Men, women and quantum energy
September 13, 2006 | 12:00am
Do you live with men in your house? A father? A brother or spouse? A male dog, perhaps? If you do, then you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, it might be wise to skip this article altogether because you might think I’ve lost my marbles.
Men and speed are synonymous, I am convinced, just like women and talk are. Speed is defined by Random House’s fourth edition of the Webster’s Dictionary as "the relative rate of motion or progress." Where there is a man, there is motion. Men have three gears in their biochemical makeup. The first two are for fast and faster and the last is for reverse – just in case the wife, girl friend or some hostile attacker gives chase from the front. Where there are women, on the other hand, there is chatter. But if there is uncharacteristic silence among a group of women, this can only mean one thing: they are busy shopping.
To prove my theory of men in perpetual motion and women in perpetual chatter, I shall start with my children to make my case. First off, my son: I breastfed him from birth to about six months and he sucked and sucked like he was surgically attached to me. His mouth was on perpetual overdrive and the pain I experienced in those six months is enough to merit me a monument on EDSA for courage and perseverance beyond the call of motherhood.
Before he could walk and talk he would lie prone on the floor surrounded by sundry toy cars. Although his body was at rest, his hands were in constant motion, rolling the cars across the floor and back again and his lips were on a permanent vibrate mode emitting the "vroom" sound accompanied by the occasional sprinkling of saliva here and there.
I could be wrong but I think he learned to run first before he could walk. He runs everywhere to get from point A to point B; even if point B is a mere two steps away. How he does this is with a skip and a hop, faster than you can say "stop." "What for?" you ask. Your guess is as good as mine.
I believe that where there are boys, there is a constant flurry of energy. Conversely, where there are girls, there is irrepressible chatter. If I seem to be going out on a limb here it might be because my three youngest daughters – aged 10, seven and four – do just that. They validate their existence by making their opinions known lest I forget that, yes, they are in the room with me or that they live in the house with me at all. They talk to each other, they talk to their Bratz dolls, and they talk to themselves. Each daughter can conduct full-length plays with elaborate dialogue among multiple characters by altering their voices. God bless their future husbands. If you don’t live with a little girl in your house, borrow somebody else’s and try spending a few minutes with her; you’ll get what I mean.
Is it possible that testosterone is responsible for the male propensity for speed and estrogen is accountable for the female inclination for prolonged vocal activity?
Peace and quiet in my house is a rare commodity. It is rocket science just trying to orchestrate a few moments of it. However, I have found a foolproof solution: sports! Any sport, any physical activity is the perfect venue for anyone to unleash quantum energy without turning your home into post-Katrina New Orleans for as long as it is done outside the house. Give boys a game to play and they will focus all their energy into winning, I promise you, and they will be promptly out of your way. Get the girls involved in gymnastics, soccer or badminton and watch all that estrogen-propelled vocal capacity transform into quick and graceful moves.
Let’s look at grownups and find out if the theory holds water. If a man’s golfing weekend is sabotaged for one reason or other, doesn’t he grieve like somebody died? If a woman’s weekly ladies’ lunch with friends is rescheduled, doesn’t she find herself spending more time on the phone having to get rid of that surplus chatter dying to be shared?
What about those thousands of men happy to be ensconced in a domestic setting: lounging on the easy chair, docile and content, while watching TV? Don’t be fooled! Zoom in on his hand and you will be baffled by the speed at which that thumb of his is pressing that remote control. He is glued to one TV program. He is quick on the draw, surfing through channels to find out what else is on, not wanting to miss a single thing.
Watch his wife. She is seated on the sofa beside him, asking him repeatedly to stay on one channel, any channel, for Pete’s sake. If she is mysteriously quiet in one corner, watch her hand and you’ll find that she may not be talking, but her hand is. Her thumb is growing calluses from texting her friends without looking at the keypad, eyes transfixed by the monitor.
Let’s move on to the Holy Grail – driving and shopping. Men need to drive fast or they die. Just look at those EDSA bus drivers. If you know of a man who doesn’t drive fast, he’s probably mature in age, thereby having decreased amounts of testosterone in his system. But if he is young and opts to drive slowly, he may have trace amounts of estrogen floating in his bloodstream. Women drivers on the other hand, are either gabbing to their passengers, talking on their phones, or worse, texting with one eye on the keypad and the other on the road. If they are not preoccupied with any of the above, they are probably singing along to Beyonce’s latest hit on the radio or retouching their makeup.
What can we conclude from this comparison of male and female metabolisms? Sports should be a part of everyone’s lifestyle so that we may be less of a nuisance to the world at large and less of a danger unto ourselves, what with all those hormones raging in our systems. Not only will it be excellent for our health, it is vital to our sanity. We have to channel our quantum energy into productive endeavors so we don’t drive each other crazy.
E-mail the author at www.clfortyfied@yahoo.com
Men and speed are synonymous, I am convinced, just like women and talk are. Speed is defined by Random House’s fourth edition of the Webster’s Dictionary as "the relative rate of motion or progress." Where there is a man, there is motion. Men have three gears in their biochemical makeup. The first two are for fast and faster and the last is for reverse – just in case the wife, girl friend or some hostile attacker gives chase from the front. Where there are women, on the other hand, there is chatter. But if there is uncharacteristic silence among a group of women, this can only mean one thing: they are busy shopping.
To prove my theory of men in perpetual motion and women in perpetual chatter, I shall start with my children to make my case. First off, my son: I breastfed him from birth to about six months and he sucked and sucked like he was surgically attached to me. His mouth was on perpetual overdrive and the pain I experienced in those six months is enough to merit me a monument on EDSA for courage and perseverance beyond the call of motherhood.
Before he could walk and talk he would lie prone on the floor surrounded by sundry toy cars. Although his body was at rest, his hands were in constant motion, rolling the cars across the floor and back again and his lips were on a permanent vibrate mode emitting the "vroom" sound accompanied by the occasional sprinkling of saliva here and there.
I could be wrong but I think he learned to run first before he could walk. He runs everywhere to get from point A to point B; even if point B is a mere two steps away. How he does this is with a skip and a hop, faster than you can say "stop." "What for?" you ask. Your guess is as good as mine.
I believe that where there are boys, there is a constant flurry of energy. Conversely, where there are girls, there is irrepressible chatter. If I seem to be going out on a limb here it might be because my three youngest daughters – aged 10, seven and four – do just that. They validate their existence by making their opinions known lest I forget that, yes, they are in the room with me or that they live in the house with me at all. They talk to each other, they talk to their Bratz dolls, and they talk to themselves. Each daughter can conduct full-length plays with elaborate dialogue among multiple characters by altering their voices. God bless their future husbands. If you don’t live with a little girl in your house, borrow somebody else’s and try spending a few minutes with her; you’ll get what I mean.
Is it possible that testosterone is responsible for the male propensity for speed and estrogen is accountable for the female inclination for prolonged vocal activity?
Peace and quiet in my house is a rare commodity. It is rocket science just trying to orchestrate a few moments of it. However, I have found a foolproof solution: sports! Any sport, any physical activity is the perfect venue for anyone to unleash quantum energy without turning your home into post-Katrina New Orleans for as long as it is done outside the house. Give boys a game to play and they will focus all their energy into winning, I promise you, and they will be promptly out of your way. Get the girls involved in gymnastics, soccer or badminton and watch all that estrogen-propelled vocal capacity transform into quick and graceful moves.
Let’s look at grownups and find out if the theory holds water. If a man’s golfing weekend is sabotaged for one reason or other, doesn’t he grieve like somebody died? If a woman’s weekly ladies’ lunch with friends is rescheduled, doesn’t she find herself spending more time on the phone having to get rid of that surplus chatter dying to be shared?
What about those thousands of men happy to be ensconced in a domestic setting: lounging on the easy chair, docile and content, while watching TV? Don’t be fooled! Zoom in on his hand and you will be baffled by the speed at which that thumb of his is pressing that remote control. He is glued to one TV program. He is quick on the draw, surfing through channels to find out what else is on, not wanting to miss a single thing.
Watch his wife. She is seated on the sofa beside him, asking him repeatedly to stay on one channel, any channel, for Pete’s sake. If she is mysteriously quiet in one corner, watch her hand and you’ll find that she may not be talking, but her hand is. Her thumb is growing calluses from texting her friends without looking at the keypad, eyes transfixed by the monitor.
Let’s move on to the Holy Grail – driving and shopping. Men need to drive fast or they die. Just look at those EDSA bus drivers. If you know of a man who doesn’t drive fast, he’s probably mature in age, thereby having decreased amounts of testosterone in his system. But if he is young and opts to drive slowly, he may have trace amounts of estrogen floating in his bloodstream. Women drivers on the other hand, are either gabbing to their passengers, talking on their phones, or worse, texting with one eye on the keypad and the other on the road. If they are not preoccupied with any of the above, they are probably singing along to Beyonce’s latest hit on the radio or retouching their makeup.
What can we conclude from this comparison of male and female metabolisms? Sports should be a part of everyone’s lifestyle so that we may be less of a nuisance to the world at large and less of a danger unto ourselves, what with all those hormones raging in our systems. Not only will it be excellent for our health, it is vital to our sanity. We have to channel our quantum energy into productive endeavors so we don’t drive each other crazy.
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