Kind of a dark Saturday evening tonight. A blanket of clouds are overhead. Earlier this week we had some thunder and hail, and before that days and days of sunshine. I think when we have so much sunshine we take it for granted. In fact, after several weeks of it I'll admit I get annoyed of it. I lived in Seattle for eight years. I'm not used to this much sun. I say I'd move to Arizona, but who am I kidding. I would go crazy. Of course during the winter and the cold, and perhaps weeks and weeks of rain I'll miss the sun like a lost love. I'll long for it. I'll write blogs to it. I'll listen to music and think about a sunny late summer day in August. So I have to remember to appreciate it when it is here, because in a couple of months it won't be.
As the summer is sure to fade into fall and then winter, even life long loves eventually die. We come in this world alone and we die alone. As much as till death do us part resonates for the married and those clamoring to be married, life is a solo journey. Whether you live to those wedding vows or you don't and your heart gets broken into pieces we need to remember our happiness is our own. We may carry those people in our hearts but they may no longer carry us. We may not even be a passing thought anymore if that person has moved on with their life. This isn't to say that life isn't more meaningful with someone else. I believe it is. Shared experience can have a much greater impact than the individual one. Yet, to think that someone's emotions and feelings are the same as you experience them is untrue. They may be somewhere else already. That incredible moment you experience may not be the same for them.
The beauty of this though is no matter how devastated you can be from losing someone in your life, the seasons do change. The darkness eventually subsides and light peeks through your blinds. You pull yourself off the couch, clean your house, shave, get a job and things improve. The melancholy that you might have felt dissipates, fades into something else. Yet it can't be resentful to move on. It always has to be with appreciation and hope. I think gratitude is the number one killer of depression. If you can find things to be grateful in your life than it is pretty difficult to carry around miserably.
I read an article the other day about a man in Cleveland, Ohio who was incarcerated in prison for 26 years for a rape of a minor that new DNA evidence shows he did not commit. Twenty-six years of his life gone because he did not have legal representation and he was a black man who was identified by a witness in a line up. Twenty-six years of his life behind bars and he was innocent. The anger and resentment that I would feel I can't even comprehend. I think I would be mad at God. I think I would feel like I was being persecuted. That this world is unjust and that it is cruel. Yet this man was not bitter. He was not resentful. He was hopeful. He got his degree in jail. He contacted the Innocence Project and stated his case. With new representation he was found innocent of the crime and released from jail. He said that if he had been resentful and angry he wouldn't have made it. That place would have eaten him alive. He remained hopeful even under circumstances that would break most men.
We have to grasp optimism. Even the grayest day will eventually turn into night and then another morning to start over. If we do not embrace this then we become gray ourselves. Our senses dull, our heart hardens, and the only person who truly suffers is ourself. The one who hurt us or wronged us, or we hurt or wronged, they won't feel what we feel. They have their own emotions to deal with. We can't hurt for someone else. We can care about them. But their pain or lack of it, is their own. We can't make them feel something they won't. But if we don't embrace the hope and we hold onto the bitterness then those friends who support us stop calling. Life is too short to be dragged down by someone who can't pull themselves up. If this man who was in jail had been bitter and refused to embrace hope then he might have committed a crime in jail. He may never have gotten his degree nor contacted the Innocence Project. There are surely many others wrongly accused serving time who did not embrace hope and have died behind prison walls.
Yesterday I got a job. It isn't a dream job. Nothing I wrote about as a child growing up. It is a good job, and I'm lucky to have it. It's less than I made before but I also knew that risk when I quit the last place. It's a fresh start though. It's a new morning. So tonight I will go out with friends and celebrate. I'm appreciative of opportunity. There is always a new one and sometimes we have to lose something to gain something. I didn't start this blog until I had to. I missed it. I appreciate the people that read this, but if they don't it's ok. It's for me. I write for myself and I hope everyone does something for themselves, because this is our journey.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The ending is the beginning
I would write a novel. I would just sit down, research and write an entire novel even if it took me a year. Maybe it would never find the light of day. Maybe it would be published and sit in the dollar book section at Rite Aid but it would be completed. I couldn't say it would be a best seller or a 300 page dust collector on a shelf. It could be both! But, it would be finished and I'd always have that. At the end of my life the prosecutor could pull up my book and say "look here, this is real crap. We can't let this guy move on. Did you read this thing? Before I read his book I was going to give him the benefit of the doubt, but now..." The judge would nod in agreement, "I read it and wish I could black out from that event myself. Guilty!" The defense attorney would nod and look over at me, "Yeah before the book I thought we had a chance here. I had no idea they could find a copy." And while I sat my days away in my purgatory jail cell of fear I could recount all the reasons they were wrong and write my next one. I just need to break out of this cell first. Anyone have rock hammer and a Megan Fox poster?
If you could do whatever you wanted without any fears what would you do? Where would you go? Would it make a difference if all those past failures, fears, doubters were completely blacked out of your mind?
We all have ready made excuses for not trying new things too. We can just pull the list out of our pocket and read it off to fit the appropriate moment. Um, too much money? Afraid of heights? Not my thing? She isn't that hot? I'd probably hate it? Not after last time...etc etc. We've kept this list since we grew out from our adventurous childhood and call it maturity and growth. When most of the time it is just reactionary acquired fear. It may have been a friend, neighbor, or parent, but someone said we couldn't do it for this or that reason and it became our reason. It will be our reason until we tell our friend, neighbor, child...then it will be theirs. Our own limitations become a hereditary trait.
I think fear of loss keeps us from pursuing a lot of our dreams. What if I lose the house, boat, car, spouse, job, etc? That would be worse than if I never had it at all. At least if I didn't have it in the first place I wouldn't know what it felt like to lose it. We see the stories of the billionaires who have everything and are still unhappy. We realize then that the castle and yacht is not the prize. Possessions are never going to satiate. It's like trying to drink beer in the desert. Sure maybe a corona sounds delicious when we are thirsty but we are dying of thirst here. We drink that cold refreshing corona and then we need another one..fast! Possessions won't satiate your thirst because you will just need more of them. Someone will always have one better, newer, more technologically advanced. It's the feelings you get from the possessions; the achievement, excitement, comfort, that are more lasting.
Staying on the subject of movies, another great one is Defending Your Life. It was a movie about a man who at the end of his life had to go to court and in front of a judge had to defend how he lived his life. They showed scenes of events in his life, moments that were heroic, and many moments that were not, and he had to justify why he made those decisions. The prosecutor trying him was trying to prove that he made poor choices and lived his life in fear. The defense attorney tried to show that his decisions while not always wise were not fear-based but heroic. The more days they assigned to work on the case the more of your life they had to see..the more likely you were in trouble. This makes me wonder how many days they would need to see of my life. Right now I would say a lot. I'm sure I haven't always made the best decisions, though I know I've conquered a lot of fears. I jumped out of an airplane. I hiked alone in the Grand Canyon. I quit my job with no safety net and went to Europe. These are fearless decisions. I also haven't written my novel, screenplay, or done anything with a talent for writing I've had since childhood for fear of rejection. For many years I'd see a beautiful girl and wouldn't dare approach her for those same reasons. I'm not sure I want to face that judge yet or that prosecutor. Give me a few more years to build my case!
If we could choose to black out certain parts of our life it would be like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. We would just erase the memories completely. That seems pretty harsh and I think, as in the movie, we would regret that decision. If only because we would walk around with a feeling of deja vu wherever we went. We'd lose that pain which really is the stuff that makes us grow as a person. I don't think we learn as much or grow as much when we are happy and successful. I think it takes pain and failure for the good growth. Or maybe that is just what miserable people tell themselves to feel better. Yet even the most successful people in history had to fail and fail miserably before they achieved true success. It took Thomas Edison hundreds of attempts to create the light bulb. Yet history doesn't look at Edison as some huge failure who only succeeded once in creating the light bulb. He invented the light bulb. Abraham Lincoln filed bankruptcy. He was a complete disaster as a business owner. But how many people knew that? We know him as one of our greatest (if not the greatest) president ever. How about Michael Jordan? He lost in the NBA playoffs to the Detroit Pistons three years in a row. Did he run off and join forces with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson to form a super team in Miami? No, he got more resolve and won six NBA titles. No one remembers the losses. We just remember him as the greatest player of all-time.
One of my favorite movies is Memento. The guy has short-term memory loss. Every five minutes or so he forgets everything all over again. He ends up tattooing everything all over his body to remember clues to a crime he is solving and everybody he's met. Last night I watched The Hangover again. These guys just got roofied and forgot their crazy bachelor party night and spent the next day piecing it together. No tattoos, just a missing tooth, a tiger, and a naked Japanese man with a tire iron. I'm sure we've all had moments in our life we wished we could black out from. Whether it was something painful or just plain embarrassing, we would be better off having no recollection of it except maybe some small piece of evidence..that we burn. Well in honor of those great movies I'm going to write a blog backwards today. Or as backwards as you can write a blog, last paragraph will be the first so I guess to really make sense of it you need to start at the bottom and read up, of course that is no fun so hopefully you read the whole thing chronologically and are just as confused as that poor dude in Memento minus the full body tattoos.
If you could do whatever you wanted without any fears what would you do? Where would you go? Would it make a difference if all those past failures, fears, doubters were completely blacked out of your mind?
We all have ready made excuses for not trying new things too. We can just pull the list out of our pocket and read it off to fit the appropriate moment. Um, too much money? Afraid of heights? Not my thing? She isn't that hot? I'd probably hate it? Not after last time...etc etc. We've kept this list since we grew out from our adventurous childhood and call it maturity and growth. When most of the time it is just reactionary acquired fear. It may have been a friend, neighbor, or parent, but someone said we couldn't do it for this or that reason and it became our reason. It will be our reason until we tell our friend, neighbor, child...then it will be theirs. Our own limitations become a hereditary trait.
I think fear of loss keeps us from pursuing a lot of our dreams. What if I lose the house, boat, car, spouse, job, etc? That would be worse than if I never had it at all. At least if I didn't have it in the first place I wouldn't know what it felt like to lose it. We see the stories of the billionaires who have everything and are still unhappy. We realize then that the castle and yacht is not the prize. Possessions are never going to satiate. It's like trying to drink beer in the desert. Sure maybe a corona sounds delicious when we are thirsty but we are dying of thirst here. We drink that cold refreshing corona and then we need another one..fast! Possessions won't satiate your thirst because you will just need more of them. Someone will always have one better, newer, more technologically advanced. It's the feelings you get from the possessions; the achievement, excitement, comfort, that are more lasting.
Staying on the subject of movies, another great one is Defending Your Life. It was a movie about a man who at the end of his life had to go to court and in front of a judge had to defend how he lived his life. They showed scenes of events in his life, moments that were heroic, and many moments that were not, and he had to justify why he made those decisions. The prosecutor trying him was trying to prove that he made poor choices and lived his life in fear. The defense attorney tried to show that his decisions while not always wise were not fear-based but heroic. The more days they assigned to work on the case the more of your life they had to see..the more likely you were in trouble. This makes me wonder how many days they would need to see of my life. Right now I would say a lot. I'm sure I haven't always made the best decisions, though I know I've conquered a lot of fears. I jumped out of an airplane. I hiked alone in the Grand Canyon. I quit my job with no safety net and went to Europe. These are fearless decisions. I also haven't written my novel, screenplay, or done anything with a talent for writing I've had since childhood for fear of rejection. For many years I'd see a beautiful girl and wouldn't dare approach her for those same reasons. I'm not sure I want to face that judge yet or that prosecutor. Give me a few more years to build my case!
If we could choose to black out certain parts of our life it would be like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. We would just erase the memories completely. That seems pretty harsh and I think, as in the movie, we would regret that decision. If only because we would walk around with a feeling of deja vu wherever we went. We'd lose that pain which really is the stuff that makes us grow as a person. I don't think we learn as much or grow as much when we are happy and successful. I think it takes pain and failure for the good growth. Or maybe that is just what miserable people tell themselves to feel better. Yet even the most successful people in history had to fail and fail miserably before they achieved true success. It took Thomas Edison hundreds of attempts to create the light bulb. Yet history doesn't look at Edison as some huge failure who only succeeded once in creating the light bulb. He invented the light bulb. Abraham Lincoln filed bankruptcy. He was a complete disaster as a business owner. But how many people knew that? We know him as one of our greatest (if not the greatest) president ever. How about Michael Jordan? He lost in the NBA playoffs to the Detroit Pistons three years in a row. Did he run off and join forces with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson to form a super team in Miami? No, he got more resolve and won six NBA titles. No one remembers the losses. We just remember him as the greatest player of all-time.
One of my favorite movies is Memento. The guy has short-term memory loss. Every five minutes or so he forgets everything all over again. He ends up tattooing everything all over his body to remember clues to a crime he is solving and everybody he's met. Last night I watched The Hangover again. These guys just got roofied and forgot their crazy bachelor party night and spent the next day piecing it together. No tattoos, just a missing tooth, a tiger, and a naked Japanese man with a tire iron. I'm sure we've all had moments in our life we wished we could black out from. Whether it was something painful or just plain embarrassing, we would be better off having no recollection of it except maybe some small piece of evidence..that we burn. Well in honor of those great movies I'm going to write a blog backwards today. Or as backwards as you can write a blog, last paragraph will be the first so I guess to really make sense of it you need to start at the bottom and read up, of course that is no fun so hopefully you read the whole thing chronologically and are just as confused as that poor dude in Memento minus the full body tattoos.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Do you ever feel you were born in the wrong time? I do sometimes. I feel like I am stuck in a culture and a time that doesn't inspire or move me. Had I been born in the 1920's I would have fought in World War 2. I would have been part of the greatest generation. I would have toughness that I don't possess now. I would have more resolve and more passion. Sure, life would have been challenging and not guaranteed especially if I had to fight in that war, but it also seemed healthier. It feels like life now is a lot less healthier even though medicine and science may keep us alive longer. What we gained in years we've lost in intelligence, depth, and compassion.
If I was born in 1877, instead of 1977 I would have been born 19 years before the first car in the US was built, 26 years before the first plane ever flew. I would have lived during the time of Mark Twain. I'd be seven when Huckleberry Finn was first printed and published. I'd see the end of the horse and buggy. I'd be 52 when the Great Depression hit and crippled the US and world economy. Would I have been in a soup kitchen? Would I have the mental resolve to bounce back? Would life then have prepared me for those challenges?
How about forty years earlier? If I was born in 1837 instead of 1877, I'd have been 11 when the California Gold Rush struck. If my family lived east (which most did in that time) would they have taken the trek out west? Could we have ended up like the Donner party in 1846? Stuck in the mountains and snowed in forced to make those horrible decisions. If we stayed east I'd have been 24 when the Civil War began. I'd be fighting against a divided country with vastly different philosophies on how their lives should be.
What about 1777? That would be a year after we claimed Independence from England. I would be a baby in a baby of a country. I would be ten when the US Constitution was adopted. I'd be 11 when George Washington was elected our first President. And if born just 20 years earlier I'd be fighting for Independence against England.
Even my parent's generation had the 1960's. They had Vietnam. They had Haight Ashbury and free love. They had Woodstock. They watched man's first steps on the moon.
We've had 9/11. I'm not sure how many of us still even now the impact that's had on us. We are in two wars, but seem so far away from them. We live in a 24 hour news cycle and stalk celebrities. We tear people down to build ourselves up. We count down events. First Y2K, the supposed end of computers as we knew them. Now 2012, the end of the Mayan calendar and supposed cataclysmic world event. We reach back for yesterday to explain our tomorrow because we don't know where we are going. We grasp history to explain our financial crises because we don't know how to fix them ourselves. We have more information and technology at our fingertips, we can learn more than any of our ancestors ever dreamed of knowing and we lie idle. We are overwhelmed. We crave the horse and buggy. We crave the log cabin and fireplace and classic book, maybe Huckleberry Finn? Because our minds don't move as fast as this world is moving us.
I worry about the next ten years. Maybe we cling to the idea of 2012 because we can't see what exists afterwards. We keep looking for the end because no one knows where this ship is sailing. We ride until they tell us to get off. I just wonder if I should even be on it or if I was supposed to be on the Mayflower.
If I was born in 1877, instead of 1977 I would have been born 19 years before the first car in the US was built, 26 years before the first plane ever flew. I would have lived during the time of Mark Twain. I'd be seven when Huckleberry Finn was first printed and published. I'd see the end of the horse and buggy. I'd be 52 when the Great Depression hit and crippled the US and world economy. Would I have been in a soup kitchen? Would I have the mental resolve to bounce back? Would life then have prepared me for those challenges?
How about forty years earlier? If I was born in 1837 instead of 1877, I'd have been 11 when the California Gold Rush struck. If my family lived east (which most did in that time) would they have taken the trek out west? Could we have ended up like the Donner party in 1846? Stuck in the mountains and snowed in forced to make those horrible decisions. If we stayed east I'd have been 24 when the Civil War began. I'd be fighting against a divided country with vastly different philosophies on how their lives should be.
What about 1777? That would be a year after we claimed Independence from England. I would be a baby in a baby of a country. I would be ten when the US Constitution was adopted. I'd be 11 when George Washington was elected our first President. And if born just 20 years earlier I'd be fighting for Independence against England.
Even my parent's generation had the 1960's. They had Vietnam. They had Haight Ashbury and free love. They had Woodstock. They watched man's first steps on the moon.
We've had 9/11. I'm not sure how many of us still even now the impact that's had on us. We are in two wars, but seem so far away from them. We live in a 24 hour news cycle and stalk celebrities. We tear people down to build ourselves up. We count down events. First Y2K, the supposed end of computers as we knew them. Now 2012, the end of the Mayan calendar and supposed cataclysmic world event. We reach back for yesterday to explain our tomorrow because we don't know where we are going. We grasp history to explain our financial crises because we don't know how to fix them ourselves. We have more information and technology at our fingertips, we can learn more than any of our ancestors ever dreamed of knowing and we lie idle. We are overwhelmed. We crave the horse and buggy. We crave the log cabin and fireplace and classic book, maybe Huckleberry Finn? Because our minds don't move as fast as this world is moving us.
I worry about the next ten years. Maybe we cling to the idea of 2012 because we can't see what exists afterwards. We keep looking for the end because no one knows where this ship is sailing. We ride until they tell us to get off. I just wonder if I should even be on it or if I was supposed to be on the Mayflower.
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