Living: airbnb in Somerville, MA

Working: Workbar, Union Square, Somerville

Laundry: Nabil’s Laundromat (Community Laundry) Somerville

This week in laundry things heat up.

Boston’s made of squares. Squares everywhere I go. Squares of Unions. Squares of Harvard. Honorary squares made of ordinary intersections.

A rainy day in Union Square – Somerville – where I worked this week. It is, most definitely, triangular.

Somerville sits at the border of Cambridge. Together they face Boston to the south, just across the Charles. I walked down yesterday from my airbnb. Unplanned, I found myself wandering the Harvard campus. I found the river’s edge.

Memorial Hall on the Harvard campus

On a beautiful fall day, I could not help but wander further. I followed the river to MIT. Across the river you can see Boston University. Further on is Fenway.

The iconic McLaurin Building at MIT

And I thought Pittsburgh held extreme with CMU and Pitt abreast.

This metro holds a reputation for its universities. And the rich industries that revolve around them. Robotics is strong here. Many industrial control firms build their servo and synchronization solutions in the area. Copley Controls among them.

Then there’s the more obvious reputation for rich American colonial history. This is new England, after all. And the oldest remaining building in downtown Boston happens to be Paul Revere’s home.

There are also aquariums. The New England Aquarium on the Boston Harbor.

And maybe it’s the general atmosphere of all this education. Maybe it’s something in the air – and the education is just a result of that feeling. Or maybe it’s because wandering any university in the fall brings about a sense of nostalgia – transporting me to that time of aggressive reflection. The undergraduate experience. But here I am, strolling through Cambridge. Thick in a newstalgia. Wondering. Reflecting.

What I find that’s on my mind I can’t avoid. And so here in laundry the thought falls through.

It is a thing I call Machismo Escalation.

It is a thing that happens between men, engaged in conversation. It happens in due course of conflict. It happens as a result of some form of opposition. It is the general puffing out of the chest. Subtle displays of power. Gestures that build to a boil in an escalation.

In civil environments, it might manifest as no more than stern words and subtle body language. In less controlled environments, it may trigger a physical and aggressive altercation.

Whether manifest in words or fisticuffs, whatever it is, it exists beyond the forefront of control and consciousness. It does not arise through reason. Rather, it builds as an emotion. It builds, at the core, as a primitive form in desire to control the outcome of a situation. The desire to hold power in a conversation. The desire to be the winner of a conflict. The master of those men engaged in communication.

Buried Emotions. Like the interstate below this park. The Wharf District Park, North End, Boston.

I don’t know what it’s really called. I don’t know if it even has a real name. But it’s real enough to me. It’s clear that it exists – I’ve had too many experiences to confirm it. And so I’ve given it this name in order to call it something.

As a term, Machismo reflects on that quality of Masculine swagger. It builds in cultural assumptions of ‘what it means to be a man’. And it likely reflects those differences that are distinct to the male gender apart from the other. It is the cultural qualities of being Macho.

The term is Hispanic in nature – I first encountered it in a high school lit class, talking about some novella or play set in the first half of the 20^th century, with the zoot suit swaggered men engaged in displays of Machismo.

Because of this personal connotation, Machismo evokes the image of the suited man, walking in a backward lean, chest forward. It also evokes a connotation of a gorilla in a dominate display of power. The pounding of fists to the chest. The flaring of the nostrils.

If ever there’s an image to capture my imagination of the machismo, it is a zoot suit clad gorilla. An image fit for a Saturday morning cartoon.

But underlying the comedy of this conjured picture, there’s a truth in the core of the behavior. These are the signs of masculine domination. I believe that men, when engaged in Machismo escalation, exhibit minor variations of this form of power display. Standing up a little straighter. Bringing out the chest. Less blinking.

I know this less from the observation of other people, and more from the observation in my own behavior.

It’s something I first started to notice while playing drums in my old band, the Warsaw Vices. Put four strong personalities in any room, have them collaborate in the conjuring of creativity, and there’s bound to be conflict.

At the time I was surprised how differently conflict manifested in the Vices from the disagreements I found in the workplace. Because so often the disagreements in the Vices would escalate. Voices would raise. Postures would straighten.

And as the argument grew, there would be no backing down. Everyone would hold their ground toward what they wanted. It was, in a sense, a territorial defense. The territory was our pride. The territory was our ideas. It was our personal creativities.

It was a feeling in the chest that grew into a momentum and a force unavoidable. It was a strong emotion. So strong, it influenced one’s outward actions. And dulled logic. It prevented compromise. It was a deterrent against a productive forward movement.

It eventually got out of hand, and without really knowing how to address it, I decided instead to leave the band in order to avoid it. In the hope that the group could carry forward, with one less person in the mix of so much emotional, machismo disagreement.

Skeletons in my closet. The size of whales. From the Harvard Natural History Museum.

At that time, I didn’t really understand it. It wasn’t until some years later, at Disney, that I felt the force of the inner Bull, that driving influence of Machismo Escalation, that I began to understand what it was, without really knowing how to cope with it.

I often found this unwanted emotion when working through issues with my project leader during disagreements on proper solutions. This was unfortunately more often than not. It was exacerbated by remote interaction – all conversations where held through remote video chat. I only met him twice in person before leaving.

All too often I’d find ourselves in disagreement – likely due to very different kinds of prior experience in our careers. And while trying to come to a conclusion on a forward path, I would feel in the heat of frustration a desire to hold my ground. The desire to protect my territory. The desire to have it my way.

It was an emotional force. It was completely irrational.

Consciously, in the forefront of my thought, I sought a compromise. I worked to better understand the real reasons behind my project leader’s preferences. Reasons of logical consequence. Reasons that were more productive and instructive than the sentiment of because I said so.

All the while, just under the conscious surface, the feeling would escalate. It would build. The conversation would wander in circles, going nowhere. With no productive resolution.

And I would feel stuck in this emotion. And I hated it. All I wanted was for it to go away so I could work through the disagreement rationally. Work towards a reasonable compromise. Or a new plateau in understanding.

I think a lot of the cause for conflict might be attributed to a lack of experience. One the one hand, my project leader did not have a lot of management experience at the time – a lot of software projects at Disney are solo operations. So I don’t think he was quite practiced in the idea of delegating creative responsibility to other people.

On the other hand, I was inexperienced at the time at being an uninvolved developer. After several years in a leadership position, and all my career at a small organization that benefited from autonomous creativity, I was completely inexperienced at simply coding with the flow. Over a year and a half as an independent consultant has afforded an opportunity to correct that.

A work in progress. Like this exhibit at the Harvard Natural History Museum.

But apart from the instigators, the emotion itself, the building of that emotion, existed. I saw it often. And every time it happened, I found myself both engaged in the present conversation, and looking inward for a way to diffuse this unproductive, rising emotion. It was exhausting. I was constantly exhausted from having to cope with the Machismo Escalation while remaining productive in my software.

I didn’t leave Disney because of these Machismo infused moments. But they were an influence – because they chiseled away at my emotional resolve and energy, preventing me from using that energy towards other problems I encountered. It was too many problems, all at once. And I was too new.

All in all, the whole experience was a valuable learning experience. In the words of Buzz Price, that’s a euphemism. Though regrettable that I felt it best to move on – I would have preferred to stay under more hospitable conditions – I did my best to minimize the impact on my team. I hope that my exit somehow eased my team’s burden in achieving their goals under the established management practices. I care a lot about my team. Still do. And hope they’re doing well.

And while I’ve noticed this particular male behavior in myself – and it’s definitely masculine, I only ever experience it when interacting with other men – I can’t help but wonder how pervasive, how fundamental this phenomenon is to the male experience.  I assume that it’s likewise felt by the men engaged in such conflicts that encourage the emotion – though they may not consciously acknowledge its presence, or understand it’s influence on their behavior.

Or if women experience this emotional build toward each other. Or if other people feel this escalation towards people of other genders.

I wonder if this emotion is at play in the police encounters that seem all too often to go the wrong way. It’s hard to know for sure without understanding the hormones behind the emotions that build during Machismo Escalation, and then measuring those responses during a conflict.

I imagine in the heat of the moment, with a gun pointed at you or pointing a gun at someone, if a team of researches yelled ‘freeze’ so that they could stop to take blood samples, the whole situation would just fall apart. But that’s unlikely to happen. That’s the nature of the situation.

Many laundries after my Disney departure, after I had time to reflect on what happened, I found myself in the company of my friend’s mother, a retired detective. She told a story – a trip she once took to gather evidence in Gary, Indiana. To ask questions.

She explained in such situations she preferred to approach people unarmed. The results were much better than when her male counterparts would come around, pounding on doors, guns visible on their hips. Because in these instances the officers were all too likely to escalate the situation, in displays of pomp and power – machismo – in their attempt to gather evidence. She found that being short, female, and friendly went much further towards the department’s goals: gaining information related to a murder under investigation.

And there it was. Right from the mouth of a former detective. Expressing the behavior of Machismo Escalation. Expressing just how detrimental it can be towards productivity. And expressing it as a systematic behavior amongst the male officers in her department.

As in any situation, generalizations don’t accurately serve the truth of the situation. They don’t by definition. But I found it interesting to hear about this behavior I observed in myself, present elsewhere in the outside world. As described in the words and through the eyes of an outside observer.

So maybe this feeling of Machismo Escalation remains as unavoidable as breathing. Even though I want to avoid it. I’m lucky enough to at least recognize it. I imagine that it’s less obvious to most people. Or else we’d hear about it more often in open conversation. We’d have a real name to call it.

And with recognition comes the opportunity for mitigation.

I suppose that Machismo Escalation is one of those demons I wrote about, many months ago, in Orlando is for Dreams and Demons. While I haven’t had to cope with this feeling since leaving Disney a year and a half ago, that doesn’t mean it’s gone. Because it’s a part of me – as unavoidable for me as being a man. Which is very unavoidable. So I can only imagine that I will meet this demon once again.

The heat of the moment is not limited to encounters of male aggression. Even in laundry the dryer builds heat. The dryer turns. The dryer stops. The dryer cools. The dryer, much like the person, moves in cycles of cool rest and tumultuous heat. And for me the heat has come and gone once more. Time to pack up and move on.

Life will change against your will. Emotions will change against your will. Many things are out of your control. The cost of the wash. The time to dry. But in response, there is a possibility to take control. To take those events in your life, and through forward motion, make a kind of peace. Unpack. Fold. Unfold. Pack up. Move on.

Change is constant, whether you want it. Progress under the direction of your own two feet – that’s within your control.

The Boston Skyline across the Charles