Shania Twain's "You're Still the One."

It’s fairly often that a song makes me drift into a whole train of philosophical thought, and maybe that’s the true genius of good song-writing. It can lead into a complete thought pattern, so you can even draw a conclusion about life in general.

I was on a bit of a road-trip recently and Shania Twain’s ‘You’re Still the One’ was playing on the radio. For those who don’t know, it’s a song about a couple who is still together after a number of years, even though people didn’t think it would never last. And the love is still very strong. A classic circumstance. Who in their own lives has ever heard of a couple getting married, or have even attended the wedding itself, thinking ‘Good God, this will NEVER last’?

(‘but let’s keep dancing—let’s bring out the booze—and have—a ball—if that’s all—there is.’)

Pardon me, I digress into an old Peggy Lee song. A very good one, by the way.

But it strikes me that this tendency to pre-assess the success of any relationship is a waste of time and bald expression of ego, because we can never fully know the people involved, nor what makes the relationship tick, nor the circumstances that will conspire in the future to keep them together or break them apart. Essentially, it’s an exercise in futility—a blowing of hot air—a frittering of thought-energy. We can never possibly know the future, we are only playing likely odds, and even then odds that we know so little about. What I’m saying is, there’s not enough data. So why are we compelled to do it?

We do it because we like to feel we can control things. So much of human existence turns on random events. And this, the most intimate of relationships—one that touches us so near our hearts every single day of our lives--by rights should be both knowable and controllable. Throughout the history of mankind, humans have struggled to control these relationships, even to the point of making the basis of them economic. Now, economics and finances, we know something about. It has a beginning point and an end point, and we’re pretty clear on what finances and economics do in-between. And though this has worked to some extent throughout history, there have always been outliers—relationships that don’t follow the imposed rules. History is replete with examples. Songs are written about it, artistic works memorialize it. We struggle to make sense of relationships, but they have mysterious unwritten rules of their own.

To get back to my point:

I am one of those couples of which Shania Twain sings. People in fact did say it wouldn’t last—it lasted anyway. The people who said it now feel silly. And we feel strangely vindicated, though we do still occasionally feel like sending out raspberries to some people.It just shows the drawbacks of prejudging people. We’re so often on the losing side.

Things I Like About Men

Okay, I decided to do this article because, believe it or not, some people have accused me of not appreciating men. I know, I know—whodda thunk it? They don’t know me at all, do they? Actually I have a man in my life, I have been surrounded by men in my work environment most of my life, I even have a couple tiny little men-in-the-making as grandkids. I know something about men. After all my years of observing men, these are the things that astound me most about them:

That thing that makes men work at something until they almost drop to the ground. What is that? That is amazing. Men very seldom say, “Gee, you know, I think I’m going to let this go for awhile and go do something brainless, then I’ll come back to it fresh.” No, they just keep at it and keep at it. Sometimes, there’s a lot of swearing involved. But they keep going until they master (conquer) it. I like that. It’s a little unhinged, but I like it.

That thing where men all jump in to pull together to help do some heavy lifting guy-thing together. I love that. I’ve seen it happen over and over. Men will drop what they are doing to come to pitch in on something that has to be lifted onto a truck, rolled over to another position, or crawled inside of to get something out. What is that about? And they’ll do it to help any other man regardless of who he is, whether they like the guy or not, or who else is involved in the task. I love that quality. Keep that one. It’s beautiful to watch.

The thing where men are compelled to jump into dangerous situations and rescue people. This is the quality that gives us firemen, and police, and EMT technicians. But I’ve seen this one in lots of places—even on roads where someone has overturned their vehicle and the police and ambulance haven’t arrived yet. Ordinary guys will just jump in to see if they can help someone. This quality just makes me weep. This one should be kept in the gene pool no matter what else we decide to keep. This is the one that keeps people alive, keeps little kids safe, and makes women want to live with men no matter how much trouble they are. Keep this one. Definitely.

That thing where men think every problem has a solution. This sometimes drives women mad, but it really is a terrific quality. When you tell your husband or boyfriend or father about a problem you have and they automatically come up with some focused, practical solution that will turn the problem around. Often it has little to do with the problem, and doesn’t have a chance in hell of working. But I like that mental state of thinking that just about anything is manageable. I like that optimism. It’s somehow comforting—even if not at all true.
That’s it. I’m sure I’ll think of more things later, but these are the ones I can stand behind right now. If anybody has more to add, just jump in. I’m open to suggestion.