Man's (and Woman's!) Pygmalion Project

In Greek mythology, Pygmalion was a talented Greek sculptor from Cyprus.  After he had become disgusted by the local prostitutes he was seeing, he lost all interest in women and avoided their company.  (Geez Pygmalion, think you could have considered dating someone you didn't have to pay?)  ANYWAY, since Pygmalion viewed women as deeply flawed creatures, he vowed not to waste another moment of his life on them.  He dedicated himself to his work as a sculptor...and eventually created "Galatea".  Galatea was a beautiful statue of ivory...and of a woman.

By the time Pygmalion finished creating Galatea, he had fallen deeply in love with it.  He spent time dressing it up, putting jewelry on it, and embracing it.  He had sculpted his own version of female perfection as he himself had interpreted it.  Aphrodite, the goddess of love, had mercy on Pygmalion seeing how much he loved this ivory woman who could never love him in return.  The next time Pygmalion embraced his ivory statue and kissed it, it came to life.  Pygmalion's one and only dream had finally come true...

Man's Pygmalion project has continued on ever since.  This project has been to make all those near us...just like us!  Don't get me wrong;  women are just as guilty for doing this also.  This project is impossible of course, but not for lack of effort.  To sculpt another person into one's own likeness fails before it even begins.  As has been said by author Jack Kersey, remove the fangs of a lion and behold, a toothless lion---NOT a domestic cat.  Attempts to change your partner, your child, your employees, your coworkers, or your friends into someone more like yourself can create a change of sorts---but the end result is always a SCAR and not a true and authentic transformation.  As men and women, we are both equally at fault for attempting to mold and shape our chosen other(s) into as close a carbon copy image of ourselves as possible.

Why do we do this?  Aren't we smart enough to know that nobody can change anybody except ourselves? Yes, we do know this on an intellectual level...but we do not know it on an emotional level.

I remember the time a man had told me that when he first met his future wife, she was smoking a cigarette. He told her emphatically that "..kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray."  From that moment on, he claimed, she never smoked again.  Bully for him.  She ended up leaving him years later for a business colleague OH WELL there went his Pygmalion project down the tubes.

We are quite notorious for noticing the speck in someone else's eyeball without acknowledging the board in our own.  For some of the people we choose to mold and shape into our own image, they appear at first glance to be willing participants in our Pygmalion efforts.  I know a young couple right now where the woman involved says "Yeah!  Sure!" to her boyfriend's suggestions more often than she says "Hi, how are you?" to anybody else.  These initially compliant types appear to be quite willing to be whatever their new partner prefers;  yet once they are comfortable enough with the relationship, guess what happens?  They begin to assert themselves more comfortably too as to what they themselves want, believe, need, feel, like, or don't like, etc. etc.  It is at this point where the dam starts to crack and Pygmalion's feelings for his or her previously "perfect" partner start to jangle.  "What is THIS fresh hell that has been visited upon me and our relationship?!  THIS is not what I signed up for!"  Yeah right.

No wonder Whoopie Goldberg once said that if we live with anybody other than ourselves, it's all *))@# up.

Here is our challenge in this life.  We must stop trying to coerce others into being "just like I am" in order for ME to have an easier time in and with the relationship.  In spite of what we do to try and sculpt our loved one(s) into copies of ourselves...we are also manipulated by them in return.  What, you didn't get that memo? Think about it;  for some, getting "any" attention at all is better than feeling neglected.  And you didn't think that the object of your Pygmalion project undertaking wasn't going to eventually want something in return for all that initial compliance?  "The Pygmalion Project:  Love and Coercion Among the Types" is a great book by Dr. Stephen Montgomery.  It is a fascinating read and highly recommended for those of us who know we are still entrenched in trying to change others to be more like ourselves.

See you next post!

Tidying Up....

Everybody knows someone....might be me...might be you...whose home represents an homage to "piles".  It may be piles of papers, piles of laundry, piles of toys, etc.  I remember a friend whose living room and family room was never cleared of its own piles for as long as we knew one another.  There were literal laundry baskets of "stuff" in both rooms;  there were also a lot of dogs running around.  I am not talking hoarding here;  hoarding is a very different phenomenon where the piles are in control of the household.  With hoarding, the stuff is all around with only a narrow path with which to navigate oneself through from area to area...or from room to room.  No, what I am talking about in today's post are those of us who are just "messy" and let the crap of our own lives pile up and stay piled up wherever we place it for far too long...

For Christmas this past year, a friend of mine gave me the book "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up" by Marie Kondo.  It's a small book and focuses on the author's own Japanese "KonMari" method for simplifying, organizing, and storing.  I loved this book!  In my case, my own "piles" were found primarily inside closets, cabinets, drawers, and/or rooms that remained closed for visiting guests.  And yes, for anyone who knows me...there is a reason why you were never shown our laundry room during the past 20+ years!  :-P

A messy household is not happening.  It just isn't.  When we truly don't know if we have something or not inside our own home, we end up falling into the pattern of buying the same thing(s) over and over again like it's our job.  Just recently, while I was working on de-cluttering our kitchen, I can't tell you how many "decorative" bowls I found. If I owned a catering business, no problem.  But I don't.  Some of the bowls were chipped and cracked (how'd that happen?) and some were constructed out of questionable materials. Instead of agonizing over "Oh geez...but this is so pretty;  I might as well keep it..", I was like "Buh Bye bowl!" Grant it, the garbage man probably had a fit that particular Tuesday when he tried to move the recycling bin from our curb...but it is what it is.  Out with the old...and the useless...and in with the tidy!

In Kondo's book, she stresses how nobody can tidy up effectively if they don't initially engage in a major purging effort.  As such, her first suggestion in tidying up is to purge and get rid of all of the things we just don't use anymore...or never did.  I actually found kebob skewers in one of my kitchen drawers still inside its original packaging.  The package must have been at least ten years old.  Even though those skewers had never been used once....I found enough other skewers in the drawer to put these "new" ones in File 13.  File 13 being the garbage bag next to me.

Grant it, tidying up can also be a lot of fun when you find things you forgot you had that you really do love...but put away however long ago.  I found our daughter's preschool class photo, framed and totally adorable to see again after all these years.  Now it sits on one of the shelves in our kitchen.  Tidying up can also bring to the fore some things we want and need to reintroduce into our daily field of vision as part of this process.  It can also inspire new projects that allow us to place certain household treasures all in the same general area.  Have you ever heard of a "photo wall"?  It's actually very cool.  Short shelves painted the same color as the wall are used to keep "all" framed photographs in the house.  No more here's a photo there's a photo.  All photos can be found in the same space and (in this case) on the same wall.  Eureka!

The irony of life is that we spend too much of it acquiring things like there'll be no tomorrow.  Then when we become old enough and/or tired enough, the last thing we want and have to deal with is more "stuff"!  Tidying up can bring us back into the proper mental perspective.  Whether we recycle and/or donate our discards, sell them on Ebay, throw them into the garbage, or give them to someone else within our social circle/family system....it's always a good idea to periodically tidy up.

When our personal space is clean, neat, and organized...we feel better on the inside too.  Nobody has to do it all in a single weekend either.  Spending 1/2 hour every other night in a single room of your home until it is "tidy" is a good way to start without feeling overwhelmed.  So what if it takes all Spring or Summer to do it? When it's all done...it'll be done!  And wouldn't it be nice to have your own space (home, office, cottage, etc.) to be completely tidy by the end of this year?  It is truly possible thanks to Kondo's book and her KonMari method of getting your home...and yourself...fully organized again.

Happy tidying up!

MD

   

When Home is Burning....

I just finished a book entitled "Home is )%)_# Burning" by Dan Marshall.  Marshall was in his mid 20s when he was called home from L.A. to attend to his cancer-stricken mom and ALS-stricken dad back in Salt Lake City.  His sister Tiffany had been holding up the fort up until the time both Marshall and his brother returned to the family homestead.  Two younger sisters were still in their teens and had significant issues of their own (one having an affair with her much-older coach;  another struggling with untreated Aspergers)...

As I read the book, it reminded me of the friends I have who also came from larger families where the sh** storms never stopped on any given day.  With so many personalities all living under the same roof, each with their own "stuff" to manage, it's no wonder that so many I knew grew up only to leave---and never look back---let alone return back---to "home" again.

Marshall is different.  In spite of his own issues around a self-involved girlfriend back in L.A., an ongoing affair of his own with alcohol, and references to his own battle of the bulge...he clearly committed himself to the care of his father.  Which is extremely admirable.  Who do you know now, in 2016, who has given a year or more of their lives, let alone a month or two, to the care of their own elderly parent or relative?  Now imagine the person you know who has done that and is also 25 years old?  There aren't many, I can tell you that.  Yet Dan Marshall was and is one of them.

After I read Marshall's book, I thought about my own experiences with my last living relative who is now 91 years old.  For the past 2-1/2 years, I have been responsible for her care, though it'd be a cold day in Hades before we'd end up in the bathroom together.  Dan Marshall and his brother not only spent countless hours doing the unmentionable in caring for their dad...but they also managed to crank out some pretty hilarious, albeit crude, observations as part of that process.  It wasn't until their dad was close to death did the brothers hire a caregiver to take over where they had left off.

Everyone's home is burning to some extent.  We can spend hours, days, weeks, and months agonizing over what we are going to do or should do or can do or won't do...but in the end, we have to do something.  If we do nothing, then nothing will change.  As I have often said, it is much easier to act ourselves into right thinking than it is to think ourselves into right acting.  When we think and over-think something without doing anything about it, we get stuck inside our own heads and our feet become paralyzed.  Thankfully for Marshall's parents, their sons' feet moved when they needed to instead of staying stuck back in the land of comfortable and familiar.

That is all.  Until next time.