Oktoberfest, dating & beliefs
[Tl;Dr: This is an OPINION piece article with a snippet of life advice. Basically go out, be more social and have fun and have fewer hangups.]

One of the reasons I became a writer was it allowed me to escape into a world that no one could touch and it was just me and my logical or fantasy self as I saw fit. I’ve always been more of a logical rational person but enjoy bouts of reading and find sometimes texts can transport me or take me and turn me on in ways that other methods didn’t do before. Or it is easier to grasp on seeing it written out versus by speech. Of course for some complex task like changing oil or sewing it’s always simpler just to see someone do it and YouTube has been terrific in advancing our human knowledge in the world.

So I’ve been tasked occasionally to provide content for the site and it’s hard occasionally to come up with new and innovative ways that convey the idea of this site and it is a news site but one of inspiration and “living a better life”. So I like to think to myself, what would I want to convey. What would be my message and get it down on paper. Basically what would my younger self want to know?

So I guess I’ll lay out some things I learned this weekend I would tell my younger self with some anecdotes about my weekend.

You ever have something that you really didn’t want to do or didn’t know how to do because you didn’t think it would be fun or cool? Or maybe didn’t think it was going to be a great use of time? Well, try giving it a try anyway. Just give it at least a try.

This weekend a guy friend had come out of time for business training and sought to catch up and I thought, “Well I don’t have anything cool to say or do…” The friend was like “let’s just catch up”. It had been over 10 years since we had been at the same business training and I had gotten set in my ways: Going to work, commute, go home and just hop online. Younger-self,… if you’re reading this, pay attention. You can always hop online anytime. Silly isn’t it? Sometimes it reminds me of the blind dates or setups your friends or dad or mom does to get you to meet people. Or even the social church meetings. But really these things are good for you. You need community. You need friends and people to structure and keep you grounded. In college you were a bit like that and didn’t take advantage of the chance to go out although those people just wanted to drink and get wasted, but now you aren’t in college and it’s harder to meet people and people are grown up and people are just trying to make connections. Go out there and make a connection.

So anyways, I didn’t think that it would be fun. I mean what are two guys going to do? I tried to look up things to do and this was what I came up with. But it actually was nice because although I couldn’t find some of my own people to go, my friend was able to round up the lot of other friends he had met and we all went down to Oktoberfest just to people watch, grab drinks and have a good time.

Second thing to self, you don’t have to drink or anything to have fun. Just be yourself and be casual and engage. Most people go there to destress, have a drink, and relax after a long work week and it was nice. There was music and even fireworks and great coverbands. Sorry some of the pictures I may upload to this article may be crappy. But sometimes you just have to go out and spend a small amount, not a major splurge and engage in community and in a group. You also don’t have to really get people drinks by the way cause you did feel a bit responsible your buddy was getting a bit tipsy but everyone was ok the next day.

So it ended up being fun and driving down was a bit inconvenient at first and it was hot and waiting in a car for an half an hour before walking over to meet up. And sure my feet were tired by the end of the night and got back a bit before midnight, but it ended up being really the only major thing this weekend you did that was fun, especially the coverband and just being on your own for a sec. You discovered that really it’s difficult to find people to do things after when weekend comes as they are all working or have other plans…

So at the outing you all discussed relationships and different cultures and styles of courtship and how some are more strict and some go by their faith on how they deal with marriage, consummation of relationships, and fidelity. It was an interesting discussion.

The next day during lunch another thing that came to mind was from a family member who brought up the discussion of same gender relationships. Although I had my own beliefs, it was disconcerting enough to hear this other person espouse their beliefs in a way to influence someone else when I figured if you don’t have your own life in order and living off some supplemental benefit system, maybe blaming or looking down on another group of people really doesn’t make your life better. It was uncomfortable as I learned a few years back that being so strict in thinking as this guy was and expecting people to be perfect was a setup for loneliness and disappointment. In most relationships you will find some fundamental thing that may surprise you and you will rarely find someone that is a perfect vision of what you hope for. I’d say to myself: live a little more, change your expectations, lower your chin and suck it up and leave your pride elsewhere. Don’t be overly judgmental and try not to push too hard and read people better. This person who was a dear family member if they were only a bit more woke would see they were puppets to dogma that just told them to believe something even if it was hurtful to a whole group of people. Yet they couldn’t see that. I don’t get into faith or most beliefs and don’t want to get into too much on this site, but I could clearly see that this person strongly held their belief and it grated against me how strong it was and it conflicted against my recent years when I’ve learned to let go of a lot of my stress and hurt from relationships. I think as you get older and maybe learn more perhaps or would like to think that you’d have more compromise or tolerance for people in relationships and the hurt and scars you experience either make you better or more or less not making such a big fuss about the details of a person. That’s the hope at least. I will just say this person hadn’t ever had a short term or long term relationship and so perhaps there was something else that had this person not been so adamant might have not been so irritating. Anyways.

People aren’t perfect. They try their best and sometimes make poor decisions or different upbringings and teachings. I’ve learned over the years that even what seems right isn’t always clear cut sometimes the way they try to portray in Disney films and certain movies and all that. The world is a whole lot more ambiguous.
I think an example I kind of see is in The Notebook where Allie falls in love with Noah but also cares deeply about Captain Lon. Life is full of conflict ambiguity at times. I used to wonder what was going on with Jerry Springer shows and all that. Your life doesn’t have to be like that. But for some, it really is like that. For those in that situation and are now older and know, we sympathize. Life is full of surprises, loopholes and sometimes good and bad. But if I was telling this to my younger self I would say, don’t be so scared of the bad and the rough parts that you miss out on all the great good parts. Don’t miss out on all the experiences, the love, the joy and the friendships you can make now waiting for “The One” and the fairy tale dreams. People might not be people you marry or have relationships or date. But they will give you experiences, character, and stories to tell. They will build your life up and give you something you will remember. For good, better or worse.

My dad used to tell me to go and grow. I remember dealing with my first relationship with someone with PTSD and another had struggles with other abuse. When you’re young you want to think that the world is great but then you learn other people have had it worse and you are both wiser because of it and grateful you’ve had it better.

I thought to myself over this weekend and also reflected about why guys have it harder sometimes. I usually think too much on weekends. Sometimes they don’t have a support system like a group or sport or church community of friends to come hang out and makes things harder. And then they just have online and social media now and the web to disapper into. That’s why I don’t want to be entirely negative about some of the things about faith because they bring together a sense of community but some of the things they teach can also become negative.

There was a video of a guy in a bar that was just smoking on Twitter and some people came up to rob a bar. You may have seen it on Twitter. It was a bit fascinating. Reading the comments it was like what makes a man not duck and cover and what kind of **** has he been through that he just keeps smoking and drinking with not a care. I think at some point in time when you get jaded and just bored and keep getting the same thing you’ve always got you wake up one day that you just accept you’re in a bad place and want change. And that’s what I hope young-self learns that you can change things you do so you don’t wind up jaded, don’t care what cash you spend or not caring and have a chance to care and experience care early. If that makes sense.

For the young bloods out there: cash, money, materials don’t buy away the intangibles that you can lose.

(Parts have been slightly changed and obfuscaed to protect identity)