I was looking over some of my latest blogs posts to see what I had written. Quite a few years ago, I wrote some ideas for my course in testing and educational "measures". It didn't take long for what I had written and my current ideas to diverge so I got a chance to see that ideas and positions change. The basic reason for my writing a blog, I tell myself, is to take time regularly to see what my life and thought are about. That changes, of course, so what I write about at any time might not be a main feature even a few days later.
I was surprised at how much I mentioned books, movies and tv. I guess it stands to reason that if an older person living in a fairly quiet small city in the Midwest asks what has been outstanding in his experience lately, the answer might come that it was something he read or saw instead of something that had happened to him. That is the case again today.
Eric Barker runs a popular blog and he also sends a summary of what he has written during each week. The other day, the summary focused on research about what keeps love alive and a marriage lively. Barker anchors much of what he writes to sources and I often benefit from looking them up. One was "How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It". That was an intriguing title so I looked the book up and liked what was said about it. Now, I am a quarter of the way through it and it has been an eye-opener.
You might think that a person my age would not find anything much that was new to thinking about men and women and their interaction but it happened. The book's main message so far is that women have more natural fear, about anything and everything, than men but that men generally carry lots of quiet and suppressed shame.
Shame??! Me??! Doesn't feel like shame, although part of the point is that males learn to carry the shame but not feel it too sharply much of the time. Shame about what? Not being perfect. Not being all their parents, wives, children expected, hoped for, wanted, deserved. The authors, a woman and a man, are experienced therapists who take the position that talking about difficulties is often less of a help to a relationship than better grasp of feelings and cascades of feelings. They give examples and research that shows men learn to be expert of avoiding consciously facing their feelings and are assisted by everyone around them. One of their many tricks is to use their biological readiness for combat to respond quickly with anger or rage to anything that looks like it will bring them to awareness of inadequacy or failure. This is a surprising new way to think about myself.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
