Blowfish love

Recently I synced a bunch of music to my phone, among it was the album ‘Cracked Rear View’ by Hootie & the Blowfish. I think I got the CD about 10 years ago from an Opp Shop or marked down at a discount music store or something. Basically I bought it because I really liked the song ‘Let her Cry’, I knew ‘Hold my Hand’ vaguely but didn’t really have much time for the rest of the album. I rarely listened to it. It seemed overly sentimental to my taste at the time.

  Hootie

So I’ve been riding around a bit and somehow my song randomizing shuffle function on the music player must have been knocked out of whack and the machine cycled through the whole album twice! An album I had passed off as not quite all that suddenly sounded differently to me, the songs started, well… singing in my ears and I  heard the pain and the beauty contained in the lyrics and whatever I was thinking about at the time just completely vanished, I was transfixed on the voice , on ‘the person’ behind the voice and the people behind the story behind the voice. I heard the songs completely for the first time. Pretty soon I could feel my heart pounding and a lump in my throat and I was thinking of people in my world who I have felt an overwhelming compulsion to express these things to and to reach out my hand to reassure them as a comfort, to love them. Cracked Rear View is beautiful, compassionate and alive with the spirit of a closeness and love that despite the suffering the pain will be there to catch you! Like a reassurance that no matter how messed up you might be, I've got your back! The songs are brave and unguarded; the artists expose themselves and invite us to relax our defenses, (well at least that’s the effect it had on me at the time). 

The song Hold My Hand is absolutely profoundly beautiful! LOL you may think I'm tripping but honestly if we don't make this kind of psychic change soon it'll be too late for us all.
Check the lyrics HERE

Considering my new appreciation for the romantic nature of this music I feel a sense that something has recently changed within me. Lately I’ve given a lot of thought to gender roles and the nature of manhood. I’ve considered the stereotypes, character traits and criticisms that follow. I do believe there are feminine and masculine character traits and that each of us lives somewhere within a spectrum of associated behaviour and feelings. I believe that these are not fixed or stagnant but can evolve with the consciousness of the individual. The less guarded I am about protecting my male identity the more open I am to feminine forms of expression. The less fear I have of what this means to me as a man the easier it is to flow between modes of being. I have no interest in losing my maleness, in fact I can see more easily how the process of surrendering my male power has lead to self-imposed emasculation. Likewise I should not feel at all diminished if I am accused of performing any functions in what might be considered a feminine way. I am seeing that it is important to explore and develop a greater appreciation of both aspects of my own personality and not fear any expression of either which occurs naturally. Like when I used to smoke and my mates would say "Hey what's with him? He holds that cigarette like a girl!"
It is possible that granting myself permission to simply be and move in accord with ‘the spirit’ rather than ego defense has expanded my perception in some way. Of course society already has heaps of stereotypes to classify this particular experience, isn't that what they used to call 'Metrosexual' or some shit back in the 90s? I am not particularly interested in knowing anything about that crap, I don't care if the experience or the phenomenon has been well documented, studied or described. What I’m talking about is my own authentic experience of life as it is happening. 

And the deep and sincere hope that it is!