Damn sensitivity -- sneakin' up on me

In middle age many of us are forced to face a life transition that calls forth an element of behavior that would have been anathema to us in our formative years -- sensitivity.

So, for any of you who only recall crying once in your lives -- at the conclusion of Old Yeller -- be prepared in mid-life for the onslaught of hyperactive tear-ducts and a quivering chin.It's OK -- really. You are not about to turn into a wispy, vapid miasma of breast beating and hair-trigger emotions, you are merely going to find during this transition -- one that will take a few years -- or forever -- that you have untapped resources of ‘caring’ you didn’t even know existed within you. And, quite frankly, it’s going to be a bit embarrassing at times.

Sensitivity didn't announce itself until middle age, mainly because you didn't need it. Yet now you are finding your inner Alan Alda. Young alpha males don't need to be sensitive. Excessive emotionality can be counterproductive at a time of life when you are better served by being boorish and self-seeking. Callousness is what rendered you able to be everything from a soldier to a viciously upwardly-mobile young stockbroker.

It's what enabled you to screw anybody in panties like there was no tomorrow -- because when you're twenty, twenty-five or even thirty, there is no tomorrow, and there is no accountability except when you make a dumbfuck decision and mess yourself up and end up in the street after you've been turfed by an irate wife or girlfriend; or fired, or thrown in jail, into hospital, or even on a mortician's slab. And it’s true that such unfortunate situations can be the consequences of the insensitive and unemotional behavior that Young Turks, striving to make their way in a ruthless world can exhibit.

Comes a time, however, when it changes. That's when yourealize if you don't yet have values, you'd start getting some. For one thing, at the most basic level, there are the deficits in continuing to be an egocentric swine past a certain age. There is something irritating if immaturity and crassness continue past a certain point. Ultimately, if you carry on with an paucity of regard towards others as you age, you will enter the realm of the pathetic pariah, with your only worth being relegated to the legion that includes such deserving honorees as Ebenezer Scrooge, Silas Marner, and the late Jean Paul Getty.

Indeed, witness the Paul Gettys, senior and junior, and consider the differencein esteem by which each man is held, and then look at the functionality of each man in terms of self-worth.Multibillionaire Jean Paul Getty left this life a wizened-up sod who was penurious to the degree that he installed a pay-phone in his English manor house so that guests wouldn't be running up bills on 'his' sixpence. Mr. Burns on The Simpsons, I have heard, was based on Getty.

This is a man who would have been unable to spend his largesse in three lifetimes, but who balked at paying the ransom for his kidnapped grandson, because it would set a precedent for other kidnappers. He ultimately capitulated, but only grudgingly. Many times-married, he raised a brood of alienated sons who held the old bastard in no affection, but quaked in terror at his presence, because his pleasure only decided the disbursement of funds.

Paul Getty Jr., on the other hand, was a different breed of cat. While he and his brothers were not raised by their father, the old man's whims were omnipresent in their lives. Paul Jr. was, for some reason, since he was so unlike the paterfamilias, the one favored by the skinflinted old knave. However, Junior didn't turn out exactly like Daddy wanted him to. He took to wearing flower-child caftans, hanging out with rock stars, moving to Morocco and acquiring a heroin habit sufficient to take down a team of horses. He was also the absentee father whose son was kidnapped. Yet, ultimately he changed. He got clean of drugs and, on his father's death, assumed the Getty mantle.In his later life he was primarily known for his overwhelming philanthropy,especially in the world of the arts. He was knighted in England, his adopted country and, at the time of his death, his demise was noted with great sadness and he was genuinely mourned as a good man.In other words, Mr. Getty Jr., somewhere along the way, acquired sensitivity and a soul and concluded there were greater verities than just acquiring every spare scrap of cash on the planet. In that sense, which Getty was truly a wastrel?

When does sensitivity happen?It happens when you least expect it. For many males the first inkling manifests itself when a man finds that he is responding to a situation not out of concern for himself, but out of caring about what is happening with another. What’s that all about? Isn’t life supposed to be about me?You may have gone on for years throwing ill-considered comments at your spouse or underlings at work.

Then, one day, for no apparent reason, you catch that wince in the visage of the recipient of a heedless remark or reprimand, andyou feel bad. That is, if you are normal. If you are Mr. mega alpha male "I am the king of the universe!" you will probably, on the other hand, feel empowered by the wince. OK, so you aren't there yet. Those near and dear to you (if there still are any) will just have to sit around and wait for you to have that humbling moment. At such a time, perhaps, you will undergo a Scrooge-transformation and become a decent guy. Or, it might never happen. For some it doesn't, and they end up like Getty Sr. and go to their graves universally loathed as mean and unrepentant bastards’

The process of becoming sensitive, and carrying on a sensitive life is noteasy for men. Newfound 'softness' goes against the grain of basic instinctsof both self-preservation and protecting one's sanctuary and brood.Men are terrified of appearing soft because it seems like vulnerability, and vulnerability does a poor job of keeping bad guys at bay. A man may be a five-foot-four, ninety-seven pound weakling, but he still sees his job as one of protector of the household. He is the security guard for the serenity and peace of the women and children who dwell therein. While a male at his core, and alone at 3 a.m. (as we all are, even when somebody is beside us) may be a mass of whimpering emotions, he is damned if he is going to let anyone -- especially another male -- know.

This emotional constipation can have sad ramifications. Boys often grow up harboring strong resentments against their fathers, for example. It's sometimes in the nature of two males sharing a household for there to be ill-will between the two. Consequently, a lot of fathers go to their graves with no attempts at amends between the two generations having been made. Neither wanted to go to where they might have to hug or, even worse, declare any sort of love for the other. If there is no love, then that's reality, but if there islove, and it was never expressed, then that's unfortunate.

That’s what happened between my father and me, and I still regret it. I didn’t hate him, and I know that he, in his ‘guy’ way, probably loved me. But, it was never expressed by either of us. Too bad about that.After his death, his sister (a favorite aunt) told me that he hadsaved every column and article I'd ever written during my years ofnewspaper work. She told me he was very proud of me. I'd never had arelationship with my father that amounted to a great deal more than a'Mexican standoff', either in childhood or later in life, so her statementcame as a surprise, and one to which I responded with cynicism.
"He never told me that," I replied, "So, fat lot of good it does me now."
Too bad about that, too.

Yet now, 10 years later, I find there is rarely a day that goes by that I don’t miss the old bastard. And I’m happy that I miss him. It just might mean that I’ve grown up a bit. That maybe I now understand a bit about sensitivity. Not such a bad way to go.






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