I have been looking back at old photos that document buildings. It made me realise that with painting and art I have been pressing the same buttons for an age. Like I jokingly said to a friend once ‘we keep pressing the button, but no banana’. Well I thought back to my teenage years and remembered the presence of toxic male aggression. If it wasn’t different crews it was your mates. They all seemed out to prove themselves. This brings me to a golden age for me which was when I reached my twenties and started spending most of my time with the opposite sex. It wasn’t what you may think. It was a time where we would eat scones and jam and sit in the sunshine having fun. This was the best time for me. I actually never tried it on with females but annoyingly I got harassed by them. It bugged me all I wanted to do was be friends and have fun.

From male aggression to female sexuality, by my late twenties I had pretty much settled down and this was pretty good but I started coming apart mentally. I never wanted to be around male agro or females treating me like a piece of meat. Luckily most of the ladies were well behaved and we had a great time! It was the best time of my life and when the looming time of starting a family came into play bridges were built and burnt. It is a difficult time because you are ready to have children and that is when you have to make one sided decisions. At least that was how it was with me as I got let down by the new set of demands. Life isn’t without decisions and luckily I made some good choices but not without there own pitfalls.

The issue now is adults are so locked into their lifestyles. You can’t just have a simple picnic in the park because now you have teenagers or small children in tow. They were some great years back then it was so simple and innocent. But I am currently quite happy as I can look back at these times and see the good and the bad. I am still upset with toxic masculinity. Terrorism seems the brainchild of this mentality. Woman though so less violent are usually the innocent victims of men who are out of control. Men also can be the victims and most men’s answer to violence is yet more violence. When these issues are finally addressed maybe we can all truly live in peace.