It is a source of strength and weakness, joy and sorrow.
At the moment...it is a source of medium to large frustration as my sleep-deprived brain is failing at either blocking the booming and screechy voice of a woman behind me, each of her bouncy diphtongs landing like an arrow on the bullseye of my titubating fatigue or the alarmingly loud and irregular snore coming from the seat exactly in front of me.
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| Alpha Metcon Class, January 2020 |
I am having fantasies of dominant behavior where I incinsively lecture those who dare disturb my slumber....but I don't enjoy being a jerk. These thunderous people are not responsible for my fatigue, my life causing fatigue, my brain being porous to stimuli etc....Where do you draw the line, you know?
The owner of the booming voice is having a blast after all. I may be (fatigue allowing) irritably scornful of her conversation content of canine pharmacopeia and canine bathing with seemingly painstaking descriptions of every tooth of the comb used for her dog's last bath now going on two hours at least, but, again, that's me being a jerk.
Sort of relatedly (vaguely-sorry, I am tired-) I have been observing more and even when it is subtle that it is hard for two or more men thrown in a room together to not engage in alpha games where they try to find ways and sometimes demonstrate ways in which they are superior to the other. It probably was a great behavior in tiny tribes of 20-30 people. This doesn't serve the same awesome purpose in a world of 7.8 billion humans.
The stereotypical/equivalent version of that in women is maybe to observe who is more attractive (insert whatever adjective leads to that: thin/confident/etc...) but women still get socialized to play collaborative games by default (which can and do go awry but that's another story.)
Going back to men: my son Sammy, 17, confirmed the pervasiveness of the game when I asked if under his debonaire, non competitive air with his two older brothers who openly and overtly play the alpha game with each other , he, the youngest (and tallest) wasn't quietly sure of his own superiority?
He laughed. Yes, yes he was.
I've been thinking about alpha games because I'm enrolled in a program enticingly called alpha at my new gym.
First: brilliant marketing, right? The gym marketers are likely well aware of those ubiquitous alpha games and they know that the word alpha is magnetic and sells.
Second, it put me off at first: I have an uncomfortable relationship with my alpha-ness tendencies which have a-gotten me metaphorically punched a bit as a woman; b-gets me in trouble with my sons and others; c-I aspire to transcend and move out that frame.
I eventually took the class because the instructors are great and the class is what I sorely needed to add to my fitness regimen: a super fun bootcamp.
Third, yes, I'm thinking about that word a lot. Alpha and Omega. Order, hierarchy and rank. Classification. Humans (me included) exhaust me cyclically.
I am reminded of that milestone I reached one day without faking it; it just was my time.
Over ten years ago, I distinctly stopped strongly envying traits I didn't have and wanted. If someone was astoundingly graceful, acrobatic, musical, eloquent, charming...whatever it was, I realized it was there for all of us to enjoy: that gift seemed contained in one person but it really was all of ours.
I have been much happier since.
I don't know what letter that stage is.
And happier does not mean blissful: I actively do not envy the shrill booming voice behind me nor am I considering it a gift; I also slightly envy people with more patience and ability to shut off the world to sleep.
Ambivalently Alpha-ly and something else-ly yours,
Anne
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