I'll start this article out with a disclaimer "Bear with me...." So please, bear with me, we'll get there together........
In one of my favorite books "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", there is a brief story about a race of aliens who demanded to know the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything, it took their super-computer(Deep Thought) 7.5 million years to come up with the answer, upon which the aliens were locked in stasis and woke highly anticipating the answer. With great pride Deep Thought told them: 42. As you might guess the aliens were quite dismayed at the answer. The computer answered that they really hadn't come up with an actual proper question, so 42 seemed just as appropriate as any other. When I had read this all those years ago I laughed a lot about it. I thought it was so funny I wanted to get it tattooed on my shoulder, but I figured people would just think I was living in some sort of glory days wanting my high school number on my shoulder or something. I would actually have to explain it, and I thought that wouldn't help me get any dates, which were already far and few between. Why make it harder on myself, but I digress. The aliens went on to let the computer design another computer that would come up with the REAL question that would allow Deep Thought to come up with the answer to the Ultimate Question. This took another 10 million years unfortunately while the aliens slept their world was destroyed. The guardians of the sleeping aliens(intelligent white lab mice who escaped) decided the question was: "How many roads must a man walk down?" so they could avoid the whole situation and call it good. This of course was just as funny to me then as it is now. The irony of all this is that while I was laughing about it, it never dawned on me to actually ask my own question of the meaning of my own life and the answers I needed to make it worth while. Mostly, I just looked at it and used it as reason to point out again the overall meaningless nature of life. Because you know it was the 90's and well.....grunge. Sigh. Sometimes I want to find 20 year old me and kick him in the nuts.
So, while it hasn't taken me a combined 17.5 million years to find a question or an answer as useless as those two. It has caused me to waste at least 42 of them thinking about what to do with the rest of the Meaning as it is concerned to my own life. There are plenty of roadblocks, twists and turns to get to a moment where you think that "Holy $#%! This stuff is getting serious now!" I'm not looking for a Hail Mary or a dive for the endzone. I'm looking for a complete gameplan. Something that says I played the game right with everybody in mind and we all come out the other side a little further along and with a little more meaning. So, while in the context of most birthdays 42 is not a landmark like 16,21, 30,40, 50, 100, etc. To me it's a pretty big deal. Like the aliens in the book I spent a lot of time letting something else determine the questions and answers for the meaning of life as it pertains to me. Let's be honest. That sucks.
Nearly fourteen years ago today I woke up on my birthday to see one of the most surreal incidents in my entire life. Planes slamming into the side of two of the most iconic structures in America. At first I thought it was a video of the original bombings of the WTC in the 90's . Then the second plane hit. It's a sobering visual every year on your birthday to be reminded of something like that and reminds you to keep moving forward, never take a day for granted let alone another year of your life. Yet, it did lose it's urgency for a while. Life trudges on and memorials and glossy words fade into time. Some years you want to forget about the tragedies along with how the last year went, no matter how many memes you read.
But. Some years are like last year. This last year has been one of the greatest of my entire life(Top 5 at least). It's been full of epiphanies, goals, and an overall appreciation for so much I have in my life and so much that I have left behind for the better. I don't look forward to the endless parade of video footage today, but it is a grim reminder that I am still alive and so are so many people I love and the new lives created along the way. It has been about living in these moments that occur every day and trying to make it all matter.
So. What is my answer to the grand question we all seek to answer in each of our lives. First another disclaimer: I am not wise. I am full of mistakes, laughter, lies, truths, and a healthy amount of booze at times. So I ask myself what is my 42 at 42? Here we go.......
Try to add something to the existence of others not just yourself, don't subtract. Wake up each day with a new outlook on something old and make it new again. Make amends any way you can when you and the ones you love don't see eye to eye. Admit your mistakes and correct them. Don't go to bed with regrets about the way you lived that day. Be good for the sake of being good. Love for the sake of loving. Be kind for the sake of being kind. Live a dream while you still live, and live true. When you fail at these things (and we all fail at them) do them over again in a different way and find out just how many roads you can walk down. 42.
Friday, September 11, 2015
Saturday, September 5, 2015
Homework?
What are your hopes and dreams for your children this year? Pretty weighty question to be asking parents as they are trying to rifle through open house night at the elementary school. Moving quickly from class to class to answer all the necessary information and paperwork in each class, so you can get those kids out of there and get your daughter to dance and go watch your nephew play football. It must be the question du jour, because both teachers asked us the same question. For my son I just wrote an infinity symbol with achievement written in the middle, mostly to baffle the teacher and also to speed things along. My daughter's teacher asked that we write a letter and send it with our daughter to school the very first day. Oh my, that poor teacher to have to read the endless drivel that we parents will spew out about our hopes and dreams for our children. How we hope they will climb the highest mountains and meet each challenge because they are geniuses that know no bounds. Yawn.
Here's a shocker, I have no hopes and dreams for my children. It's their lives. It's their hope, it's their dreams. I will not instill my hopes and dreams into them in an effort to mold their lives like I would like them to be. That's not my job. I will advise them, guide them and love them. That's all I have to do. If they tell me they want to be an architect, then I will help them figure out how they are going to achieve that(if only Costanza would have had such support). I will support them and cheer them on as they try to move through life. I will not tell them what they should do with their lives or set a goal out for them that they have no interest in achieving, or worse try to achieve it because if they don't, somehow they have failed me. It is their job to explore and report back to me on what they find. I'll help them translate their findings, but in the end their life is their gig. I have 3 pieces of advice for them: Don't break the law. Find someone that loves what you love. Learn to swim. Pretty easy really.
Parents may not like to hear this but the hopes and dreams we place on your children as they grow older are literally the boxes we place around them. A lot of times they will be the very obstacles they need to overcome in order to achieve what they truly want to achieve in this life. Once again a lot of therapists make a lot of money off of it, so I don't think I'm far off. If they say human beings have nearly 95%(it's around this number) of their behaviors locked in by 18 years of age, why would I try to over-incorporate my hopes and dreams into my kids? I ask them what they want to do, and yes they may tell me one thing and we do it for a month and they find out it isn't for them. Now we know. We of course talk about commitment and all those important values. Otherwise there are very few things I won't let them try (except baseball, never f$%^& baseball, overzealous parents and tournament organizers have ruined that sport. I'm just kidding, kids should play 4 baseball games in a day every Saturday for the most of the Summer. Everyone loves that.). When I was a child I remember I wanted to be almost anything, my Dad once told me I should be a lawyer because my mouth constantly ran and it was somewhat quick-witted(he used another term, but I'll stick with quick witted). Of course my Mom said being a lawyer wasn't any good because they are greedy lowlifes. So, what the hell does a 10 year old kid do with those two thought processes? Regardless, I found out lawyers go to 4 more years of school and I threw that idea out instantly. I also found out you had to study a lot and work in an office everyday. Offices had no moving parts, machinery, or noise. It sounded very boring. Still, this is a good example of the boxes we create for our kids. My Dad and Mom were both trying to create a box, instead of asking me what I wanted to do and defining what I should or shouldn't do with my life. They didn't mean to of course, at the time they could have just been trying to get me to at least think about the future. So, this begs the question, what the hell is the teacher doing asking me for the Hopes and Dreams of my children. Ask my child. Ask them what they want to do, and let's support them in their hopes and dreams rather than ask the parents. If the kid says I want to design toys, don't laugh at the idea, find out what it takes to design toys. Someone out there is designing toys. Why not that child, if it is their dream?
In the end a writing assignment is a writing assignment. Since I am required to write the letter it will be penned as such(please cue theme song for Breakfast Club): I accept the fact that I have to sacrifice a portion of my last Summer Saturday to write this letter. But I think you're crazy to make me write a letter telling you what I we think my child's hopes and dreams are. My hope and dream is they work towards following their own hopes and dreams and explore the world as fully as they can in that endeavor. That they will disregard anyone who stands in the pursuit of their hopes and dreams,including their friends, family and educators. In the end, you see each of these children as you want to see them—in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But you will find out is that each one of them is a brain...and an athlete...and a basket case...a princess...and a criminal. Does that answer your question?
Sincerely
The Man in the Box.
(I'm counting on it that a teacher never asks me to write another thing)
(It's Gaaaammmmmmmedayyyyyy! I'm out of here. Go Jacks!)
Here's a shocker, I have no hopes and dreams for my children. It's their lives. It's their hope, it's their dreams. I will not instill my hopes and dreams into them in an effort to mold their lives like I would like them to be. That's not my job. I will advise them, guide them and love them. That's all I have to do. If they tell me they want to be an architect, then I will help them figure out how they are going to achieve that(if only Costanza would have had such support). I will support them and cheer them on as they try to move through life. I will not tell them what they should do with their lives or set a goal out for them that they have no interest in achieving, or worse try to achieve it because if they don't, somehow they have failed me. It is their job to explore and report back to me on what they find. I'll help them translate their findings, but in the end their life is their gig. I have 3 pieces of advice for them: Don't break the law. Find someone that loves what you love. Learn to swim. Pretty easy really.
Parents may not like to hear this but the hopes and dreams we place on your children as they grow older are literally the boxes we place around them. A lot of times they will be the very obstacles they need to overcome in order to achieve what they truly want to achieve in this life. Once again a lot of therapists make a lot of money off of it, so I don't think I'm far off. If they say human beings have nearly 95%(it's around this number) of their behaviors locked in by 18 years of age, why would I try to over-incorporate my hopes and dreams into my kids? I ask them what they want to do, and yes they may tell me one thing and we do it for a month and they find out it isn't for them. Now we know. We of course talk about commitment and all those important values. Otherwise there are very few things I won't let them try (except baseball, never f$%^& baseball, overzealous parents and tournament organizers have ruined that sport. I'm just kidding, kids should play 4 baseball games in a day every Saturday for the most of the Summer. Everyone loves that.). When I was a child I remember I wanted to be almost anything, my Dad once told me I should be a lawyer because my mouth constantly ran and it was somewhat quick-witted(he used another term, but I'll stick with quick witted). Of course my Mom said being a lawyer wasn't any good because they are greedy lowlifes. So, what the hell does a 10 year old kid do with those two thought processes? Regardless, I found out lawyers go to 4 more years of school and I threw that idea out instantly. I also found out you had to study a lot and work in an office everyday. Offices had no moving parts, machinery, or noise. It sounded very boring. Still, this is a good example of the boxes we create for our kids. My Dad and Mom were both trying to create a box, instead of asking me what I wanted to do and defining what I should or shouldn't do with my life. They didn't mean to of course, at the time they could have just been trying to get me to at least think about the future. So, this begs the question, what the hell is the teacher doing asking me for the Hopes and Dreams of my children. Ask my child. Ask them what they want to do, and let's support them in their hopes and dreams rather than ask the parents. If the kid says I want to design toys, don't laugh at the idea, find out what it takes to design toys. Someone out there is designing toys. Why not that child, if it is their dream?
In the end a writing assignment is a writing assignment. Since I am required to write the letter it will be penned as such(please cue theme song for Breakfast Club): I accept the fact that I have to sacrifice a portion of my last Summer Saturday to write this letter. But I think you're crazy to make me write a letter telling you what I we think my child's hopes and dreams are. My hope and dream is they work towards following their own hopes and dreams and explore the world as fully as they can in that endeavor. That they will disregard anyone who stands in the pursuit of their hopes and dreams,including their friends, family and educators. In the end, you see each of these children as you want to see them—in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But you will find out is that each one of them is a brain...and an athlete...and a basket case...a princess...and a criminal. Does that answer your question?
Sincerely
The Man in the Box.
(I'm counting on it that a teacher never asks me to write another thing)
(It's Gaaaammmmmmmedayyyyyy! I'm out of here. Go Jacks!)
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