.
It’s a matter of character, and not convenience, that you navigate the good times with the same grace as the bad.
You will have days that are unkind to you. I had one yesterday for instance. And as it dragged on, I thought about Epicurus.
Epicurus was the first philosopher that I studied deeply. His philosophy predicates on pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain. So when he found himself on his death bed, while various systems of his body took turns failing, he sought peace in the memories of his friends.
I feel that we too should live our lives in a manner as to which we have catologed memories of our adventures, heroics, laughter, and moments of deep love that we can retreat to when life circumstances rough us up.
There isn’t any matter too dark for us to kindle light in.
