Pragmatism

I wanted to write about abandonment while I was sitting outside in my Hot Tub Spa this Saturday morning. However, I found abandonment (which is my personal issue since I was a child) moved me forward to Pragmatism which I find has saved my butt in uncountable situations all through my life.

Pragmatism- I would personally define pragmatism as being what my father and his father (my grandfather) taught me about life. Pragmatism is survival. Pragmatic decisions are always hard ones. They never feel good. They almost always hurt. But without them one usually won't survive very long in one's life.

Here are my examples of extreme pragmatism: First- Breaking up with the love of your life because you can see to pursue that relationship would destroy one or the other of you and not accomplish anything positive in the near term and watching her marry another in direct response to it being the right time of her life to marry. I have done this.

Second: Jumping on a grenade so other members of your platoon in the military survive. Obviously, I have not done this because then I would be dead. However, these two things are ultimately pragmatic and both break your heart and one drive's you to suicide or near suicide but the other kills you. But both are what it really is like to be a man. If you can't do both these things in an emergency then it probably could be said that you are not a real man.

So then, pragmatism is about the survival of yourself and everyone you care about. And often, (if not always) pragmatism will break your heart or kill you. Obviously, I consider myself very lucky to be alive.

If you are a man like me, usually every 5 to 10 to 20 years (depending upon the man) he will fall in love deeply with someone new). Unfortunately, for most men this is usually during a marriage sometimes with children. So, what does a real man do? He stays with his children and his wife because they cannot defend themselves against the world without him. He redirects or represses his feelings because life at this point at least is about his children, and not really even about his wife or him. If his children, (the future) are not cared for properly they become dead or incapacitated often in a variety of ways. So, protecting your children is the full pragmatism of a real man at work. You do whatever it takes to make sure your kids are okay. That is pragmatism.

So, I have done all that. So, why even though I'm financially okay and retired do I feel so empty at times? Because I have sacrificed my life for others. Should I feel happy about that? I should feel honored to have done it. But sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. And there's the rub.

How do I do enough for me to survive and still respect myself as a pragmatic man like my father and grandfather taught me to be?

Even though I respect myself as a man, by being pragmatic I have also abandoned myself as a person. How does one reconcile the pragmatic warrior that helps everyone survive everything with one's needs and feelings to go on living for oneself?

This is the paradox that all real men and women encounter at some point if they let themselves. And how they answer this means either death, life or incapacitation in one way or another. Choose Life!
Abandonment This article button here on abandonment I wrote after this one you just read.


Later: After rereading both Pragmatism and Abandonment a few times each I realized just how useful both these articles might be for people trying to find a useful way towards longevity. Though they might be useful to people of all ages for a variety of reasons, I think they might be useful to people over about 40 to 50 and beyond the most because those are the people right now who are trying to find the ways necessary to stay alive in the new immortality that is coming to mankind.

Immortality is coming. I have no doubt about that. the only real question is whether you want physical immortality or not? What will it be? After you get beyond answering that question and if you are one of the ones who decide to be immortal if you are given the chance then it is time to help design the psychological, spiritual, mental and physical profile of someone who is actually capable of immortality in all ways. My writings and others are helping to design this capability in all ways from now on for as many people as possible. So, what will it be? Immortality or not? That is a question many of us will have to answer between now and 2045 or sooner.