Sure I'll contact you

This morning I was going out to get some nice cafe lattes and some good cheese cake to cement my stomach, when I ran into Art Burshy. He was sitting outside on a bench with his hat covering most of his eyes.

"Women..." - he said - "...they have the power and skill to break down a man's self esteem in a nanosecond".

I sat down next to Art and he started talking; initially I reminded myself I was here with the purpose of getting some coffees and should not stay away too long, but Art's story made me forget all.

Art had been in a cafe, when next to him a 'breathtaking nymph', 'an elegant beauty', 'an angel sent from heaven' - as he mentioned - sat down at the bar.

Art described her in all cliches; and then he apologised, but this is what happens when overwhelmed by an appearance - you start blurting these cliches that are at that moment the only thing escaping your surprised and shocked mind.

Art had initially been calmly drinking his malt beer - he was trying to lower the alcohol consumption as he has noticed recently that his body doesn't deal that well with it anymore. He made a little chat with the bartender and did not directly think of talking to the woman, because:

- women in general fall in love differently than men; men can see a beautiful woman and assume that all of her is beautiful and thus fall in sort of love or anticipation. Women generally do not have this, and don't wan to be bothered by men when there is no real reason, and it will take them time to really develop a feeling and often require shared experiences.

- Art knows that when he is touched by someone he generally is not able to make any sense come out of his mouth, so it is often best to be silent and a)wait till the first moment of awe is gone and b) just ask open questions to let the woman talk.

- Art is aware that at first sight he is not really the man that will attract women based on his Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio or Brad Pitt looks, so his approach should always be humble

- Art is also laughing at his own male instincts; where it is clear that the situation can never lead to something but hormones kick in makes all sense flow towards his genitals.

I mentioned to Art:

"It is funny to see that you are so open about your own internal dark side; openly speaking about how you are impacted by women, how you are aroused...."

Art looked at me frowning, opening his eyes wide of surprise; "ah, are you still denying having such thoughts?...you poor soul."

Art continued explaining that after some time - and after having some alcohol - he had grown his courage and approached the woman asking what type of business she was in. Turned out she was a successful business woman, just waiting for a business appointment to arrive. So Art thought to loosely let her know that - if she ever needed artists and business leadership - he would be happy to assist.

This was the point where she told him:

'Sure I'll contact you when I need to recruit small hairy artists imitating business leaders..."

Art had been devastated. If any person would have dismissed him this he would have shrugged and chosen someone else to talk to, or even make a witty remark to not end up being the obvious loser of this conversation...

But when someone you care about or want to impress disqualifies you it really hurts.

So Art decided to shut up and sit outside, having an extra strong alcoholic drink, trying to clean his memory of this painful experience.

I decided to leave him in that state and return home... still a bit puzzled and wondering how to interpret all this, and how this should influence my image of Art Burshy... are we men really all like that?

you cant go out like that

When I ran into Art Burshy yesterday evening and asked about his day he sighed and a serious frown shaped his face while it lost its kindness.
The words that came out seemed to be pushed by a stronger force inside, sourced with a barely controlled anger and concern as he started his story.
The night before he had seen his daughter go out; she was going out with a new boy friend.
Sure, she had described the boy friend to him; he is a few years older and was very popular at school. He had doubled a class and was now in his last year.
Art had been pushing his prejudices away, wanting to trust the judgement of his daughter.
He had stopped himself asking how much older the boy was, because a 'few' years older can be in a range between 2 and 8 years... quite a difference (at least at this age).

In his imagination he had thought of several things to do:
- follow his daughter to check out the boy...what does he look like, how they are together...and maybe then then he would show up all of  a sudden and confront the boy with a BIG smile, shaking his hand firmly.
- search the boys address and pay him a visit with a clear low-voiced message: "if you hurt my daughter I will break your legs", or
- check out who his parents are, and call them with some questions...did the boy already talk about Art's daughter, or is this one of his many flirts...
But he pushed these ideas away as he knows this will not work in the end, ad\nd damage his relationship with his daughter.

But now he saw her just before she left he was shocked on how little she was wearing.
He lost his regular calmness, which normally allows him to explore and influence his daughter (at least that was what he told himself).
He threw out the words while noticing his own voice was louder than he had intended. But it was too late, the words had been said, and the tone had definitely had an effect on his daughter.
"You can't go out like that!!! All men are basically sexist manic perverts" seems to be what he had said.
Pretty heavy stuff for a self proclaimed open minded artist.
She became silent, and carefully selected her words when replying:
"But dad, you are a man yourself"
These words echoed in the room and Art realised he had lost more than just this battle of words.
His daughter, gifted with a sharp brain and sense of opportunity had hit a very delicate spot here, and selected the right mental-chess-move.
Either Art should take back his statement and saving his daughters image of him as a respectable value-driven father, far away from classifications related to sex, pervert subjects and manic behaviour. Or he would maintain his statement to warn her for mankind, while accepting the consequences of how she sees him.
Either way, in 5 minutes this could not be managed, just before sending her off on her way to a party-dance-and-whatever-more night.
So he did the only thing he could reasonably do; he said to her he had been too firm in his statement, that it would be good to talk about it later, and he wished her a wonderful night with her caring and gentleman-boy-friend. This is what she deserved, and he wanted to let her leave only with a great sense of confidence and expectations that would guide her behaviour and experience that night...

Looking back while both drinking a cold glass of liquid bread (the way we refer to beer), Art started reflecting on what happened.
Art has been young too, something which is hard to imagine for his kids. Behind the wrinkled bearded appearance of this artist lies the same soul of the little boy that had been uncertain and low in self confidence when he was young.
As a boy he had noticed what happened between boys and girls, and having had enough time to reflect on it, he had created his own theory.

Girls fall for self-confident boys, or in fact boys that act confident and are 'cool' or 'chill' or whatever term is used by youngsters at the time.
When boys are truly in love with a girl, especially when being young, the last thing they feel when being close to her is: confident. So generally girls spend 0 attention to these boys.
The boys who actually do not deeply love the girls, but fancy some sensual (and mostly sexual) experience, they do act confidently, and get the attention.
The girls adore these boys and somehow these boys get their girls to do much more than is good for them, or that fits with the level of sincere passion involved.

Sure, Art Burshy knows now that there could be exceptions, and he hopes he can raise his children to be confident and look for the right qualities in others. But still he observes the same mechanics in place nowadays. He heard that nowadays boys come up to girls in parties and rub their bodies against these girls, and these girls just have to accept it. Frequently multiple boys at the same time. It's like dry sex in a way.

Art feels sometimes like his own parents, when they had warned him for certain parties, for drinking alcohol and for sex-related fears. He does not want to feel like such an old-fashioned parent, but what-the-f**k...this is shockingly disrespectful and pushes daughters into a behaviour and view of their body that is not good, and undermines their sense of self.

And Art truly still feels that many (if not all) men have a deeper natural desire for sex.
 Deep down they have this sleeping hunting-instinct, and for example also Freud has clearly described this sort of subconscious mind-triggering instinct. And the only way to influence this mind-domination Art explained to me in a formula.

Art's drawing in the cafe
Replacing B by an atractive C

Say mans current situation is A, and his desired state is to reach sex (let's call that B).
Then the only way to prevent men to go to B is not to forbid it.
Generally forbidding things actually focuses the attention on the negative, creating even more triggers.
Like when you say "don't look down" to your kids when climbing a mountain. The first thing they do is look down below.
So the only way to prevent someone to go fro A to B is to provide a very attractive alternative C.
In case of men this traditionally could be religion and/or a sort of strong belief.
But better is if C would be a deeper love for a muse, a woman they truly adore.

The same philosophy about A-B-C he normally applies with his children.
If there is truly something that he feels is not good for them, he tries not to focus on that topic, and just provide a very attractive event C that will capture their attention.

But this requires a controlled state of mind, and clearly this night this was not the case, and he had destroyed more than ever his relationship.
Well, after drinks Art slided of his chair, crawling to get his coat and with low eye brows he started his long walk home.
I wish him wisdom and strength for the battles to come.

Salt is really bad for you

You will have noticed that Art has been on vacation for some time. He was in Greece and enjoyed the traditional Greek dishes. Well, in Athens all meals were fine and he would really enjoy the well-filled spanakopita, the nearly-burnt souvlakis and juicy moussakas. But after arriving on a small island, to be honest he did not so much appreciate the local delicacies, as it seemed that all fish and vegetables were thrown directly from the sea into a greasy and 'ripened' boiling oil. Also he felt that the meat balls and other meat dishes were made from the same very old, very dead and very dry goat.
In general Art is happy to eat a diversity of food, and always discovers special local dishes that are very tasty. In this case however he developed a habit of compensating the dishes with simple fresh vegetables, lots of brilliant olive oil and loads of salt. He would some evenings just love to take some bread and simply use it as a sponge to suck up a mix of oil and salt, and frequently adding garlic.

Now, being back home for some time, he somehow still kept some of the vacation habits. A breakfast with Greek yogurt (but not from Greece as it seems when you read the small letters on the wrapper) with a generous topping of tooth-aching sweet honey. And always some oil and salt to go with lunch and dinner.

Art knows that basically salt is one of the worst things to eat, and also that the honey is a pretty good sugar-booster. But when this evening during dinner, his daughter states "Dad, salt is really bad for your health" he frowns and looks her into her eyes.
Normally Art would be willing to recognise his own failure to control this addiction.
But when his daughter brings it up with a tone like 'I-got-it-all-figured-out-and-know-whats-best-for-you' it triggers some goose bumps and allergy rash in his neck. So, the last thing he feels like is confessing his guilt, and he thinks of how to tackle this 'attack' in an adequate way.

He thought of different ways of replying:
a) counter attack : pointing out to his daughter that she herself has some very unhealthy patterns, and that one should first look at ones own issues before interfering with other peoples habits. But that would sound a bit sour and ruin the atmosphere at the table.
b) plea guilty, and admit she is right; indeed salt is bad. But this would automatically raise the question: "why don't you stop it, if you know it is bad for you". This would easily create issues, as Art is supposed to be some sort of a role model for his children (like any dad I suppose) and they could use this later as an excuse-why-they-do-not-have-to-follow-his-rules. Pretty dangerous therefore, and maybe a discussion Art should avoid.
c) solve it with a bit of humour, enlarging the issue to huge proportions and to its extreme. This would not invite for further discussion and would sort of push the topic away. Sure, it might be coming back later as a boomerang; his kids are pretty clever, and will raise the topic at a later point in time. But for now maybe the best thing to do.

In general Art had discovered that his children are getting more confident; things go well at school, they have nice friends and are pretty popular. And although Art Always wanted his children to be confident, he now sometimes observes that they go the other way; they get a sort of winners' behaviour, they lose connection with the ground and go flying.  They feel they have got life all figured out, and they are happy to tell other people again-and-again how they should live their lives.

Art has seen winners' behaviour many times, also with artists and at businesses. Some of the symptoms are:
- not really listening, mainly waiting for the next moment to share some good advice and insights
- providing you advice when you are not asking for it
- relying on a few simple tools or rules to explain all that is wrong in the world
- seeing every success as a confirmation of their great and unique approach
- a talent to mis-interpret other peoples experiences into what they consider be the wrong approach.
And, not without shame, Art needs to admit that he has had some winners' behaviour at some point in his life too. Probably later than his children, because he came out of his youth with some serious self-confidence-issues, and as such it took him quite some years to come to a point where he could manipulate himself to feel confident based on some successes.

So, in the end it is good if kids feel confident enough to show some winners' behaviour, and probably better not to 'crash' their confidence by heavily attacking their premature ideas and their way of expressing those. At the same time keep asking questions and hoping their experience will provide them with gentle corrections that bring them back with both feet on the ground.

Our Art Burshy sincerely wonders if he is the only one facing this type of issues, and mental struggles, and experimental influencing of children. Well, in the end he just feels that doing his best is the maximum he can do. And he decides to ignore the saying he uses himself so often:
'the way to hell is paved with good intentions', also when raising kids.