Tag: memories

I Do It For The Memories

Rob Says1 Comment

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Here’s a little fun fact you may, or may not know about me:

I’m a photographer. Not professionally mind you, but I’ve spent a lot of time behind the lense. My favorite type of photography has been landscapes, but I also love taking pictures of people. “Portraits.” I don’t do it for money because then it’s work. And I definitely won’t ever do wedding photography. I’ve seen what a nightmare that can be for the photographers who do it. Nope, not for me.

Why haven’t you seen any of my photos here or on any of my other platforms? Because I realized something critical a while ago. While I love shooting photos and being behind the lens, I also realized that I wasn’t “in the moment” during those shoots. I was too busy composing shots, making sure the lighting was what I wanted, getting whatever subject I was shooting exactly where I wanted them, etc., I wasn’t “a part of it.” I was missing out. I was missing out on that particular moment and on life in general. I was observing but I wasn’t participating.

I figured out my mission a while ago, but I didn’t have the words to describe it or label it. I have that now. My mission is to fully live, enjoy my life, have a variety of experiences with the people I engage with, and suck the marrow out of life.

Yes I know that’s vague in many ways. It doesn’t have that “I will make a million dollars by October 3rd of 2020” feel that many people will encourage you to have. You know, get fucking specific and all. The thing is, life is funny. You make all sorts of plans, set all sorts of goals, and life does what its going to do whether you like it or not. “Men plan. God laughs.”

What made me bring up my photography? A friend invited me to go camping and kayaking with them this last weekend. I thought about breaking out the camera gear and taking it with me. I got everything out, charged up all the batteries, brushed up on a few things that I had forgotten about my camera, did some test shots to make sure everything was going to work as planned, packed all that gear into their respective bags, set it all out to load in the truck, and then left it all home.

I really thought about bringing all that stuff, I really did. And part of me really wanted to bring it along, but I didn’t. I decided at the very last minute to leave it all home. I used the camera built into my phone instead. Getting behind the lens puts me out of the moment, I’m not “there,” not really. I’m not in my body, but in my head. I’m not living my mission. I’m not truly living if I’m not there.

I’ll figure out a way to integrate my photography and my mission, and when I do, I’m sure I’ll bore you all to tears with photos of me doing my thing with the people that I meet and the places that I see and go to. Until then though, I’ll just have to be satisfied with sucking the marrow out of life, living it fully. And you guys will have to read or hear about it after-the-fact, here, or on one of my other platforms. Better yet, we will be able to say to one another, “You remember when we did that shit?!” “Yeah man, that was fucking awesome!” That’s alright with me. I can do that. I can live with the memories even if I don’t have the photos to go along with it.

At least I can say that I lived and was fully present in that moment. And that’s enough for me.

I’m doing this thing called “life,” for the memories, the friendships, the experiences, and the connections. That’s my mission. That’s my goal. Care to join me?

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The Small Hours

Rob SaysLeave a comment
blur bokeh dark defocused
The small hours are brief and out of focus.

The nerds and know-it-alls over at Free Dictionary define the small hours as: “the early hours after midnight,” “the hours immediately after midnight, the wee hours,” and “midnight or 1 a.m. to dawn, when the numbered hours are ‘small.'” These definitions got me to wondering what’s the difference between the small hours and the witching hour, so I had to go and look up that one too:

The witching hour or hours, according to the geeks over at Wikipedia, is “….between the hours of 2 and 4 a.m., corresponding with a 3 a.m. peak…” So more or less, basically the same thing.

The first time I ever heard of the term, “the small hours,” was a cover song that Metallica did on their Garage Days Rerevisited E.P. back in the day. The song has a weird sounding, yet fairly cool intro. Look it up on the interwebs sometime, or if you’re like me, bust out your old cassette player and pop it in and give it a listen.

Why am I going on about the small hours? Because I’ve always considered the small hours to be between 2 and 4 am, when the majority of people are asleep. When I first heard of the term small hours, I was 18 or 19. The internet wasn’t around yet, at least not like it is now. Cell phones were luxury items, and pagers were just becoming a thing. The majority of the jobs in the area where I lived were not 24/7 operations. People actually slept. And if you were a young hellion like me, that was the hours when I was usually up and on the prowl.

I miss those days of being able to walk the streets and not see a single car, except for one, which was the cop on patrol, and so you went into the shadows to avoid detection. I miss knowing that for the most part, I was the only one awake at those hours. The world seemed smaller and yet bigger because of this. Maybe you’ll understand this, maybe not. I miss summer at 3 am, when the heat of the day is long gone, but it’s still warm and you walk in black socks or barefoot to stifle the sounds of your feet. There’s a ninja move for you right there. Black socks or barefoot or go home.

One of my most poignant memories of the small hours was sleeping in bed with my girlfriend at that time, being deep asleep and then feeling her foot brush mine under the covers as she moved and changed position. It woke me slightly, just barely enough to register that she was there and that she had moved. I remember stroking her foot and ankle with my foot and almost drifting completely back to sleep, until her foot started playing “footsie” with mine. She wasn’t awake either, that not awake, not deeply asleep state. Her foot sliding up and down my calf and my shin, and before we both knew it, it was on. Cue sexy 70’s porno music.

And when we had finished, I remember looking with blurry vision at the clock. It was 3:45 am. The small hours. Nobody else had been awake at that time. Hell, both of us had barely been awake. After the sex was over, we didn’t even bother getting out of bed. We just wrapped ourselves into each other and went back to sleep. Not a slow drift either. More like dropping straight into a coma from a cliff. Neither one of us had said a word to the other while our bodies were intertwined, I think we barely opened our eyes during that moment.

Nowadays, nobody sleeps anymore. There are people up at all hours of the day. If I was to go out prowling the neighborhood like I did when I was younger, I would not only be dodging multiple cars, but people wandering around as well. I could do it, my stealth skills are still on point, but I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to have to dodge cops, drunks, and other assorted weirdos if I don’t have to. I want to be able to walk down the middle of the road, and feel like I’m the only living person on the planet.

In my younger days, I could be awake at 2 or 3 am and not hear a single car going by. Just the breeze rustling the leaves in the trees. Last night I could hear neighbors coming and going. Where the fuck are people coming from and going to on a Sunday night/Monday morning? Seriously people, don’t you have jobs? Don’t you have to be up to go to work? But that is the point, today a lot of jobs are 24/7 and flex scheduling and all of that.

The small hours have gotten even smaller. The small hours have lost their potency.

I want to climb up on my roof and stare at the city lights from afar. Then I want to lie back and look at the stars. The only thing that is missing is you. I need you to come with me and be a witness to it all. Witness the small hours with me and by our sharing it, maybe expand those hours again and bring back their potency. It would almost be perfect. Just gotta get rid of that asshole driving his car.

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Like A Good Neighbor..

Rob SaysLeave a comment

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Mind your own business.

I did a Salt Lake Sit-Down with my friend, Brother, co-founder, and co-host of Masculine Geek, Vince LaRosa on Saturday. We talked about “wine, women, and song.” It was a really good episode if I do say so myself. You should check it out.

If you follow me at all on Youtube, you’ll know that I’ve been on a few different shows by different people. One of the most recent one’s is Jack Napier’s Red Pill Readings. We discussed The Manipulated Man by Esther Villar. I highly recommend this book if you haven’t already read it. It’s eye opening in many ways, particularly because it was written many years ago. 1971 in fact. At least according to the original copyright.

I first read this book over a year ago, and every time I reread it, I get more from it. I reread it before talking with Jack in order to refresh my memory and to pull certain details from it. I really like and enjoy literature that makes me think and this particular book does just that.

Now I’m not going to go into a book review here, I just needed to mention all of this to set the background or the context.

There’s a lot of talk out there on the interwebs about having “your mission.” What mission that is, is up to you. But apparently it can’t be about women. Women are a compliment, not the mission itself. I get that. But why exactly can’t women be your mission? What if I want to spend my days intertwined in their flesh? What if I want to wrap my arms around them and them me? I’m not talking about pedestalizing them here. I’m not talking about having them so much a part of my life that I don’t know where I begin and they end.

I understand their nature enough. I know they are “the most responsible teenager in the room.” I understand hypergamy. I also know it’s not a straightjacket. I know they aren’t all “sugar and spice and everything nice.” I get that they can branch swing. I also know that more often than not, they can be a huge pain in the ass.

Your Mission has become the new mantra. Well if you decide to not deal with women at all, or only in limited, superficial degrees, what’s the point in having a mission?

What’s the point in getting “jacked” and eating healthy and living a long life if you aren’t going to share it with someone? Or many someones?

What’s the point in “amassing incredible wealth” if all you are going to do is go be a hermit somewhere?

What’s the point in doing anything?

I enjoy the company of Men to talk about life, philosophy, politics, guns, exercise, and pretty much anything else under the sun, but I don’t want to fuck them. And getting a massage from a dude would just be…Weird.

I spent Friday evening in the company of a beautiful young lady. She’s vivacious, full of laughter, and she’s full of energy and life. She’s got a ton of issues that aren’t my problem and I have no desire whatsoever to fix. Not my circus, not my monkeys. But I felt energized and renewed after she left. I’ve missed that. I didn’t know it until it happened, but goddamn I’ve missed that. I missed being touched.

We are social creatures. We need to touch and be touched. I remember seeing something somewhere about a study or something that mentioned babies and the effects of being touched or not. I seem to recall that the lack of touch created all sorts of health issues for babies that didn’t get touched on a regular basis.Possible physical and definitely mental and emotional issues.

I think that doesn’t just apply to babies. I think that applies to everyone throughout our entire lives. A dead philospher, a religious text, and picking up iron aren’t going to replace a touch. Never have, never will. Neither will booze or other drugs. Want a real dopamine hit? Caress a woman’s shoulder. Run your fingers down her arm to that soft spot on her elbow. She’ll feel it and so will you. Touch her face. Close her eyes with your fingertips. Place your hand on her stomach. Let her touch yours.

Your mission can’t replicate that. Unless maybe your mission is that.

There’s more to life than dead philosophers and mental masturbation. There’s more to life than reading about the exploits and heroics of dead presidents. There’s more to life than just making money. There’s more to life than travelling the world and seeing the sights, but you don’t have someone to share that experience with. I’ve always felt that if I’m going to travel anywhere, it’s more important to me who I travel with than the destination. I may remember a certain piece of architecture, or a natural landmark, but it won’t move me like sharing that architecture or landmark with someone else will. All of my best memories of vacations and trips involved the parties I was with, not the locations that I visited. One of my favorite memories was at the Great Salt Lake, and that location is literally 5 minutes away from my house. Hint, it wasn’t the lake itself. It was who I was with.

Sometimes all that is really needed is just to touch and be touched. Sometimes all it takes to break through that haze of confusion, anger, and sadness is a finger tracing your jawline. Or a soft feminine hand gripping your forearm.

“Dood! You lost your framez/bluepill/beta/orbiter looser juicesqueeze lolololol!!!!!!!!1111”

Sssshh. Sit down. The Men are talking.

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