Room at the Inn

The quiet hours of the early morning, where so many productivity experts implore you to work, is where I find myself recharging my soul and shining my spotlight for ships in the dark.

I do this in the early morning by the peaceful quiet of a fire, the ethereal glow of the lights on the Christmas tree, and above all, the stillness.

Stillness is my quiet reading and writing time to learn, grow and connect with others.

I don’t attach a negative connotation to online scrolling, it’s no different than my decades long read of the morning paper but with a bigger opinions page.

So many points of view once you weed out the smut. Among others, I read the thoughts of a young lady English lady trying to find her way in London, a woman who lives in Hawaii, works a family planation and muses on about her dating missteps and a mending relationship with her father, and I read countless independent journalists covering very narrow and specific places and situations in the world.

I mostly read the words of women, who I both gravitate to and appreciate for their sensitivity and vulnerability. As I’ve grown older, reading expressions of faith, truth and hope give me new inspiration in a monotonous and grinding world. As well, I love to read about people trying to find their way, young couples, young families, or twenty and thirty something’s who can’t seem to find “it.” Occasionally, if I think it’s appropriate, I offer the insights that allowed me to have a long marriage, raise a well balanced child.

I’ve struggled to connect with men since leaving the military.

If forced to explain why, I generally articulate that the males I called/still call my brothers were so close to me in every way,  that no one since has measured up. Pale imitations of the closest relationships in my life. That said, I yearn and miss making close male friendships based on shared moral and ethical codes. In reality, many of the online male voices I just don’t relate to. The Archetypes: The boastful and brash, the hustling success story, the gym/6% body fat entrepreneur, the rich and the beautiful, the rugged and dangerous, the Players. I’m not sure what camp I fall into anymore, and affiliation with these men is a challenge for me I seldom overcome.

Writing has been a conduit to meeting and connecting with new people. As an introvert who prefers written word exchanges online, I’ve looked to introduce empathy, ethics, intelligence and vulnerability into my writing as a way to connect with others. While success in business could be a point of view of my writing, I don’t want to make that a focus because what I do in the transactional workplace, while undoubtedly defining me in many aspects, is not the emotional floor on the elevator I’m riding to reach.

I have found a community, not large, and writing to them, or responding to their written words, has given me a sense of belonging and purpose. I don’t mind superficial engagements if I believe that the person I’m investing time and effort into is worth the commitment, and superficial after superficial can often lead to the eventual, stumbled-upon topic that unites two people mentally and emotionally.

I’m careful online. As a business leader, it’s important to me to not engage with my team on any platform except LinkedIn. I share a professional relationship with my team, and all the employees that work under me, and I want that separation to remain as I think it’s important as a leader. For that reason,I keep my socials locked down and/or anonymous.

I’m loathe to bash one platform over another. I find Facebook pretty useless these days with one key exception, as a gathering place for the disparate groups in my real life: family, local friends, military friends, school friends. I won’t delete the app because to do that would be to lose connection with too many of those people. Instagram, I like to post my occasional pictures there and set them to music for my own enjoyment. I scroll and do little else. On X I’m a ghost, liking, replying and reading without fear of being labeled or judged, mostly flaming my favorite but inept hockey team or raging from the center of the political spectrum against the insanity on the left and right fringes.

On Substack, I’ve found that the medium of words,by people who value words, has allowed my introversion to stretch out further into the void. The voices of strong independent men, mostly espousing gentleman concepts of masculinity, faith and love are refreshing, and allows me an opportunity to connect. The women voices, the ones I’ve sought out, devoid of sexually charged imagery yet emotionally exploring and highly engaging, give me the beauty-intelligence-soulfulness my masculine side needs. I’m a celibate sapiosexual, not very loud, not terribly proud, but it’s what I am.

While a small corner of paradise can be found, more often than not, a mad max style wasteland exists online, human and flawed, behavior that returns to the mean.

My thoughts on this have been confirmed many times, that this modern world has little space for the romantics, the intellectuals, those that seek to give and receive beauty from a place of connection.

You can die alone if you don’t try, but kindred souls can find each other in community if they work very hard at it.

I’m not sure if I have a deeper meaning than this to share. My “vacancy” sign is on, I’ve got rooms at the Inn, and if you want to share a cup of coffee with a gentleman warrior-poet, please sit down.