Refrain to-night

And that shall lend a kind of easiness,

To the next abstinence, the next more easy,

For use almost can change the stamp of nature.

— Shakespeare

The words that stand out most to me in that quote above are refrain, abstinence, and nature. Somehow those three words just seem to sum up what many people have to live with, even as many others have to live without.

Yes, refrain means to desist from doing something, abstinence means to do without, and nature, well, we all know what nature means in the Jamaican parlance… libido, sex drive.

“The man nature cut and him don’t want to do it anymore.”

For some it’s by choice, as in when priests, monks, and nuns take vows of abstinence, even though that’s just for show, for we all know what has been going on behind those hallowed holy halls for centuries. They kick (off) the habits.

For others, it’s by destiny, no fault of theirs, as they are forced to give up one or more aspect of their lives and basically live without whatever pleasures they thought that they couldn’t live without before. Many married men fall into this category.

Some may take it in stride, while for others they just cannot live without. So many of us think that we need, when in reality we only want. Clearly, wants are not needs, and we can live without many things comfortably, or can we?

That’s my spiel today, living without, right after these responses from my readers regarding ‘Men pay and pay and pay’. Now, these I cannot live without.

Hi Tony,

There are jurisdictions where, when a marriage ends for any reason, the properties and assets acquired during the marriage are split evenly. It does not matter which partner acquired the property or assets. In Hollywood, USA, there are many wealthy starlets and actresses who are married to ‘unknown’ not wealthy men, and when the marriage ends, those men acquire half the wealth of the women, and are even given monthly support payments. These are women who pay and pay and pay.

Sandra

Dear Teerob,

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not only men who pay and pay and pay, as there are women who also pay for their bad decisions. They pay the price of getting involved with the wrong man; they pay by having to constantly do housework; they pay by having to bear and take care of children, and they pay the ultimate price if they try to leave the abusive man. Women also pay dearly.

Valerie

So many people have so much, that after a while they become so attached to things, that they think that they cannot live without those items. It may be a car, a house, fancy clothes or jewellery. In their minds, those material items are so precious to them, entrenched and ingrained in their existence, that they simply could not see their lives being meaningful if they were taken away.

“Man, I could never live without my Bimma.”

“Say wha? I could never live without my penis.”

For others it’s money, and people have been known to commit suicide because they lost their wealth. The stock market crash and great depression of the 1920s in the USA resulted in many people jumping off tall buildings or using other means to take their lives because they lost their money. They couldn’t live without it.

And yet, there are others who lost everything in one fell swoop but still continued to live. There’s this old story of a man who was destitute but somehow enjoying his life. Someone gave him a few dollars, which he used to buy and sell stuff, amassing more money until he grew quite wealthy. Eventually, through bad investments, he lost all his money and took his own life.

He was content when he was poor and had a few dollars, but couldn’t live without his newfound wealth. There’s a moral to that story.

Now, even though it’s not related to wealth and money, there are some people who swear that they cannot live without their partner. I have heard this a lot from women who pitifully profess that they could never live without a man. As a result, they flit from man to man in order to fulfil this need and perhaps to validate their existence.

“No sir, I could never live without a man. I would go crazy.”

And they really believe it too.

For some, it’s not just living without a man in their lives, but living without a particular man.

“If my man was to leave me, I don’t know what I’d do with myself, I’d probably die. I could never live without him.”

‘Sometimes the people you can’t imagine living without, can actually live without you.’

‘Living without you is like living without oxygen…every minute I am dying.’

‘When you learn to survive without anyone, you can survive anything.’

Thought-provoking quotes there.

Men kinda sing a different song, as they don’t really say that they can’t live without a woman, but more that they cannot live without what the woman has to offer. In other words, he cannot live without sex. Yes, there are some men who swear blind that they can’t live without sex, and many do mean it too. Remember what that guy said about not being able to live without his penis?

They simply have to have it, and a life without sex is a life not worth living. Case in point is the man who refuses to take his blood pressure medication because the side effect is that it kills his nature. There’s that word again, nature, ergo libido, sex drive.

“The man swears that he cannot live without sex, and if the medication really cut his nature, then his life is not worth living.”

“Mr Brown, the answer is simple, don’t take the medication and die as a result.”

“But doc, it cut me nature, my woman will leave me, might as well me dead.”

And yet, there are men who are celibate all of their lives and are happy in that state. Life’s ironies are fascinating. But why are some people so obsessed with certain feelings or material trappings that they feel as if they cannot live without them?

In reality, there are only a few things that we cannot live without, a few basic needs. We must have food, water, air, sleep, and shelter to survive. If any one of those needs is not met, then humans cannot survive, say the scientists. Everything else are just wants, not needs.

All the rest is just peripheral stuff that takes over the lives of so many people that in their minds, they cannot live without them. Imagine not being able to live without your Rolex? How absolutely devastating, perish the thought.

Life can change in a flash, and in an instant, everything is gone, leaving you with nothing but the bare necessities, if as much. Some people at the top of their game are suddenly found guilty of a crime and end up in prison. For others, losing what they thought they couldn’t live without is just a diagnosis away.

“What are you saying, doc, it’ll never rise again? Waaah!”

Gone are the fancy cars, luxury mansions, frequent fornication, as all that is taken away when they’re locked up behind prison bars, forced to live without what they once thought that they couldn’t live without.

Well, they may end up still having frequent fornication in prison, so all is not lost, although it may not be what they really were counting on. It’s definitely better to give than to receive.

The passage of COVID-19 has shown that what people thought were the absolute essentials of life, things that they swore that they couldn’t live without, are now relegated to distant memories, or totally forgotten.

“Man, I really thought that I couldn’t live without partying every night, but now I don’t even miss it.”

Great upheavals, health problems, or natural disasters have a way of reminding people what is really essential and what they can live with or live without. Some swear that they cannot live without cigarettes, until that persistent cough heralds the precursor of lung disease. Only then do they discover that they can really live without smoking.

As human beings, we all suffer from the misconception of believing that our wants are really our needs. But the reality is, needing and wanting are poles apart.

I know of so many older men who ‘couldn’t live without young girls’, but as they grew older and feeble, the young girls disappeared, so they had to live without them. Remember what I said, some by choice, others by design.

It’s a sad wake-up call, so enjoy the trappings of life, but be cognisant that there are many things that you can live without.

More time.

seido1yard@gmail.com

Footnote: I wonder if some people are really aware of how serious the crime situation is? Those three brazen robberies committed against one security company smack of scenes from a gangster movie. In two instances the robbers went in blazing in broad daylight with scant regard for anyone. What almost floored me after the last robbery was the response given by a top official from the security company when interviewed on the radio. “We didn’t think that they would strike so soon after the last robbery.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Do robbers have a schedule? I hope that those human rights groups are taking note of how the basic human rights of law-abiding citizens are being eroded. They had better wake up. Haiti is next door.