Why do men leave their families?

It's a crisis that cuts across all races and religions. Men leave their families. Usually in the lurch. Not enough money, obviously not enough moral and emotional support for the left spouse or the children. Occasionally a mother will do it, but that's big news. Not so much when a man does it.


So why do men do it?


The most obvious answer, born of the the days of slaves in America, is that black men felt so de-valued, so oppressed by their white masters, that they didn't think they could fulfill their manly and husbandly duties at home. They were so humiliated that they thought they had no choice except to leave. They were shamed. They felt utterly worthless. Of use to no one.



But men who leave their families nowadays with nothing or nearly nothing aren't slaves. They may be under-educated -- even, in too many cases, kind of lawless -- but they do have choices. I'm guessing that most are just guys who get in over their heads and can't cope. The pressure comes, and they break and run. Sure they may feel bad about it later, but way too late.



Hey, there are strong people in the world, and there are weak people. It's not always just a matter of class or wealth. Many rich men collapse and seek escape, too, leaving families to fend for themselves. The weak can become strong, with effort, and the strong can become weak if they let down their guard, and their values.

Some men are up for the challenge of being a father, and some are not, regardless of race or class. Yes, some make more money and others less, but that has nothing to doing with being a father, which is all about sacrificing your precious time to help another person grow up right. Only a real man can do that, be he rich or be he poor and oppressed.


I've known, and known of, men who had to work their whole lives at jobs they hated but did it because it put food on the table and a roof over the family's head. Would they rather have chucked it all and lived in a tent and fished all day? Probably. But they didn't. They gritted their teeth, put their own desires on hold, and stuck it out. With no guarantee of reward or even thanks. I read about a man who lived in a car with his kids after the mother left. He scrounged food for them and read to them every night in the back seat by flashlight. And he kept telling them things would get better. That's what real dads do.



Men leave. They always have and always will. After all, they didn't bear the children out of their own bodies. They don't have that connection. Their life line to their children is one of will and love, and if they can't summon either or both, they leave when the going gets tough. If, on the other hand, they recognize the better angels of their nature and look on those little ones as their own, and their own responsibility, they may re-think leaving.


Yes, men leave, but not all men. Some stay. Most, actually.


It's okay to be weak, but not if you intend to be a father. You'll need all your energy and all your wits about you. If you're not willing to shape up and think about someone besides yourself, then you might as well hit the door, Jack. Once you're a father, your life is no longer just yours. It's somebody else's, too. Children are a challenge not all men can handle.


Can you? Are you sure?



You better get stronger, dude, and fast!



It's worth it in the end. Really.

All of our major sports involve balls.

Think about it. From the smallest, marbles and then the golf ball and the pingpong ball, to the largest, the basketball, it's all balls all the time when it comes to modern sports.

What did the ancients do for sport before the ball was invented? I guess you could go back to the Greeks, who started the first Olympics -- when men competed naked and women were not allowed to watch -- and I'm thinking it was all foot races and feats of strength. Running fast or long. Lifting something or throwing something heavy. Think the hundred meter dash. Or the marathon. The shot put or the discus.

Somewhere along the way, the ball was invented, and it changed the face of sports. With an object in play -- the ball -- we developed teams. A group of men -- later women -- could conspire to move that object, the ball, past another group and toward a goal. The same athletic abilities -- speed, strength, agility -- were still in play, but now there was something to watch.
Teams formed, crowds gathered. Modern sport was born.

Soccer is likely one of the first world sports involving a ball, and for good reason. All you have to do is have one team trying to kick it past another team's defenses into a specified goal. Not a lot of equipment. Ole!

Rugby is another. One team competing to move a ball past another team, albeit with more physical contact -- and no pads!. I'm not sure about the rules, but I think the ball is run more than it's kicked (if it's kicked at all.)

Enter America. We introduced basketball, where you throw a round ball through a hoop, while bouncing the ball down the court -- called dribbling -- while trying not to be fouled, which means touched inappropriately.

Football in America added an unexpected dimension. It took the round ball and made it oblong, sort of a squashed version. It's possible that kind of ball is used in rugby -- I don't know -- but when you start throwing it and kicking it instead of just running, the ball takes unexpected hops and turns that add suspense to the game.

Sports is all about athletic ability, but to get people to watch, it has to have a team aspect. If we identify with our home team, it's because they have the ability to maneuver the ball, shoot the ball, carry the ball, pass the ball -- and they represent us, our school, our town, our state, our country. It's not about pure athletic ability. Who cares if our star quarterback can run the hundred in under ten seconds? Who cares if he can lift this or that much? It's all about how he performs with that ball and how well his team supports him -- and us.

The world cup of soccer is a big deal in most of the world -- country against country -- and the Super Bowl is the same, to a more local (i.e., American) extent. So is the World Series of baseball, which leaves out most of the baseball-playing countries of the world but still attracts fans by the millions around the globe. The point is that we love sports that involve teams and balls. Usually round balls -- soccer, baseball, basketball -- but also the odd football. We, the fans, love balls and love seeing teams competing to move them past another's goal.

So, back to a previous question. What did we do before we had balls? Bullfighting? Wrestling?
Foot-racing for sure, which we still do, but not even the fastest man in the world earns anything like what a second-rate pro football or basketball player makes. Winners of marathons get a few thousand dollars and a trophy -- and who remembers their names? Somebody from Kenya, no?

It's all about balls, folks. And balls are a great way to channel male testosterone into games. And everyone benefits. Better that than war, no?

So here is a trivia question: Who invented the first ball?

Someone did, maybe made of mud or clay or, later, stone. Who was it? And what did he, or she, do with it? We're not talking about the wheel -- another subject of speculation -- but the ball. An object so familiar to us now but not always. I'm guessing that the first one was something like our modern bowling ball, a spherical object maybe stumbled on by accident, a rock so formed,
that he or she rolled it along a surface to the amazement of his/her friends and relatives. Did it take off right away? Was it a Eureka moment? Or was it kind of dismissed as another early crackpot invention?

I think a eureka moment was achieved with the first pneumatic ball: the one we could pump up.
From that discovery all our modern ball sports evolved. And someone probably knows who invented it. (Google it, anyone?) The round inflatable ball, and the oval one, have transformed sports as we know them. Together, they gave rise to teams and to goals and to fans and to ESPN.

The only hold-outs? Baseball, with its tightly woven enigma of strands inside a rawhide cover;
golf with the same kind of secret innards, condensed; bowling, which harks back to the first ball ever invented or discovered, minus the thumb and finger holes.

And then there's marbles. Anyone got a good shooter?

Long live the ball!

What exactly is "great sex"?

I often see in advice columns -- yes, I read those -- about women who are sick of their husbands and thinking of leaving them. Maybe the husbands were negligent, even abusive, but the women avow that they had "great sex" together, so they're reluctant to leave.

What, exactly, is "great sex"?

I'm assuming it means that your partner brought you to climax every time, maybe even sending you into bouts of ecstasy you'd never experienced before. [See the movie Thelma and Louise, in which a young Brad Pitt gives what's-her-name the kind of sex she'd been missing in her marriage to a redneck.] Maybe you, the female, had more than one climax. If so, I say bravo!
I think it's a woman's recompense for having to give birth to children.

But what then? I mean, sex only lasts a certain amount of time, and then you're left with whoever you had it with. Still in your bed. Who is that person? Someone you want to wake up next to? Someone you want to spend the rest of your life with?

The desired result of sexual activity is the climax, where you reach a level of intensity that sends you off into your own world of feeling. If you've reached it, you know what I mean. If not, you need to keep looking for the right partner or learn how to "pleasure" yourself.

But again, once you're there and done -- then what?

You're still left face to face -- literally -- with someone you either like or not, know or not, and you have to find something else to talk about. Breakfast? What to do the next day? If it's someone you already like a lot, maybe even love, then it's no problem. You can spend all day just being with that person. Time stands still.

But what if it's someone you just met, maybe picked up in a bar? You would likely want that person not to be there when you wake up. You had your climax, enjoyed sex the way it's supposed to be enjoyed, but now it's time to move on -- and time for him or her to leave. But what if he/she wants to f*ck you again, not just now but ongoing into the future? And what if you don't like him or her that much and don't want to? You have a decision to make.

Was the sex you just had really all that "great"? Worth some kind of emotional investment?

I once was in a hotel in Salt Lake City and heard, from the next room, female cries that led me to believe that some guy was giving some woman the night of her life. It went on and on. The next morning, I lingered outside the room, hoping to catch a glimpse not of the woman but of the guy: I wanted to ask him for advice. What did you do to that woman?

The sexual act is a series of stages, from initial eye contact to physical touching to intercourse, with lots of personal interaction in between. I think the most satisfying sexual experience is between two people who like each other so much that they can't imagine not having sex with each other.

Let's assume you're a grown-up male who has had sex with a number of women. You've had your share of disappointments -- climaxing too soon, not being able to get it up, etc. But now you're in love, can't get enough of this other person, and tonight's the night. You're nervous because you want it to be just right, and you know how to manipulate her private parts to get her ready for intercourse, so you go through the motions. But when she starts to move under you, maybe even making love-sounds uncommon to her, you find yourself in another world. And just when you don't think you can last much longer, you penetrate her and then thrust the way you know you're supposed to. And she, at some point, climaxes. And lets you know she did.

And then maybe kisses you in gratitude.

If that's not great sex, I don't know what is.

Some talents are more democratic than others -- singing, for instance.

When I was in sixth grade and trying to sing with a choir, the music teacher singled me out and sent me back to my home room. I was booted from the choir. Unceremoniously. Goodbye.

It happened again in Sunday school, about the same time, when the choral director walked among us while we were singing and fingered me as the discordant one and dismissed me.

It was humiliating both times, of course, but also illuminating. I really couldn't sing. Couldn't carry a tune. It was a genuine surprise to me. I'd grown up listening to music on the radio and had always sung along, often at the top of my voice, and not just in the shower. I also knew all the words!

Lo these years later, it still stings, but I can't blame those teachers. They were trying to assemble a group of students who could sing together, and I was the sour note that kept the ensemble from sounding good together. Sure, they could have been more diplomatic, assuring me that I probably had other gifts that would someday serve me well, but that wasn't their job. I couldn't sing, so I was out. Period.

The ability to sing is one of those democratic talents that are visited on the worthy and the unworthy alike, indiscriminately. I have encountered many people in my life who could sing, but almost none looked on it as anything special. They just liked to sing and did it in their churches or with friends at parties or wherever. It was, to them, a throwaway talent. Something they could do, but no big deal.

To me, it would have been a big deal. I wanted to write songs and sing them, but once I realized I couldn't sing, I gave up writing songs. Of course there are people who can't sing who write songs anyway -- for others to sing -- but I was so dismayed that I couldn't carry a simple tune that I stopped trying to write songs. If I couldn't sing my own songs, why bother?

I'm sure there are lots of talents -- athletic or artistic or musical -- that are scattered among us and that go un-recognized because those who have them are otherwise occupied trying to earn a living, but the one that galls me is singing.

I once asked some professionals at a music fest in Aspen why I couldn't sing, and they all listened to me talk and said they couldn't detect any problem with my speaking voice that should keep me from singing. They all said my voice was well-modulated (whatever that means). I once took a music lesson from a local professional, and she was similarly baffled -- but agreed that I couldn't match my voice to the notes she was playing on the piano.

Well, shit. I can't sing. What a bummer.

I love music, from country to rock to folk-- and I still know all the words -- but I can't carry an f-ing tune. Not fair!

Yes, I'm being small here, but it bugs me that the one talent I really wanted was denied me. I always imagined myself playing a guitar and singing my poignant songs in some cafe where a music producer had stopped in for a late-night drink and heard me and signed me to his label.

When I first heard Bob Dylan sing, I was astonished at how rough his voice sounded, but he wrote songs that stuck in the mind, and he could carry a tune. Not well, but well enough. A lot better than me.

So, I ask you music people out there: what is it that keeps some of us who can speak well, even before audiences, even to applause, from being able to sing? What's the secret?

Is it some kind of affinity for a tone? A kind of musicality that is in-born? I had a cousin who was kind of a jerk who turned out to be sort of a piano prodigy. I don't get it.

It's not just singing, of course. Looks are another democratic gift. So are athletic skills. I knew a girl in high school who was impossibly pretty, could have been a model or a TV star, but who ended up making porno movies. I knew a boy who could hit a baseball further than anyone else but who never pursued that dream. And -- back to my pet peeve -- I know lots of people who can sing but who spend their gift around the piano at Christmas.

Life is a wonder, no? I guess the lesson is to do the best with what you're given, and don't worry about those who are given more but who don't know how to use it.

I'm thinking I ought to write a song about this. But who would I get to sing it? Not me.

Stay tuned.

Celebrate your micro-victories.

Our lives shouldn't be measured by the great things we accomplish but by the small ones. Think of the difference between a business loan in the U.S. and a micro-loan in a third world country. In the first case, you're probably asking for tens of thousands of dollars to open a donut shop or a jewelry store or a coffee franchise. In the second case, you're asking for a hundred dollars to buy a sewing machine or a cell phone. (The guy who invented micro-lending won a Nobel Prize.) The difference is a lot of money and different hopes and business plans. We can think of our lives sort of the same way. Either in mega-terms, with big triumphs, big failures, and lots of hoopla before the inevitable disgrace, or in mini/micro-terms, full of small triumphs on an everyday basis. I think I got my TIVO programmed today. It seemed to take forever, but after some calls to Tech Support, I'm pretty sure I have it running. A small triumph. I high-fived myself! Today I bought some stylish slip-on shoes to take me through airports (so I don't have to un-tie my usual shoes) at half price in a store I was just strolling through. Score another one for me! We all have small triumphs almost daily, and I think they're worth taking note of. Every time you pull off that difficult yoga pose or manage to show up at a kid's school play on time or treat yourself to just one doughnut after work, you've accomplished something. Congrats! So you wanted to be a great actor or writer or whatever and didn't. So what? Maybe you ended up with an accounting degree and went on to have a nice life with a loving spouse and promising kids. Or you ended up broke and heartbroken, maybe on the street. So what? You still kept writing stories and painting pictures and composing music (even if just in your head), right? Anything you do that is honest to you, intrinsic to you, is worth doing. Even if just for you. Life is lived every day, one day at a time. Do you like your life? If so, put yourself down as lucky. I know a woman who has a pillow that has sewn into it, "I dreamed my whole house was clean." She keeps it in her family room, where she has photo albums and all sorts of things that need to be organized and sorted out. Not to mention that she says she needs to have the carpets cleaned and the interior walls painted and the garage and junk room cleaned out. She knows it's a dream but, in a way, it's also a goal. Could happen. Someday. On the whole, though, I think success is measured not so much by goals as by progress. Is your whole house clean? Not likely. What about your basement? Your garage? Your junk room? Your junk drawer in the kitchen? Have you hung all your kids' art work? Have you got your garden ready for spring? Have you ordered bulbs to be planted next month that will flower next summer? It's not important, in the long run, whether we achieve our life goals, which may have been unrealistic in the first place. What's important is that we keep doing things, every day, day after day, that improve both our mental health and the welfare of those we're responsible for. Are your kids well-fed and ready for school? Are you well-fed and ready for work? Are you and your mate getting along? The famous Russian writer Chekhov once said, "Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out." And that's where we succeed or fail. Day to day. The small things, the endless list of duties we have to perform. That's how we're measured in the end. Did you support your kids? Did you get the trash out on time? Did you pay your utility bills? Not everyone does. But once you've fulfilled your ho-hum daily duties -- no small task -- be sure to set aside time for yourself, for your own interests. Otherwise you'll go nuts just trying to keep things going. And measure your success not by some lofty goal but by the steady application of your will to those personal aspirations. Do what you have to do for others, but always remember yourself and do some things, every day, for that special person. If you're smart about it, no one will even notice. But you will.

We choose who we stay in contact with.

We all have old friends and family members we've promised to keep in touch with. "Write me," we say, or "Call me" or "Don't be a stranger." And we mean it. These are people we really do intend to maintain a relationship with. But, for the most part, we don't.

Why not?

As we go through life, we encounter lots of people we like and want to know in the future, but we all keep moving and changing partners and growing and evolving and . . . well, in the end, we lose touch.

It's not anyone's fault. We have the best intentions when we promise to stay in contact. It's just that life is unpredictable and leads us all in directions we never anticipated. Someone we knew and liked in third grade or, later, in high school, when we were teenagers, grows up to be someone who has nothing much in common with us. And vice versa. Each of us grew up to be someone totally unexpected by either of us.

Or we may contact a former boyfriend or girlfriend on the internet and, when we meet, discover that -- uh oh -- we're wildly different people now.

I think it's natural to want to connect with those who were important to us at various stages of our lives, but it's not always a good idea. We were younger then; now we're older. Everything has changed.

On the other hand, there ARE people we knew way back when that we still have something in common with. Invariably, that person is one who really knew us -- who "got" us -- for the person we were and probably, for the most part, still are. And if that person hasn't changed all that much, as we think we haven't -- same personality, same values, etc. -- we may be able to re-connect and renew the friendship that never changed, even as we did. It may be someone from school or work or the army or wherever and whenever, but the bond we formed was deep and real and endures. That's who we should try to stay in touch with.

I don't buy the idea that certain people are important to us only as a result of a particular time and place: our childhood friends, our school friends, etc. Those who matter most to us, who we choose to keep in touch with, touched us in a profound way that endures. They understood us back then and still do. In the era of Facebook and other social networking sites, it's easy to think that because we were in the same place at the same time, we ought to share an intimacy.

Nonsense.

We all have lists of people we think we should send Christmas cards to, and we debate whether we should send one to this or that person or couple or family, but if we have to ponder it, the answer is likely to be "No". It's been too long, the connection is broken, etc. If we have social obligations -- they invite us to parties, we invite them -- then by all means send the card. But if it's someone from way back that we haven't heard from in a long time, even when we've sent cards in the past, it may be time to cross those people off the list. A nice memory. And hey, what's wrong with that?

Life is long; life is short. Life is a river that keeps moving, sweeping along people and places and events. They come and they go. We loved the time we spent with them, but it soon passes. Part of our experience, what it's like to be alive, to be human.

In the meantime, don't be fooled or bullied by social custom. If you truly value someone from your life so far spent, by all means try to keep that connection going. But if you're just doing the Facebook thing of accumulating "friends" who aren't really your friends, then start paring down that Christmas card list. They don't really care, and neither should you.

We meet so many people in our lives and make vague promises to lots of them, but, in the end, there are only a few -- more than a few, if we're lucky -- who are worth our attention later on. Don't judge yourself by how many people you know. It's all about how many mean something to you, even now, even after you've lost touch with them.

Those are the ones you should try to stay in contact with, the ones who matter.

Life is all about choices, and who we choose to stay in contact with is one of them.