9 Shut up and Shut down!

I've been thinking a lot this week about the value of meditation for my physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual health. For some reason I've started myself on a five-a-day regimen not of vegetables, but of brief episodes of prayer, reflection, meditation. Call it what you like but first thing in the morning and last thing at night with three times squeezed in between [usually around mid-day, 4pm and 8pm], I'm taking some mental time out to reflect for a few minutes over what's happening. I'm taking the emotional temperature of the situation and I'm taking a break from the perpetual mental chatter that is an unfortunate feature of my daily life. I'm endeavoring to find a few seconds or minutes in which the plans, ambitions, reflections, regrets, loves and hates of the moment I'm in can be turned down and switched off, so all I'm doing is breathing and being aware of my breathing.

I'm finding with practice [and of course, what's happening at the time], it's getting easier and easier to just switch off! Once I'm on down time I can move my awareness to myself and spend a few seconds appreciating myself as a valid and lovable somebody. Then I can shift my attention to a friend and spend a few seconds loving my friend. Then as calmly and as empty of thoughts and feelings I turn my awareness to an image of the face of the person who is annoying or threatening me most and this is often when the thoughts and plans and emotions get all activated again. Takes a bit of time to shut down again but then, focusing on that person's eyes, their soul; it's possible to appreciate them also as a valid and lovable somebody. And finally the attention moves to someone I hardly know at all- someone I've seen in a shop or someone I had a second's worth of eye contact with, and I spend some time appreciating them as I appreciate myself, my friend and my enemy. Just having those few minutes trying to even out the tone of feeling towards myself, my friend, my enemy and a practical stranger is beautifully releasing! By this stage I'm ready to zone out and to focus on just breathing in and then breathing out. See if I can spend just 2 or 3 inhalation-exhalation cycles without wandering off mentally and thinking about something. Once I've done that I'm ready to get started again. Sometimes it's so peaceful that I want to just stay there just breathing and being! But then the outside world beckons and I need to get back to doing whatever I was doing before but I'm now calmer and more centered and less driven by the insecurities of my ego or the petty rivalries between myself and others. And I can see more clearly what my priorities need to be to ensure that I get a balance in my life.

So I suppose my advice for the day would be to take some time to learn the skill of of shutting yourself down whilst remaining fully aware.

There's a bit of a knack to it but with time, patience and practice it'll probably be the most valuable thing you ever learn to do!

8 For a proportion of the world MY 'pastures new' is THEIR 'elephant's graveyard'

This is the point when I start to wonder if this GaySocrates thing is going to be worthwhile or not! I'm kinda pulled in two directions. One is the direction of carrying on writing- expecting there to be an audience out there for what an older, maybe wiser, man makes of the world right now. Bearing in mind that I'm missing contact with older men myself and I'm trying to find ways to rustle up a bit of contact one way or another. I'm convinced that an older gay person, out there somewhere,would be really helpful to me! On the other hand, I'm undermined  maybe by my internalized homophobia, low self esteem and internalized ageism, by thoughts that I won't have anything useful to say to a younger generation. Things have changed so rapidly in recent years that any experience I might have to offer has lost it's relevance. I'm just an old dinosaur waiting for it's extinction! So to keep going on about what it's like for an older gay man is just embarrassing, irrelevant and unnecessary!!

I'm reminded of the extent to which I've been seen as old and irrelevant in the past, how surprising it was at first, and how it subsequently angered me. I then needed to come to terms with how my aging appearance dictated who would or would not find me relevant and/ or attractive. And so there followed lots of bargaining and negotiating with myself over where it could be legitimate to hang out and how long for. Like for instance: not a great idea to hang around saunas packed with young muscled guys- they are just going to ignore you and make you feel shit! But then it's figuring out what to do and where to go so it doesn't look like you've just 'thrown in the towel' socially. The past few years have been a bit difficult for that kind of negotiation because my two best friends were younger than me- one guy in his late thirties and the other in his late twenties- so the kind of places they've been wanting to hang around in [although I've been up for it because I had an overprotected adolescence and young adulthood] didn't serve me particularly well. Hanging around clubs and pubs getting drunk into the early hours of the morning hasn't, on reflection, been the best way to spend my time in the years leading up to my half century!

But that's all changed now because my young friends have moved on. One up to London and the other to the other side of the world in Argentina. So, I've been 'best friendless'  for a good few months now and I'm able to reflect on what's best for me and, more importantly, do I want to stick with what's not been best for me? Am I ready to move onto 'pastures new'? Am I prepared to accept that

for a proportion of the world my 'pastures new' is their 'elephant's graveyard'

Trouble is I'm still not exactly sure where these 'pastures new' actually are! There's a group in Brighton known as GEMS [Gay Elderly Men's Society] but that's run by Age Concern and I think it's mainly for the over 60's. I think I'd be out of place there- maybe even considered geriatric jail bait!! Maybe it's all gone virtual when I wasn't looking so it might be more about getting a Gaydar profile which is more about talking and friendship. That might be worth a spin!

So, What's the message in all of this?

To the elders my message is: Try to find ways of growing old with grace and remember the wise words of the great psychologist Carl Jung 'We cannot live the evening of life according to the programme of the morning'! Don't try and be a silk purse if people are looking on you as a sow's ear. But also recognize that mutton can be as tasty to some as a lamb's chop.

To the young my message is: Please don't let your disgust towards the creepy old letch in the sauna spill over in your attitude towards older gay men in general. There may be elements in the old dogs' life to be learned from!

7 Gay and Lesbian Wisdom-Be Brave!

Flicking through an old copy of a local Gay Rag, I came across an article on 'The Older Gay in Our Community', this week. I was a bit disappointed with it because it launched into the 'interviews' without anything by way of an introduction. Nothing about the context of the feature and nothing about the author-though it stated a male name. The format of each interview followed a set sequence of questions asked of all 6 interviewees. I was left with the impression that they hadn't actually been interviewed at all but instead had been sent a questionnaire to which they had provided written responses. Three gay men and three lesbian women were asked questions like 'What was your first LGBT experience?', What are your hopes for the LGBT community?', What are your views on  LGBT Age Politics?', 'What would your advice be to a 17 year old identifying as LGBT?'

All the interviewees were well old [60-odd plus!] and although in the article the interviews were alternated boy-girl-boy-girl, I preferred to read what the men had to say first. Of course I

was reading as a younger man hearing the wisdom of the older generation- much as I imagine this column to be read and, as I suspected, I was struck by the damage that was speaking out at me from the page. 

The first guy had had a family grown up and then was divorced before he allowed himself to come out and even then, by the sound of it, via a few dalliances with bisexual blokes and being forced to be their 'bit-on-the-side'. The second guy had been court-martialed for having sex in the navy. He was released from prison with the news that his lover had shot himself! Then there was the guy who had been maimed 'in action' whilst in the forces. He had lost his mother in Auschwitz concentration camp and his father at Dunkirk. 'And how had he noticed his sex drive had changed with age?' His answer was: 'It's not changed at all since I've always paid for sex finding that professional sex workers are able to ignore my disability and treat me with dignity and respect! And then there was the guy who had been sexually abused as a child regretting that he had never spoken out.

On to the women most of whom had been emboldened through the women's movement and one of whom felt far more disadvantaged through her second class status as a woman than as a result of her lesbian sexuality. The bits I liked best of all were to do with 'what advice would you give?' mostly because all the bits of advice seemed a little naff really-except for one of the lesbians who said something like : 'If you can, let your family know, make lots of friends, and treat everyone with the respect you would expect of others for yourself. You've picked a long row to hoe. Be brave' Hmm! I liked that!

Makes me want to do a better job and I'm wondering now how best to go about it. Maybe I'd be better served doing a series of features on the older gay or the gay elder- but with more detail and more searching questions. Think I need to check out how best to meet some older gay people  and see if they'd be prepared to be interviewed! Hmm!

So my message for today can't improve on our sage lesbian- Recognize that you've picked a long row to hoe. And Be Brave!

6 To Gym or Not To Gym?

I keep thinking about the Gym Culture that's been getting a tighter and tighter grip on us all over the past 20 or 30 years. When I first joined a gym -about 25 years ago -it was a bit of a novelty thing to do, something fun to do every week and, I suppose, a bit of a lifestyle accessory. As the years have gone by it seems that to be seen as acceptable as a young man out on the gay scene, you need to have been working out for years on a regular basis. Pecs, biceps, and six-pack are all seen as necessary rather than as optional extras! The transition in terms of the rapidly increased pressure to conform to cultural bodily shape and size expectations was illustrated nicely in the number of trimmed and toned figures to be found on the gay beech at Sitges each year. My first visit there must have been over 20 years ago. I've been fortunate enough to have a fairly lean athletic build without having to worry too much about diet and excercize. On that first visit there was a wide range of shapes and sizes following a fairly normal distribution. At my last vist a few years ago, I was shocked and somewhat saddened to find that well over 80% of the bodies to be seen were honed to Gym Perfection. Rather than finding these sexy, lean bodies attractive, all I could register were the empty hours of gym time spent burning off fat and the corresponding inevitable consequential accompanying limitations in terms personality development and conversational possibilities. Not that I need have worried about a conversation actually occurring because natural selection being what it is, once you've spent your time and energy grooming yourself to perfection, you're then naturally and narcissistically drawn to others in your own image and repelled from those who haven't been so careful about what they eat and how they look! I've been struggling with whether or not my anti-gym attitude is just a matter of 'sour grapes'. As you get older your metabolism slows down and you don't need to eat as much as you used to do so the middle age spread kicks in and it's less easy to maintain a naturally athletic state without having to cut back significantly on foodie treats. But I think it's more than that. I fear that Gym Culture has crept in to replace what used to be around as a reasonably caring, giving, protective culture maybe based on some collective sense that in times of persecution we need to look after each other. So now we're not ostensibly persecuted any more what takes its place? Seems like gay men have fallen into the low self-esteem, back-biting, bitchy world that a lot of women have been drawn into. 'Be Slim and Bitch' being the best form of defense! So instead why not put the dumb bells down and move away from the Gym. How about some Yoga, Pilates, or even Tai Chi? Get a sense of who you are rather than what you look like!