Steven Moss will turn 65-years-old this fall, an upcoming passage that prompted him to share the “wisdom” he’s acquired over the past six decades and a half.
Despite Hollywood’s constant propaganda it’s common knowledge: almost nobody meets, falls in love and then “lives happily ever after.” Nobody. Meeting sure. Falling in love, okay, but a better metaphor might be tea-bagging in love; a slow, flavorful steeping. But happy forever? There’s a reason why Jefferson called that out as a “pursuit.”
Even in the very best relationships, let’s say Michele and Barack Obama, there’ve been times when they’ve hated, or at least irritated, the shit out of one another. Which may be why, in part, Barack adopted “hope” as his slogan. It’s easy to imagine the Obamas in a fight, Michele chastising Barack for yet again living the cereal bowl unwashed in the sink, saying this marriage is just hopeless, and Barack, all heady intellect, responding, “we need to keep hope alive!”
Btw, complaints about leaving anything in the sink, or anywhere something doesn’t belong, aren’t really about the mess or misplaced object. It’s about respect, communication and power.
Love and happiness can intersect. Then they keep going along their own pathways, like a Pac-Man chasing after electronic dots. If you work at it, with the right attitude, the emotions can circle back again, maybe hold hands for a long while. After some therapy, paying attention, and good communication, every so often, or even for long periods, couples can live happily.
The sages have been debating it for centuries, which comes first, love or sex? Lots of people, okay, mostly men, “fall in love,” have sex, then… On the other hand, sex often leads to love. The disappearance of love after sex, or vice-versa, suggests both may no longer exist.
People argue about what constitutes sex. Is it penetration only? Does oral count? My wisdom is that sex extends far beyond physical contact. Over my life I’ve had sex, as in actual physical intimacy, for maybe 70,000 minutes. Let’s round that up to 100,000; 2,000 hours of sex. That’s a lot of sex, maybe less than you, but not bad. But I’ve slept for more than 11 million minutes. Probably driven in a car for more than a million minutes.
And I’ve thought about sex, dressed in a way that I hoped would attract sex, traveled for sex, listened with intense boredom for long periods of time to someone who I wanted to have sex with, for perhaps a billion minutes. And most of these minutes, they were not successful. I’m probably writing this with some amorphous idea that it’ll result in sex. I bet there are people reading this, in search of something to talk about on a date, as a way to get sex. I apologize.
We’re a nation of conspiracy theories. We love ‘em! 9/11 was an inside job. The Egyptian pyramids? Built by aliens! Several months ago, I encountered a fellow walking on a beach in Marin, who told me, his eyes glittering with the sure knowledge of his rightness, that the earth was flat.
I said, “metaphorically, right?”
“No, for real,” he responded, without blinking. I nodded and kept walking.
The biggest, the UR conspiracy, is that we all live in the matrix, a kind of simulated related control by a powerful AI-type overlord.
The thing is, we do, kind of. Not the sci-fi matrix Neo encounters. It’s a day-to-day mostly consensual reality we, together, on purpose or without thinking about it much, created and abide by.
We drive down asphalt-paved roads, through an environment that’s completely shaped by humans, including the weather. Nothing we see is untouched by people. We stop at red lights, the time we spend waiting programmed by someone else. If we take off our seat belt, an alarm incessantly rings, sound-controlling us to put it back on. Some cars automatically brake if they get too close to something. If you’re driving a Tesla you seem to have an uncontrollable need to act like an asshole, probably through some weird mind-meld with the car’s creator.
It’s for our own good, a collective consensus that makes things work. But the pattern, the good-natured or bureaucratically enforced control, extends everywhere.
Walk into a supermarket, what’s the first thing you see? Fruits and vegetables. As you check out, what’s the last thing? Candy. Back in the day it’d be cigarettes. We’re channeled through the best and worst of our inclinations, from farm to processed sugar. All under the watchful eyes of the inevitable guard standing, decked out with gun and sometimes bulletproof vest, at the exit. I imagine him pulling his weapon to check my receipt, making sure I have the right balance of Doritos and apples. Meaning no apples.
“Put the apple down!” he’d yell. “The apple is to message wholesomeness, not to be purchased or eaten!”
The proper name for the matrix is capitalism. Capitalism creates and spits out the rules, products, and patterns by which we live. Whether rich or poor, capitalism is culture’s testosterone, our driving force, our consumed or be consumed. As we enter into Trump II, the sensation of being inside a pattern that cannot be changed will no doubt deepen, at least for those of us who thought we had more agency. Awareness of the feeling is an important step towards changing it.
As you age you become invisible. You’re no longer a sexual object. No one’s head turns as you walk by, unless maybe you drop your keys. And nobody, ever, asks, suggestively, “whose your granddaddy?” Not even in the gay community.
People don’t want your recommendations for music or where to get the best burrito. They may ask if you’re still working, if you’re retired, if you plan on moving to an “adult living” type place. Whether you want to be buried or cremated.
We forget, though, being invisible is a superpower!
In one survey, when asked what superpower they wanted most three percent chose invisibility; like Violet from The Incredibles. That might not seem like a lot, but it was way higher than the percent who wanted to be super flexible or have super senses. Apparently, nobody wants to be really flexible or have extra sensitive taste buds. They want to be old!
Being invisible is a limited superpower. You can shoplift or hang out in places and creepily watch people without being noticed, like locker rooms or the like. You can walk into fancy hotel lobbies without being bothered and use the bathroom at a restaurant without eating there. Of course you can usually do these things anyway, if you’re white.
The super power people wanted most was teleportation. Also, by the way, the survey was done for members of the “The Asexual Visibility and Social Network,” asexuality being another superpower, given how much trouble the pursuit of sex gets us into.
Steven J. Moss