The Mens Fertility Forum - Mensfe

Discussion Groups => Let off some Steam => Topic started by: drichards on 2008-11-10 12:57

Title: letting off steam
Post by: drichards on 2008-11-10 12:57
Having just returned from sitting with a dying friend, I was struck by how the other men on the ward reacted to each other. As one man died, so many man in the next bed watched the "Grand prix".

I have looked at this site a few times what strikes me is just how many hits it gets, yet how few people actually contribute to it and then how often the postings are sterile with regards to emotion. Of course there are some notable exceptions, absolutley no disrespect intended to you.

Where are the other men who are hurting?? So very angry, frustrated, boxed into corners, sidelined?? My experiance tells me these emotions exist.
Are they the ones who "lurk" just watching, afraid even to be afraid??
Are they the many who come to visit this page and who leave without trace??
Title: Re: letting off steam
Post by: drichards on 2008-11-10 13:17
To Continue my rant:

I have to state my position here, I am very lucky, I have a wonderful children, but I have spent many years working with lots of men in therapy: men who are in prison, who have been abused, lost loved ones, who are infertile, suffering addictions etc............
It seems to me that bereavment is a word which covers a whole range of loss, but what it has in common is essentially the loss of future.

Sitting next to my northern gritty friend who found only a short whle ago that he was dying, and who can accept and face his mortality, we have talked about everything but.......................
That is painful, and sad, and so reminiscent of working with a man who was infertile and was having to, (he felt) being "forced" to accept donor sperm. There were many of the same tensions and emotions in both men, but they have to be contained, for in this world these emotions hold no legitimacy for many other men....................... or women. They are alien, non familiar and in a constant reminder of our own powerlessness.

I don't think we can sort grief out into hierarchies, but I wish we could find a world where we can vent it, perhaps this pent up grief is the source of so much anger, divorse, and isolation.

Forgive me if I step out of line, but when I came in last night I simply scribbled something down which I want to share.

Mark.
   
Title: Re: letting off steam
Post by: drichards on 2008-11-10 13:29
Death and loss:
It can be that of an old friend, or your dad,
It can be that of a loved partner.
Worse still it can be of a child,
Your child, The young child........The unborn child...The unconcieved child, even the committed child, committed to a life of institusions without hope.

The effects of loss knows no league tables,
It does not justify itself
It just happens

This begs a hundred questions, but one essential:

"WHY"

Why when a man will often face up to a bigger man, aware of the likelihood of loosing, his victory or loss can be shared with other men?

Why a man, when in service, will often face death in the eye to eye "in life the line of duty" his heroism, is publicly commended, and his death celebrated??
Title: Re: letting off steam
Post by: drichards on 2008-11-10 13:42
Why, when men who attempt to achieve sporting greatness, they are willed to share their triumphs and tears??

But why..why when we seem to be ready to fight and die, to sacrifice,

Why then, when death sneaks, slithers and crawls out of the shadows, uninvited, unexpected
With its unforgiving, merciless, cruel and cold anonymity

Anonymity that lacks reason,
compassion or even the compensation of heroism

Why, at these times do menso often become islands??
to other men
to thenselves

Eyes that don't meet,
Ot that refuse to see

Words innocuous, or inane

"Oh! Chinzy, chinzy cheeriness,
Half dead and half alive"..... as Betjeman put it

Why, when men "need" each others strength, understanding, compassion and empathy......

Why at that time....
the lonley man??

Neither turned in,
or turned out
just turned off.

MARK.

Title: Magic by Mike.
Post by: mpepperell on 2008-11-10 16:33
MAGIC
I do believe in Magic, I was born in a magic time, raised in a magic way in a magic town amongst magicians. Nt everybody realised we live in a world wide web of magic connected by the silver filaments of chance and circumstance, but I know it without and a shadow of doubt because I lived through it all.

I lived through it all I want to set memories down on paper so that I can hold them--
Until I was twelve years old the world was a crystal ball, and in I saw the past, present and into the future.
You probably did too:
You just don't or won't remember... ... ...see, this is only my opinion, we all start knowing magic, we are born with whirlwinds, forest fires and comets inside us. We are born able to sing with birds, talk to animals, read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand,
........but we get this magic educated out of us,
right out of our very souls.
We get it churched out, slapped out and even combed out. We are put on "the straight and narrow" and told, not asked, to be responsible, told to act our age, told to grow up, even worse shown how to behave.

Do you know why?  Because those doing the telling are afraid of the wilderness, "uncontrollability" and youth. Their magic had withered and died. They were ashamed and sad of what they had let go.
Some even tried to tap in again and steal some of mine.

After you turn your back on it, you can't really get it back,
you can have a few seconds of it.
Just a few of knowing it existed and remembering it... ... ... ... ... ... When your eyes fill with tears in the dark cinema. You have just touched briefly the golden pool of magic then you come out into the harsh glare of logic stand of the bank of reason and watch the pool of magic dry up in front of you, leaving you with an inexplicable feeling of sadness.
Title: MAGIC - CONTINUED
Post by: mpepperell on 2008-11-10 16:52
(2)

Sometimes when a song of music stirs a memory
When specks of dust turning in a shaft of sunlight takes your attention away from the world,
or the noise of the plane flying overhead, at night and you wonderwhere it might be going.
You can step beyond who you are and where you are.
For the briefest of instance you will have stepped into the magic realm.

This is what I still believe. The truth of life is that every year we get further and further why from the essence of magic that is born with us within us.
We have to sholder burden, some given us, some we have selected. Some good, some not so good.
Things happen to us: loved ones depart, people get wrecked, crippled, lose their way for one reason or another.. .. .. .. .. its not hard to do it in the crazy mazes.
Life itself does its best to take the memory of magic away.
You don't know its happening until one day you feel you've lost something but not sure what it is.
Its like smiling at a pritty girl and she calls you "sir" it just happens.

Memories of who I was and where I lived are important to me. They make up a large part of who I'm going to be
when my journey winds down. I need the memory of magic.

If I am ever going to a wizard again I need to know and remember that calm of enchantments and the best way is to tell YOU.

MIKE
Title: Re: letting off steam
Post by: Eric on 2009-08-06 15:25
Wow - maybe I should have a go................ I am scared I would't stop.
Title: Re: letting off steam
Post by: robbyb on 2009-08-06 19:52
Ooookay...  :-\