Coach Maddox  0:03  
Hello, Jim Cartwright and welcome to The Authentic Gay Man Podcast. It is good to see you.

Jim Cartwright  0:08  
It's great to see you too. I'm excited to talk with with each other today.

Coach Maddox  0:13  
Yes, just so the listeners know, we tried this one time before and we had internet issues. And so here we are, again, protect,

Jim Cartwright  0:20  
indeed take two. Here we go.

Coach Maddox  0:22  
So today's topic is about ageism. It's about queer elder ism. And it's about remaining relevant. So before we jump into that, Jim, I'd love to know what it means to you to be an authentic gay man.

Jim Cartwright  0:41  
Sure, well, it means many things. So I'll try to be not ramble too much. I mean, since you ask a gay man, I'm gonna highlight authentic gay man and not just authentic person, because that would be a similar but slightly different discussion. So a lot of that has to do with being open, honest, and accepting of both my sexuality and my romantic orientation. But not only those three, also celebrating it, you know, and mentoring other people, you know, mentoring other people who are not as far along in learning to celebrate their sexuality, learning to celebrate their romantic attraction. There's a obscure word out there. Have you ever heard that word homo love, you will know. So that was shared with me by a friend, Lee wind who writes books for kids and teenagers and Homo loveable, it's like, instead of highlighting the sexual, it's the love orientation. I mean, because his thinking with all the book banding and all that, like, what if we highlighted that this is a form of love. This isn't just a sexual behavior. So I think there's, I celebrate the sex too. But it's also a form of love.

Coach Maddox  2:01  
I love that. I have not heard that. And I absolutely love that. And another thing that stands out for me about what you said was you started talking about how it had to happen with you on an internal level

Jim Cartwright  2:19  
first. Yes.

Coach Maddox  2:23  
Which is the way most everything in life works. It's not how we didn't generally approach it. But it's how it works. Everything starts on the inside of us first, and then works its way out. And I love the way you just naturally talked about it. Like that was the case. You said I instead of you.

Jim Cartwright  2:42  
I honestly wasn't aware that I did that until he reflected that back to me. But that's, that's, that's nice to know. Yeah. And I, I mean, I think part other parts, in terms of speaking of AI and authenticity, and authenticity, authentic, sexual romantic orientation, I mean, I sometimes share the nuances of what that means, because each person is unique, you know, and, like, what I have noticed is I don't identify gender wise as non binary, I feel very much like a he. But, you know, in terms of like, sex roles, like top and bottom, I would say, I'm non binary, you know, like, that isn't how I define my sexual attraction. Those are like, two possibilities within a field of play, if that makes sense. Perfect sense. I, you know, my type, so to speak, is energy. And it has to do with the energetic connection between people, people don't always talk about sex like that, you know,

Coach Maddox  3:46  
they don't, but it tends to be black and white or binary. You know, so much of life is like that, you know, I mean, this doesn't have anything to do with gay and then it has everything to do with sex, and just the way that we are, there was a time in my father's life when he let me know that he was impotent. And he was really like, not happy about that, like, anybody would be happy about it. But I remember saying to Dad, there's a whole lot of sexual things that can happen in partner pleasing that doesn't require an erect penis. And he looked at me like I had three heads. I don't think he got it. And I don't think he would have gotten it no matter how much I explained it.

Jim Cartwright  4:29  
And it's not the way we've been socialized, you know. And that's something I mean, I another nuance, I would say, of I'm 61, I'll be 62 in the fall. So another nuance for me of gay sexuality is older gay sexuality, right? I'm not impotent, but I don't have the hard odds I had as a young man, right. It's definitely the landscape is shifting. And you know, it's sad that we actually do Learn that sexuality is just about hard ons or, you know, for straighter people vaginas, like there's a whole field of energy. And you know, and I think in my own personal life experience, because I came out in the age of aids when everything was very dangerous. I also had the fortune of going to places like the Body Electric, are you? Are you familiar with the Body Electric?

Coach Maddox  5:27  
I did the Body Electric about 13 years ago, I believe, amazing process.

Jim Cartwright  5:37  
Yeah, I mean, essentially, for other people listening to us. I mean, it's a kind of tantric tradition. And much. I mean, it came about in the age of AIDS. So actually, when it was first coming out, people weren't optimally, you didn't ejaculate, because we weren't even sure if that was safe to do. But it really is all about raising erotic energy in a naked tribal environment, and even some of the particular strokes that they teach you work best on a penis that isn't erect. So I mean, I go back to that period of my life, and I kind of apply it to older sexuality, like, up until the day I die, I hope to live, I'd love to live to be 100 and get, you know, a soft penis massage on the day I die. And it's still it's still erotic energy.

Coach Maddox  6:28  
It is, you know, there's so many things that can be done with your hands, and so many things that can be done with your mouth, and just, there's just so many options, you know, and, and I have made a note here, I will definitely put something in the show notes for the listeners about body electric, because it's, it's worth checking out. It's an amazing process. And they, I think they do it all over the country. So it's probably coming to a city near you. Please check it out.

Jim Cartwright  6:57  
They do it and you know, and they have expanded way beyond the world of gay men, I don't know who all listens to your podcast. But I mean, they've got workshops for straight people, for women, for non binary people. It's, it's a, it's a erotic practice relevant to Hall, I started to only gay man, but it's totally expanded.

Coach Maddox  7:17  
I wasn't aware that they had expanded it that much. But I just had a conversation less than an hour ago with one of the people that are really high up with Bodhi electric, we were talking about something completely different. But it's funny that comes up when I was just on the on a zoom with him recently.

Jim Cartwright  7:34  
Aging, you know, a couple, I have a couple other thoughts around that whole idea of authentic self, and hopefully it can be. One is in a way, I think that the authentic self is multiple. In other words, I'm a huge Walt Whitman fan, and I love the quote about do I contradict myself very well, I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes, I think that we're trained kind of that we have one singular self, and then we get that self mixed up with the ego. But I think it's more helpful to think of like, the self is like a chorus of voices that are hopefully singing in harmony. Have you ever heard of internal family systems there? Yes. So it's like, I don't have a lot of data. But yeah, and I even if you're not into that, I think a lot of people would understand things like inner child, inner critic. I have, I mean, I name all these parts of myself. My my inner child is little Jimmy and my inner critic is Dr. Patrick pathology. And my inner ageist is Alexander and my inner wise king is Lotus heart. So I think the self is not one thing. It's really multiple parts of ourselves in our education.

Coach Maddox  8:52  
I always think it's like a diamond with many facets. Yeah, it was one of the ways that I have tried to describe that where people really easily understand it is have you ever, you know, Saturday night rolled around, and you had been invited to a party and there was this part of you that really wanted to go to this party. But then there was another part of you that had a really, really rough hard week, and all you wanted to do was just like crawling your bed and watch a good movie and eat popcorn. That right there happens to all of us, there's part of me that wants to part of me that doesn't want to and that that just right there just demonstrates really well how we have different aspects to us different parts that live within us, and they don't always work in harmony.

Jim Cartwright  9:41  
No, they don't. No, they don't and I. So it's an ongoing challenge. And it's works best when they're not in polar opposition to each other and fighting with each other. It works best if there can be a wise part of the self that can kind of mediate, and let all the voices speak and that all the voices sure what their needs are, and then we can have a different relationship inside our selves. I mean, I also think that's how it cuts things like coaching can help with that. Yes,

Coach Maddox  10:10  
absolutely help navigate all of that. Absolutely. So I want to, was there something else? You'd say? No, there's

Jim Cartwright  10:18  
one more part of the self, and then we can let them. Because I also, I mean, I was just thinking, like, sitting here before we met, like, what a privilege it is to be able to sit here and have this conversation with you, and that you can put it on the air. In other words, the authentic self or living authentically gets developed in a social context, when I think about the world and think I mean, I don't know that I'm at the numbers, right. Okay. But there's, like 195 countries 34 have gay marriage, I think like, unwritten something of them. It's current, it's against the law to be gay and 12 of them. It's the death penalty, I mean. So, you know, social repression makes it hard to live authentically, sometimes, actually, in terms of survival, it makes it impossible. So I think like, living authentically, as a gay man is not just an individual quest, it's a movement for social justice. And,

Coach Maddox  11:21  
and, and it's a, in some respects, it's a privilege.

Jim Cartwright  11:25  
It's a privilege. It's a privilege that we have,

Coach Maddox  11:27  
not all people are all walks of life for our country's had. It is I never thought of it quite like that. But what a beautiful way to call that out. Jim,

Jim Cartwright  11:39  
I mean, if we think if we were in a different country, or a different time, in our own country, we would both be put in jail for doing this today.

Coach Maddox  11:46  
Well, and most all of us have lived at some point in our lives when we were, perhaps in the closet, and living a complete lie in every area of our lives with our families, our friends, our our workplaces. And that that's hard to come back from I always believed that. As gay men, we were forced to do things that are so the opposite of authenticity, that it's really, really hard to come back from that. I think that we as a community, not there's certainly exceptions. But we as a community really struggle with the authentic equation, because we've lived so much of our life, having to do the absolute opposite of authenticity and the absolute opposite of vulnerability. It's foreign to us extremely foreign. Yeah, and

Jim Cartwright  12:47  
it was a survival thing. So I mean, it's important not not to blame ourselves, or for a person listening if they're still feeling very trapped in that that it's not your fault. Like you did this to survive. You did get the love that you needed in this world, and I think it survive. Yeah, it's that's also that internal dynamic. I've internalized homophobia where you don't accept yourself and you're trying to change yourself. And you think you can use your willpower to change your sexual attraction and it doesn't work and yeah,

Coach Maddox  13:21  
I yeah, I've been there. I've walked all that that path. Yeah. Yeah, here. Yeah. Long time ago. But yep. Yeah, I love everything you contributed there, what a beautiful What a beautiful demonstration of the varying ways that authenticity can can show up in one's life. So you you recently now Now on to the ageism thing, or last few months, you recently made a change in your life that plays into all this. And that was you stopped coloring hair and went with your natural color. Speak speak to that. Tell me a little bit about that. Or tell us a little bit about that?

Jim Cartwright  14:08  
Well, for sure. I mean, what I what I realized is that my internal ages is ageism, or my or Alexander, as I call him, my internal ages. He was semi conscious, and he was influencing my decision to dye my hair. So if you had just asked me consciously, are you dyeing your hair to look younger? I would have said, No, this is just what I want to do. This is how I want to look. And then I started to get glimmers of like, no. I'm, you know, there's internal ageism going on in here. I like it when people think that I'm younger than I am. And I'm doing it for that. So I just decided okay, now that I see you, I'm going to move through you and I'm going to just let it go. And it's every Leave. I mean, I actually like my silver hair. And in terms of like, external feedback, so does everybody else, you know. And so it's also kind of one of those things like internalized ageism, internalized homophobia, sometimes. We're only semi aware that it's going on, like you kind of have to watch inside and you catch those glimmers.

Coach Maddox  15:21  
If we're even semi aware, there's a lot of us that are completely unaware that we've got internalized homophobia. Sure,

Jim Cartwright  15:29  
sure.

Coach Maddox  15:30  
So talk a little bit to about what some are, what are some of the ways that internalized ageism, shows up? What does it look like?

Jim Cartwright  15:42  
Yeah. I do want to talk about that. I want to just back up one step and make sure that we're because for whoever may be listening to make sure that we're clear about ageism, because sometimes it's mistaken only for being prejudiced against older people. But ageism is a prejudice against people for of any age. So you can also be prejudiced against young people. Sometimes people dismiss the wisdom and the knowledge of young people because they're younger. So we don't have to linger there. But I don't want to only say that age isn't about older people. In my case, the internalized ageism was about getting older. Does this make sense?

Coach Maddox  16:24  
That's, that's brilliant. That's absolutely brilliant. And I don't think that I would have ever thought about that as ages, even though I had many times said, you know, it's kind of upsetting is I would see or hear times when an older person would dismiss a younger person, because they're, there's not old enough to have any wisdom or any knowledge or anything good to share. And it would it would upset me because I have friends from every age category. And some of the things that the young people bring are absolutely brilliant. I love being around young people, because what they bring can be so brilliant. But I don't know, even though I was annoyed at people that were discounting them, if I would have put that in the category of ageism. So thank you for connecting the dots.

Jim Cartwright  17:17  
Yeah, for sure. Of course. Sure. And you riffing off of what you said. I mean, I do feel like, I think wisdom is a field where young people have their own wisdom, different kinds of wisdom happen with age, I think, because you have a lifetime of experience to draw on. And there's even something when you read about ageism, there's something called wisdoms neurological bias. But I don't actually believe all older people are wise either. I think wisdom is cultivated by how you live. And it depends on how you've lived your life. So I don't think it's, you know, you're not automatically wise, just because you get old, but you can activate the kind of wisdom,

Coach Maddox  17:58  
we have a few old people in high places in offices that don't seem to have any wisdom at all. So you're exactly right. It. I'm not gonna name any names. But wisdom has zero to do with agent.

Jim Cartwright  18:14  
Yeah, I think it can come up in many ways, like young people have their own wisdom. I think they're older people who have cultivated wisdom have a certain kind of wisdom, a certain flavor of wisdom, because you have so much life experience to draw on. I mean, I was there's a really interesting book on ageism, called this chair rocks. So it's a manifesto against ageism, is what the book is called in. And they taught one of the things she talks about is, it's generally assumed that as older people get get slower with everything that it's like you're losing, you know what you're losing your abilities. And sometimes that can be true, but there's also slower can mean actually, that more thoughtful, like you have a whole lifetime of neurological connections to sort through before making a decision, you have a different perspective. So what I love is younger people getting together with older people, and having our different perspectives and collaborating.

Coach Maddox  19:14  
I love being around younger people for their energy. My two favorite things are just the energy that they bring to the space, but also the perspective. You know, we, most of us, as we get older, we get kind of beaten down by life, even if we're really trying to, you know, be positive and, and, you know, not allow ourselves to get cynical as we get older. There is a certain amount of just life experiences that kind of beat us down and we don't any longer see through the same eyes that we did when we were young. You know, Dwight and I make reference to this all the time the wonder of a child. You Yeah, I wonder if a child and we lose that as we get older unless we really do a lot to reconnect to it, it's always there. It's always in us. It's just gets really obscured.

Jim Cartwright  20:10  
Yeah, that that brought up to two thoughts ricocheted off of what you said at the same time, can I hold them? Yeah, one of those things I you know, the wonder of a child and the authenticity of a child. So in some ways, I mean, all children are authentic right and we them enter the world fully, this quest for an authentic self or to cultivate an authentic self and in some ways is a returning a rediscovering so absolutely.

Coach Maddox  20:41  
Absolutely, you know life and our experiences and our environment. Just quench our authenticity just are stifled quench is not the right word. Just stifle. You know, we get so many messages about everything, as children, that we completely walk away from our authenticity, and then we have to spend if we're lucky half of our lifetime finding our way back if we're lucky. It's curious, isn't it? Yeah, some people some of us never ever rediscover that childlike wonder. After we've lost it. Sad, sad to me.

Jim Cartwright  21:25  
Yeah. And I agree with you. It's in there. I mean, I think we were more familiar with the inner child as the inner Wounded Child, which is also true. And then there's the inner child like wonder child sparkle child and in some ways, giving the inner wounded child what they need. They want love they want to play I mean, they want to create if we give ourselves that it helps to bring the wonder child back.

Coach Maddox  21:55  
We are building a platform right now that is centered around just that helping people rediscover the their childlike wonder that's buried in there somewhere.

Jim Cartwright  22:09  
I took you off on a long journey. But I still remember that you asked me about how does internalized ageism show up? Yeah, yeah.

Coach Maddox  22:19  
It was a great journey.

Jim Cartwright  22:21  
I have a leaky mind. So I will try not to leap too far away. Certainly, the hair color was one thing but it just in general. Liking people to think that I'm younger than I am, like, Why does a vibrant quality have to be attached to a number? Like you? Oh, you seem so young. Why can't I be 60 something and vibrant? It why does that have to be young? Do you know what I mean? Even right, in the definitions of things

Coach Maddox  22:52  
I do, you know, you're opening up all kinds of things for me. I mean, I hope that the audience is having as many aha moments is that I am right now because I quit coloring my hair years ago and it's silver as it can be. But I I I like to make intentional efforts to to be vibrant to be energetic to I you know, I dress pretty hip for somebody that's in another three weeks is going to be 67. People always guess me younger than my age. And I've always prided myself in that. But now in the moment I'm questioning is that my own internalized ageism? You know, my friends have all heard me say I hang out with younger people, because I have a hard time finding people my age that may be excited to hang out with them.

Jim Cartwright  24:05  
Yeah, I mean, it's a question worth asking. I'm for myself, I do feel like that is my husband, my internalized ageism. So and now I'm going out of the way to tell people exactly what my age is. And it doesn't. It doesn't change the other parts, but like why as a culture, have we attached all these old is this and Young is this and all these qualities that we still want to have as older people are in the young category? Well, yeah, it doesn't really matter.

Coach Maddox  24:38  
I think if we watched generally speaking, though, we kind of see that, you know, I have I have a friend who's 70 or 71. And she is oh Lord, she's energetic. I have a sister that 78 And she parties like a rock star s couldn't get Keep up whether for anything I wouldn't try. But I think that we do for me. I just don't want to be around fuddy duddy people. I don't care how old they are. Yeah, here 30 And they're fuddy duddy. I don't want to be around them. Mostly I find the Fuddy duddies in my age category a little bit older. But if I meet somebody like this woman, she's just amazing. And I have a blast. Every time I'm in her presence, I don't care what age she is, it's more about her energy than it is about her age. I'm in a relationship with a man that is 19 point something years younger than I am.

Jim Cartwright  25:39  
Well, and I'm in a marriage with somebody who's 22 years younger than I am. So we both have that big age difference in our relationships. It's not a barrier at all, is it?

Coach Maddox  25:49  
It's an energetic thing. I mean, because he's younger, I grabbed him because he's energetic. I did the

Jim Cartwright  25:55  
same, you know, it's not even my history of relationships. I mean, there are people that have, and I'm not judging it. I'm just saying it's different. There are definitely people who have a pattern of like, Daddy boy relationships. And as always an older guy looking for a younger guy, or a younger guy looking for an older guy. That was not my history. I mean, it was just an energy thing that brought my husband and I together.

Coach Maddox  26:17  
Yeah, what my history. I mean, this is my second one where there's a pretty big divide, but the others were much closer to my age, some of them like right at my age.

Jim Cartwright  26:27  
You know, there's a term also, you know, not commonly known but budding out there that there are people who are starting to define themselves as age non binary and a or age queer. And I'm kind of in trying on that idea of age but non binary like, I don't feel like a gender non binary person. But where where is the line that divides somebody between old and young? Like, what why are we Why do we have those two? Pull? It's really a large spectrum with tons of variation, and interweaving, why do we have those two opposites? I mean, if we want to redefine what it means to be an older person, to say that I'm age, non binary kind of contributes to the discussion.

Coach Maddox  27:12  
Yes, it does. You know, I'm realizing that I don't refer to myself as old. I do refer to myself as older. Yes. And that feels very, very different to me. Yeah, I hear you. Older is an adverb, or an adjective. Old is a noun? No, maybe not. I don't know.

Jim Cartwright  27:37  
Yeah, no, I hear what you mean. No, I get the essence. I'm just saying way. And I mean, in terms of nouns, I do define myself as a queer elder. So there is part of me that choosing to step into the identity of an older person, while remaining vibrant. And while having many traits that are stereotypically associated with younger people,

Coach Maddox  28:01  
I can remember one time bumping into some a young couple that I'd met him through business networking, and I bumped into him one night, I don't know, in a grocery store or something. And they were a lot younger than I was. And they were like, can we hang out? Can we hang out? You know? And I'm like, Sure, of course, you know, and I think that when we finally did hang out, we went had dinner or something. I said, so just curious. Why. I mean, I'm, I'm old, I'm probably older than your parents are, why do you want to hang out with me? And they were like, because you're cool. And you're fun? Sure. And I, you know, it kind of had to step back and go, Okay. Max, let yourself receive that, you know, don't deflect that. Don't do anything weird with that. Just let yourself receive that. And,

Jim Cartwright  28:55  
and also, in a sense, you might be a role model to those people, right, you might show them a way of how they want to become as they get older.

Coach Maddox  29:04  
I have literally had people say when I get old, I want to be like you. It just, you know, I've literally had people say that. And of course, I don't know. I've always placed a lot of emphasis, I guess on age and youth myself. So that feels like the ultimate compliment to me. You're really stirring some stuff up. I got to look at now.

Jim Cartwright  29:27  
Yeah. Well, and you know, in terms of a sense for stirring things up. I mean, there is another side to aging right, which is nobody lives forever. anyone of any age can die any day. But the older you get, the more tangible that becomes. And anybody can have a health problem at any time. But the older you get, the more tangible that stuff becomes. So

Coach Maddox  29:52  
yep, we Suzanne, summer yesterday.

Jim Cartwright  29:56  
Right? Sure. So there is that a reality quote, react? allottees of aging and that's something else I wanted to mention. Because I think I mean, certainly we're a long way from overcoming things like homophobia and racism. But I think most people at least know what they are. I think many people don't even know the term ageism. And I think many people don't even know the term ableism, which is prejudice against disabled people. And the older we get, the more we're at risk for having a stroke or falling and all these things and so there's kind of like the ageism in ableism. Threat becomes a certain presence, you know, a certain

Coach Maddox  30:44  
Yes, you know, you said something really powerful about how we can have these qualities and not even be aware of it, not be conscious of it. And, and it makes me think of there's certainly been situations where I have been around people that were, were racist, were making racist comments doing racist things, and they were clueless, they had no idea. Like, if you just said, That's racist, you You're right. I remember somebody said something one night at a cocktail party, I was at it. And I looked at him and I said, That's racist. And he goes, No, it's not. It's funny. He had no idea that he was being a blatant racist.

Jim Cartwright  31:24  
I have been around that. Yeah, I hear Yeah. It one book that really influenced my thinking was a how to be an anti racist. It's actually a very, I mean, it's a best seller book. And he, it's written by a black man. And he really made the point also kind of like, racism so permeates our culture, that it's like, we're fish in the water of racism, and it gets into all of us. So he talked about himself as a black man, sometimes being racist against himself, sometimes being racist against black people. Like he'd catch a thought or a comment in his mind. It's like, well, that's racist. Same day, he could be an activist, anti racist. And so maybe we think like, all of the prejudices, whether it's homophobia, ageism, ableism, racism, if that's our society, we absorb some of that unconsciously without even realizing we do it. We Oh, journalize it without even realizing it. So it doesn't, it's not so much finger pointing blame. I'm right. You're wrong, bad. You. It's like, oh, how can we all look at how this got into us, and recognize it when it comes out and change it? There's been

Coach Maddox  32:36  
a few times in my life when I realized something really racist came out of my mouth. Like, like, after I said it, I was like, Oh, my God, I remember saying something on a date. One time, I was on a date with a black man. And I said something and a week later, we went on our second date. And I said, you know, I said something last week, that was racist. He goes, You did? Well, like, Why didn't you say something goes? Well, I kind of sense that you didn't mean anything by it. And I said, Well, you still should have said something for God's sake, if you don't point it out. I'll do it again. And not that it's his responsibility to do that. But you know, because it's not. It's my responsibility. But yeah, there's been a few times when I've said something that, you know, blew my own bangs back once I realized what I had said, you know, you're talking about the the fish in the swimming in this this, like, ocean or water, body of water. That is just racism. That makes sense to me. We've all been, we've all swim in that water at some point in our lives, and there's no way that hasn't affected us. And I think the same is true of ageism.

Jim Cartwright  33:43  
I do too. I do too. And homophobia and all the prejudices really

Coach Maddox  33:48  
well talk a little bit about queer elder ism.

Jim Cartwright  33:53  
Sure. So you know, that's been a conscious choice to like, this identity appeals to me, I'm going to step into this identity and see what it means to me. So I don't know of any like workshops on being a queer elder, I did take a workshop on becoming an elder and read the book, the inner work of ageing. So some of those things just apply. A few things that I would say in terms of what it means to me to be a quote, queer elder part of it is passing on the blessing to younger generations. You know, you're that you're at an age where you can pay appreciate what has been given to me and pass on blessings to others. I think there's, I mean, hopefully throughout our lives, everything we're doing helps other people. But in a younger mind, it's often more of a Hero mode. You know, like, what I'm my place in the world and what I'm accomplishing and there's kind of a as an elder, I still do things. I mean, I just published a book I write music, I do all All kinds of things, but the emphasis is not so much. What am I accomplishing? But what how am I present? What is my presence? What is my state of mind while I'm doing this? What is my state of mind while I'm with other people, so it's kind of a shifting archetype from Hero into a presence that wants to serve the greater good beyond my own survival. I see that going on. You know,

Coach Maddox  35:29  
you said a minute ago, I don't I don't know if there's any workshops, you know, how to be a gay elder elder ism. But I think you're you have the seeds there of a perhaps your own workshop, or maybe I do. How interesting. Yeah, I think I think you would be ideally positioned to do that.

Jim Cartwright  35:53  
Well, thank you. I will take that in and give that some, some deep thought. Yeah.

Coach Maddox  35:59  
I mean, it sounds like a fascinating thing. And, you know, you're talking about a form of leadership and the world needs leaders right now more than ever. Yeah. needs good leaders.

Jim Cartwright  36:12  
Yeah. I think and another piece to kind of keep bouncing off of what you're saying. And that would go back to like, what does it mean to be an elder, it's it's perspective sharing versus advice giving. In other words, I'll share my perspective based on my life experiences. But sometimes when I think older people do get more into that crunchy stereotype of being old. It's like, I know better, because I'm older, you know what I mean? Actually, everyone is more empowered by making their own decisions and having their own perspectives honored. So like, I have a perspective to share too, but you take what works for you, and you leave the rest, you know what I mean? It isn't telling you how to live your life or telling you who you have to be. It's not that advice II thing. It's perspective sharing. As an equal.

Coach Maddox  37:08  
I have tried to train myself to start sentences with, in my experience, yeah. Rather than this is what I know. You know, this is how it works. Now, in my experience, blah, blah, blah, I learned this. And because they didn't get my perspective, without me giving advice, like you say, that's, that's huge.

Jim Cartwright  37:34  
Another thing you got me thinking now about like, Okay, what, what would be some of the work and helping you helping others along in the cross this bridge into whether they want to see themselves as queer elders, this happy, happier, older people. And there's is something from working through homophobia that could be helpful in working through ageism, because I think a lot of people know the shame that they've dealt with being gay, you know, it's, something's wrong with me, I'm not lovable. I'm not good enough. But we could actually easily enough move through all that gay shame, only to re experience that same kind of shame around being old. Right? I'm not young enough, I'm not healthy enough. I'm not lovable enough. Because I'm not young, I'm afraid I'm going to be a burden. If I become disabled, I'm, you know, there's so that whole, you know, shame has a way of moving from thing to thing. So you can overcome shame over being gay and be ashamed of being old. And I think you're right.

Coach Maddox  38:42  
I think that, I mean, I'm aware of just a percentage of our population at a certain age, they just go underground. They stop making public appearances. Yeah, they do. In our community, they just stopped doing anything that has to do with, with the gay community, because it's not a not a friendly place to be as you get older.

Jim Cartwright  39:09  
Not like the elements of an art, you know, in any age, I was actually never a bar person. So that's always been one of the major things that people do. And it's like, I don't know, just never. I had

Coach Maddox  39:22  
my day in those places. But it's, you know, that was a long time ago, and certainly not, you know, wouldn't be rewarding to me at this point in my life, I might see going out and shaking my booty a little bit every once in a blue moon, but there was a time when I kind of lived in those places. Sure. So, so glad to be freed of that.

Jim Cartwright  39:46  
And I think a lot of times in in times in our history, that was the only place there was it was I mean, that's if there was the bar or nothing, you know, it was Yeah, so many more thank

Coach Maddox  39:56  
goodness for I don't think the young ones really know exactly how wonder are full, they have it. It's a shame. We can't all send them back for one week. And in our time when we had so little available to us.

Jim Cartwright  40:08  
Yeah, that's another one of my passions or projects is, you know, to those that are open to it, teaching young people about queer history, explaining to them the way it was, you know, I don't, I don't want them to get down and revere Me or something. But there is a certain appreciation for those who came before and what they lived through and how they helped create the world we live in now. I mean, I wrote it. Well, I mentioned that I published a book. But I also wrote another book that's not published yet. So I will get back I'm, I'm jumping a little bit, I did just publish a children's picture book, which is available on Amazon and all those places, which is about overcoming homophobia within the family. I also wrote a book for teenagers, that is a biography of Henry hay, who was one of the founders of the gay rights movement, and I knew him at the end of his life. So I'm very passionate about passing on queer history to younger generations.

Coach Maddox  41:07  
Yeah, that's beautiful. Jim, that's really beautiful. And they need to know, you know, they need to know the history, but the experiences as well, you know, probably a lot of these young ones don't realize that when I came out, to go to a gay bar, I had to walk down a dark alley and knock knock on an unmarked door. And they picked out the door to see if I was somebody that they felt safe letting in.

Jim Cartwright  41:35  
And I've actually still done that in third world countries. So it also depends where you are right now. Right? But it is very, that's it's such a strange experience when they open the little people and they look at you, like, wow, yep, no.

Coach Maddox  41:52  
dingy, dingy back door in a dark, dirty alley. And yeah, those days were very, very different. Well, let's touch on one more thing, before we wrap up. I want to just touch briefly on you know, what one might do to remain remain relevant. You know, I think that there's I hear from time to time, an older person, and particularly, maybe an older gay person, just they don't feel like they matter anymore. They feel like they are invisible. That's what I hear more often than not, you know, they're just there was this point in my life when I just became invisible. And what we are talking about is irrelevance, so I kind of want to just touch for a moment on, I mean, I have my thoughts about how we stay relevant. And I know what I have done that has helped me to stay relevant as I get older. And I'm happy to share if you've got something to say about that, please do.

Jim Cartwright  43:01  
I always have things to say, but why don't you go first this time? Then I'll rip off of it. Yeah, okay.

Coach Maddox  43:07  
Well, I know for me, there was a point, when I did start to feel irrelevant, I would go out to a club, and I felt like I was invisible. It felt like the guys would walk by me and look through me rather than at me, they would look through me like I wasn't even standing there. And I think that I don't know that I consciously did this. But I can look back now with clarity and see how the number one way that I have remained relevant is to actively show genuine interest in people that are in different age categories than I am. To show an interest in who they are, what they're doing what's important to them, to really listen to them to create a space where they can feel completely seen and heard. And I'm sure there's a lot of ways to stay relevant. I mean, I think that perhaps, I stay relevant by keeping up with fashion. I you know, I love clothes, and I love shoes, and I love eyewear and jewelry, you know, and whatever it is. And so I'm always watching what fashion is doing. And I dress in modern outfits. You know, I don't I don't look like you know, we all know somebody that their heyday was in the, you know, the 80s And they're still, their hairstyle and their clothes still kind of look like the 80s I always made efforts to stay current because I thought that would help me stay relevant. That but I think that having other people be seen and heard whether they're my age or a different age or a much younger age. Makes me relevant with who Ever they are the I personally believe that we all have an innate need to be seen and heard. And the world doesn't really create a lot of space for us to do that. So when somebody shows up in our life, and does create that space, it gets your attention. And so I feel like one of my ways of staying relevant is to make sure that people come into my presence, experience being seen and being heard. And it has it's, it's made a huge difference in the quality of my relationships.

Jim Cartwright  45:39  
I yeah, I think everything you just said is brilliant. And I mean, in some essence, you stay relevant because you stay open. And in a sense, that's, you might not see yourself that way. But it's anti ageist activism, to be interested in young people as an older person, right? You're not prejudiced against them for their age, you're interested in them. I think a big way to stay relevant is cross generational friendships, which I know are, our culture discourages you know, I. The other thing is, I know I said the word earlier, and now it's coming up again. And it's shame because part perhaps part of the way to stay relevant is to move through some of that shame. Like, to me, that belief, I am irrelevant, feels like a shame based belief. Like I'm not good enough. Something's wrong with me. I actually, I mean, I don't think shame is anybody's favorite emotion. But I think that shame can actually be helpful in terms of when we realize we feel shame, we can look at what is the limited belief connected to the emotion and let it go.

Coach Maddox  46:49  
So you have called out the big kahuna, right there. And as you say that, you know, I'm realizing how much how much work I put into releasing and letting go of shame. Yeah, that's without, you know, you just kind of like put it into context, once again, connecting a dot. I think that working through a lot of my shame has enabled me to do that intergenerational thing that you're

Jim Cartwright  47:22  
Yeah, I was thinking that about you. Yeah, on one levels, sure. You stay relevant in terms of fashion, but you also stay relevant by continuing to grow and continuing to do inner work

Coach Maddox  47:35  
and language. Yeah, you know, I try to kind of keep up with it's hard. And things are moving so rapidly now, to keep up with the terms of today, because they're different tomorrow. They're different today than they were yesterday. And they're different tomorrow. It's very challenging to keep up with how rapidly things are moving. And yet to stay relevant. I'm doing my best.

Jim Cartwright  47:57  
I agree with you. And yes, it is challenging. And yes, because a lot of older people are like, you know, non binary and those young people, you know, it's just nonsense. I mean, I actually think it's quite interesting. You know, that identity becomes a fascinating box instead of a cage, you know, like, oh, you Yeah, there's,

Coach Maddox  48:21  
there's so much of our generation that is not comfortable with the word queer. Yeah, I

Jim Cartwright  48:29  
know. And I respect it. And yet, I like the word and I use it. I mean, I would say that I'm gay or queer. I've

Coach Maddox  48:37  
gotten comfortable, quite comfortable with it. There was a time not so much. But now. Yeah, it's desensitized completely. In fact, it's the opposite. Now. I mean, this is one of the things I admire about our community, we take some of the derogatory terms, and we say Bucky, we'll just own this term.

Jim Cartwright  48:53  
Yeah, as do many communities, some communities sometimes I'm not going to use, right. But it makes it's actually very empowering to take old derogatory terms and turn them into statements of power. I like it. But yeah, I mean, and again, it's, it's the personal what we can do, and it's the culture like I have lots of I have a lot of young people in my life, largely because I teach at a university. But we don't not everybody has figured out how to have cross generational experiences. I wish you know, if we were thinking about the know, what are our utopian visions for the gay community, I wish there was more intergenerational interaction in our community. I would love to see. Like we were getting back to the Body Electric tantric stuff. I mean, I don't necessarily mean people seeing each other as sex objects are being turned on by this person or that but what if all ages like got together naked and touched each other and loved each other and in a ritualistic tribal way? I think it would be beautiful, you know, yes. One thing I will say I acknowledge about myself is when I was young, I was open to being sexual with much older people. I mean, when I was 30, I was sexual with people in their 80s. And it wasn't, Oh, he's so hot, it was just an openness. And they really appreciated it. I mean, I think a lot of elders or older people are starving for touch because they're no longer people's desired sex objects. But if sex is energy, and sex is a loving connection, there can be something very beautiful in that

Coach Maddox  50:32  
Jamie had the seeds of another workshop. Interesting, interestingly, I mean, you're you're, it's pure wisdom. The two things that you have named are pure brilliance.

Jim Cartwright  50:46  
Well, I'm now I'm excited to listen to the podcast and hear what I said. You don't really know what you're saying,

Coach Maddox  50:55  
you know, it's amazing. How many people say I gotta listen to my, my episodes. Remember what I said?

Jim Cartwright  51:02  
Oh, totally. I don't have any idea what we just talked about really? Well.

Coach Maddox  51:08  
It's been truly great. So I want to I didn't say this at the very beginning. So I'll say it now. And that is Jim is a holistic life coach. And tell us just briefly, Jim, what that means.

Jim Cartwright  51:22  
Sure. In holistic, I think probably most people know a life coach, but I just wanted to highlight the holistic. In other words, coaching can focus on any area of your life, it can be your health, it can be your finances, it can be your relationships, it can be your sexuality. And what I do with an intake session is we touch base on all the different areas to see how they're going. As a coach, then people always choose what they want to be coached around, because that's how I don't tell people what area to focus on. But from time to time I bring the other areas back. And I think part of that is because I see a tendency for people to hyper focus on one area of their life and neglect others. So it really is about trying to be you know, the, the path of becoming a whole person, and life is our life. Our life is our life.

Coach Maddox  52:17  
We departmentalized as well as we think we do

Jim Cartwright  52:21  
know and a lot of people you know, I mean also, I think I'm not good at compartmentalizing, which could be a strength and a weakness. I don't know. I mean, there are some coaches like this is the one thing I do. I mean, I would even almost say in terms of groups, I have about four niches, one is older people. One is gay men and other queer people. One is because I spent my work life as a speech therapists, speech therapists and people in the educational and health professions because notoriously that draws people that don't take care of themselves and gain approval by taking care of other people. I mean, not every single person but that's such a huge thing. And then another one is just neurodivergent people and people with learning differences because I'm used to it. So can I even say I have one niche? No, really. And then as that really coaching is one part of my life being a university professors and another part of my life. Being an author is another part of my life and being a singer songwriters another part. I mean, if you if you look up Jimmy sparkle pants on Spotify and Apple Music, you'll find four different CDs. So I've never been great.

Coach Maddox  53:33  
All Pages are the encyclopedia. Yeah. That's a lot. That's a full life.

Jim Cartwright  53:40  
So that was probably more than what you needed to holistic life.

Coach Maddox  53:43  
Oh, no, no, I love it. I love it. So I there's a couple of things you I would like to put in the show notes. So you helped me remind remind me this, I want to tell the listeners that you're we'll put a link to your book in the show notes, your website, and something to body electric.

Jim Cartwright  54:03  
Okay, right now you I am writing those things down.

Coach Maddox  54:10  
So if you've just to the listener, if you've heard anything that really fascinates you, and you want to know more, or perhaps you'd like to work with Jim, you'll have what you need to be able to contact him you can reach him through social media, he'll put social media links in his profile. And in the show notes, it'll say Jim's profile, and you can go there if you don't find what you need. You call me and I'll hook you up with him.

Jim Cartwright  54:34  
All right. Well, thank you.

Coach Maddox  54:36  
Jim. This has been amazing. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm so grateful that the internet went down the first time because I think that somehow we had started talking but it didn't get off the ground as good as I think today did today was just spot on, I think thank you. So

Jim Cartwright  54:56  
I completely lost track of time that could have been Five minutes or two hours, you know what I mean? It was that kind of. Yep. Yeah.

Coach Maddox  55:04  
Exactly. Just passes by so quickly when you're having fun, right?

Jim Cartwright  55:09  
Indeed. Well, thank you. It's yeah. I'm very grateful for being on your podcast. I love this experience.

Coach Maddox  55:16  
Well, it's been a pleasure and honor to have you and I just want to say to you that in my eyes, I certainly see you as an authentic gay man. All right. Well, thanks. Welcome to the club. Thanks

Transcribed by https://otter.ai