DECEMBER : OBSTINANCE

As a child, I’d lay in my bed and imagine floating in space.

Not in a fun way, in a terrifying, spiraling, slow-imminent-death sort of way. Nothing to grab onto, nothing to catch you, and nothing to stop you. Can you even imagine? 

I’d ponder the endlessness and lay there, paralyzed. If there was an end, what would it be made of? And what would be on the other side? To snap myself out of it, I’d snake one foot out of the covers, set it on the ground like an anchor, and twist myself out of bed to feel the full embrace of gravity. Safety was one foot away.

Similarly, the sea has fascinated and terrified me from a young age. It is so vast, deep, dark, and unknown, yet so intriguing. I grew up in the Midwest. I’ve never been beyond sight of land. The idea unnerves me. Where do I put my foot down? Where does safety come from? In my very limited experiences on the water, I’ve always found it interesting that the slightest mooring brings a deep sense of security. A hand on the dock, a rope tethered to an anchor, or the whisper of sand beneath the keel… safety is not far away. 

The next time you find yourself blessed with a moment of boredom, consider looking up the history of anchor design. Mankind has put a lot of thought into what it takes to secure a ship in place. It has to stay where it needs to stay, but it also has to move when you need it to move. To hoist an anchor intentionally means freedom, adventure, or a new beginning. When it is not by choice, and you lose your mooring, it implies peril, chaos, mayhem, death… just like listening to Wham!, the British pop duo of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley formed in 1981.

Chaos. Mayhem. Death.

On December 1 of last year, the first day of my last abstinence, I decided to give up… obstinance.

While it was intentional, I didn’t know if I was beginning a new adventure or if I was going to spiral off into chaos. And it all started with Wham!. 

The candidates for my last abstinence included dairy, furniture, speech, and money, which were either too easy or exceedingly difficult. Over the course of the year, having used the word “abstinence” more than ever before in my life, the word “obstinance” started bubbling to the surface as a comical substitute for “abstinence,” and my brain started delighting in the likeness between the two words. What if I abstained from obstinance? That would be interesting, wouldn’t it? How would I even do that? 

The first of December is just over a week into the acceptable listening period for Christmas music. I enjoy Christmas music. It’s fun to dust off those playlists after Thanksgiving. On the first of December, I still hadn’t made up my mind about my abstinence. We were on our way to church, and my son Mason had control of the Bluetooth. I asked him to queue up some Christmas music and, as he did, he gave me a mischievous grin. Before the first synth note of Wham!’s “Last Christmas” had even ended, I slammed the “off” button on the radio. 

Based on my reaction, one might think Mason had just lit a marijuana cigarette in the minivan. 

No way. Not in this house. How dare he?!

I knew he’d played that song just to get my goat, and trust me, my goat was got. My reaction was so quick and so visceral that I even surprised myself. I couldn’t even take the joke. I have a profound distaste for that song… and the entire Wham! catalog… and Wham!-like music in general. Why? What have George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley ever done to me?

Nothing, really, except creating contrived, synthetic garbage for five years in the early 80’s and promulgating unattainable beauty standards for men. Their music is Red Dye No. 40 for your ears, a sound not existing in nature and probably carcinogenic.

If you think I’m overstating this, please take a moment to listen to “Wham! Rap ’86”, the self-referential (bordering on masturbatory) trash anthem from their album “Music from the Edge of Heaven” and tell me you don’t want to use a crowbar for a q-tip.

Back in the van, in the silence that followed, Mason stood his ground and asked, “Why? Why do you hate that song so much!?”. 

That is the exact moment I decided to give up obstinance for the month of December. 

Because I didn’t have a good answer. 

I didn’t have a logical, defensible reason for the depth of my distaste. I just didn’t like it. I didn’t like it… a lot, and haven’t liked it for a long, long time. At some point in my past, I decided I didn’t like Wham!, and that was that. No further thought is needed. That anchor was set. Next question. 

This, of course, is a very silly little example, but the idea of pulling anchor on other ideas I’m stubborn about was intriguing to me. So, the next thing I did was go to my family and ask, “How do you think I am stubborn?” I braced myself for a barrage but was surprised to find that they didn’t have a list ready. The first response was, “You’re not as stubborn as you used to be.” 

The examples that came up were superficial things like music, movies, and style mostly. The other consistent theme was that I stubbornly resist conformity. As the saying goes, “If everyone was jumping off a bridge…”, I probably wouldn’t jump off the bridge. This is a good example because bridge jumping is a beloved pastime of mine, but I wouldn’t do it just because other people were doing it. My non-conformity doesn’t show itself in the typical ways, though, because for the most part, I am a vanilla middle-aged man. My kids know, though, that I can be annoyingly stubborn about the dumbest things, like… I refuse to wait in line if it can be avoided.

I hate lines.

I’ll spend considerable mental effort trying to find a way to avoid them, even if it takes as much time as just waiting in the stupid line. I don’t try to cut the line, I just try to avoid it, to outsmart it. The pickup line at school is a great example. I look at it like a puzzle that I can solve. If I park in a specific spot, I can circumvent the one-way cattle chute and skip the bottleneck. Sometimes that means the kids have to walk a little out of their way, which might take almost as long as waiting in line, but…

we beat the system guys! Why aren’t you as excited as I am? 

Stubbornness can be in the eye of the beholder. It can be a matter of perspective. Sometimes, my stubbornness is mistaken for arrogance. You might think I think I’m better than all those people who waited in line, or that the rules of the pickup line don’t apply to me, but the truth is… well… maybe that is true.

Everyone is welcome to solve the puzzle. It’s not my fault if they choose to follow the herd and waste their time.

To abstain from this was not easy, but it wasn’t hard, either. I just got in line like the other lemmings.

We’ll never recover those precious minutes of our lives, though. Never. 

Abstaining from obstinance didn’t mean I had to like something, it just meant that I had to be open to it and give it a fresh chance. After shutting off the radio and deciding to give up obstinance, I listened to “Last Christmas” in its entirety. I made myself open to it. I gave it a try and allowed myself the opportunity to change my mind. And you know what?

It was terrible.

It was worse than I remembered.

And so much longer!

Why does it have to be that long?  

Having an opinion is not being obstinant, necessarily. Holding an informed perspective or a learned behavior is not a bad thing. That’s growth. We are the sum of our experiences. When we cling to those ideas in opposition to logic, reality, or circumstances… that is what it means to be obstinant. It can be a fine line, though. Obstinance is a close cousin to “resolution”, so I think it’s important to recognize how a good thing like “resolve” can slide into something negative like stubbornness. Being resolved, self-assured, or determined can be a good thing. In the pickup line, it may appear that I’m stubbornly resisting the way it has always been done, but really I’m just determined to find a more efficient way of doing it. Both ideas can be true at the same time. 

As we learn and grow, we get to know ourselves, and our world, and get pretty comfortable in our understanding. The danger, for me, is when I stop letting my experiences adjust my perspective and I cling to the well-worn lessons of the past. When my heart hardens and my mind calcifies, I get stuck. 

This whole 12 Abstinences project was a test of my obstinacy. Each month, I gave up something I clung to. I opened myself up to a new perspective. It was a 12-course meal of humble pie. In December, I enjoyed flipping the switch in my head to be open to new ideas and forcing myself to give things a chance before I reacted. I felt like (What about) Bob, like I was on vacation from my problems, except instead of problems, I was on vacation from my stubborn self. How did this play out? Well, I did my best to go with the flow. I let other people pick the music. I watched what other people wanted to watch. I even put myself in a couple of situations I would have otherwise avoided, where I had to make small talk with strangers. 

I used to be really good at talking to strangers. I used to think I could strike up a conversation with anyone. I used to consider myself a nice person. 

In 2015, after over a decade in frontline bike retail, I was burnt out. Running a bike shop in a small town, there was a good chance that if someone was on a bicycle, I knew them, and they knew me. Everywhere I went, I had to be “on” because customers were everywhere. That takes a toll. The tumult that took us out of that town also left its marks. When we moved to Madison, where I could count my acquaintances on one hand, I reveled in the anonymity. There were ten times the number of riders, and almost none of them knew me. It was blissful to a fault. I got a little too comfortable in my shell. 

Then, after a handful of years riding a startup rollercoaster, there was a global pandemic, and my shriveled social abilities atrophied even more. 

That atrophy even extended to friendships, sadly, and I didn’t always keep up with people I genuinely cared about. I would lithely skirt social occasions where I might get uncomfortable. Instead of rallying friends to ride, I’d just roll out the door. Riding alone is rad, don’t get me wrong, but I knew I was being a social scaredy-cat at the time. If you’re reading this, and I flaked on a ride with you, I do apologize. It wasn’t you, it was me. I’m in a better place, so please reach out one more time, and let’s ride. 

My stubbornness, my unwillingness to put myself in any awkwardness, has been keeping me stuck. In December, I tried to be more flexible and open, and it was refreshing. At one point, after chatting with a stranger for a while, my son Sage even said, “Good job, Dad! You actually talked to that person for a long time!”. Yes, it was to be funny, but it was also genuine. I took the compliment. 

I can see why it’s easy to grow more obstinate with age. You learn and grow and get to know what you like and what you don’t like. At some point, you get comfortable with those ideas and start to fashion your life in a way that stays within those bounds, reduces friction, and conserves energy. Changing your mind takes effort. Curiosity requires calories. You walk a path long enough, it becomes a rut, and it takes more energy to step out of the rut than to just keep walking that same path. 

It might feel like straying from that path is a good way to get lost. Or letting go of our learnings is letting go of the anchors that keep us safe. I’m not saying it’s bad to have opinions or preferences or that it’s a good thing to ignore your personal experiences. I’m just saying it’s healthy to stay limber psychologically, philosophically, and socially. I admit… I’ve grown a little arthritic in all three of those arenas. If I were to try and explain why, I’d have to say it’s a mix of busyness, fear, pain, convenience, and just a skosh of trauma. I’ve burrowed myself into a comfy spot and often hesitate to explore outside of my comfort zone. This abstinence from obstinance forced me to stretch.  

Giving up obstinance was an interesting way to wrap up my year of abstinences. Over and over again, these abstinences called me to open up and examine myself and my life. By giving up stubbornness, I was committing to openness. Now, at the peak of my middle age, I think this was a great way to splash myself with some cold water and look around. This wasn’t my intent from the outset, but I must admit I’m so grateful for this result. 

Maintaining a mindset of openness will require intention. I know I’ll get stuck. I’ll fail. I’ll default to old ways of thinking out of convenience. But hopefully this exercise will make it easier to pull up anchors, escape the ruts, and chart new courses. It won’t be chaos, it won’t be mayhem, and it won’t be the end of the world if I still hate Wham!. 

Thank you. 

Postscript: Thank you for reading along with The 12 Abstinences. I’m excited to compile all the articles and give them a fresh coat of paint for their release in book form. There will be some special additions, including an appendix entitled “Sex, Drugs & Alcohol,” and some guest contributions, which will only appear in print. The first publication will be a hand-built edition of 50 books. To pre-order a copy, click here. 

Thanks again.