A long line wrapped around the theater. It was the longest line I had ever seen. I was so excited as I stood there with my brother. We had seen Star Wars an endless amount of times and while I was now 7 years old, I was wiser and thought I knew everything there was to know. It was the summer of 1980, and the line was out front the State Theater in my hometown. It doesn't get anymore Americana than that. A single screen theater, 1 of 2 in the little town that wasn't quite baking like it would in the coming July and August. No parents, just us two and maybe a neighbor kid, talking about the glory to come in the screeching of fighters and the blaring of blasters. There were no deep meanings of the Force and everything else to us, just seeing our heroes lit up once again on a screen in their quest to save the galaxy. They would have to do a lot to impress me, I was 7 after all. Of course they did impress us, whoever they were, kids didn't know or care about George Lucas. We just knew we wanted more Star Wars and they had delivered it again. We had went as a family to it in Drive-ins, and theaters with friends and cousins and Aunts. We travelled like mercenaries to any house that had a fabled Laser Disc(Google it, like the way of the Jedi it's time had passed it by with a remnant of it surviving in new technology). We owned all the figures we could get our hands on. It was not without controversy, like the now infamous R2D2-Chewbacca incident of '78, forgiveness is hard in these matters, but time heals most wounds. We spent endless hours in rooms and backyards in epic space battles, even crashing a TIE fighter complete with a carefully placed blue smoke bomb inside it's cockpit. First rule of Star Wars toys was find a kid who owned a Millenium Falcon and make friends with him. That glorious bucket of bolts that made a miraculous run in 12 Parsecs. We had no idea what the Kessel Run was or what a parsec was,(we didn't have google, and I don't think it was in the beautiful faux-looking leather binding of our World Book Encyclopedia's circa 1974) we just knew we had to make that infamous run. We made it in the Theater that night. I'm sure some folks further down the line behind us did not, I bet someone in a line like that went on to invent Fandango, so they would never miss a show of such importance again. This was Empire Strikes Back opening weekend there would be casualties and good men left behind in order to see it. We sat enthralled for the entire duration of that movie until the final end when Darth Vader reveals the true nature of his relationship to Luke. Did he just say that? He's lying, and it had to be a trick of the Dark Side, even I could see that. We had new heroes and villains that filled the canon of what we had already known about Star Wars. The theater erupted with applause at the end. I've been to a few movies on my life and I know there has been very few where clapping was involved. We walked out into the still warm night that drove the chill of the movie theater AC from us. If you've never been on the prairie when the sun is falling and stars begin to pierce the thin veil of wispy clouds and the slow turning of blue to soft purples to black velvet pin pointed by the lights of endless stars, well I might just feel sorry for you a little bit. This was one of those nights and one of those hours. We waited for the station wagon to come pick us up and we went home with thoughts of new battles and new adventure. As time wore on and we began to outgrow some of the magic the movies held over us(have to admit Return of the Jedi helped dissipate some of that enthusiasm, also the whole Luke kissing his sister thing was somewhat confusing for a 10 year old, for some people the controversy continues).
So, here we sat in another line decades later. 3 brothers waiting to see Star Wars again. The movie would be a continuation of our heroes' adventures. A renewing of the infamous Chewbacca-R2D2 controversy and bitterness pushed down in favor of keeping a good mood on the occasion. Once again I was older and wiser and they, as in Hollywood, couldn't show me much I hadn't seen or knew about. One brother had already seen it, but he kept his mouth shut, avoiding any new controversy. A nephew accidentally read something out loud from pinterest, so he ruined a few things for the oldest brother. I remained fresh going in. I had my thoughts and speculations, but I pushed them aside in favor of surprise. We were standing directly in front of one of the movie posters, the poster has all the elements we had come to know and love, characters standing in action poses, ominous enemies lurking over them and a gigantic planet-killing device that surely would destroy everything you knew and loved. Each of us had brought our children with us, ranging in ages from elementary to high school, there was 8 of us in all. It seemed like it should be a normal moment. It wasn't. Star Wars had been along for the ride with us since we were kids. Toys, Halloween costumes, family outings in Omaha, birthday and Christmas presents. Star Wars has always been common ground between kids, teenagers and adults since I was 4 years old. How could this be a normal moment including something we all had enjoyed for so long? It wasn't a nice warm summer evening though, it was the darkest of nights near the shortest of days in the year. Luckily we all fit inside the theater lobby. When they finally opened the theater door, we filed in with subdued excitement(fool me once Phantom Menace). No need to worry about tickets, thanks Fandango! We found a nice row of seats that would keep us all connected. We settled in and with little wait the theater screen lit up and the story began(after an hour of Preview Trailers). Much like life, our heroes had aged, they had gained responsibilities and had setbacks. I could draw the parallels of torches being passed between the old generation and the new characters and actors handing off batons. I thought about the collective memories our kids would have going to this movie with their Dad's, siblings and cousins. Then maybe the next movie that comes out, we'll all attend again. I have to admit, it made my 3D glasses go a little misty, of course it also might have been certain scenes in the movie, who knows. Much like things in Star Wars and life there will be myths and legends like the Kessel Run and the Chewbacca-R2D2 controversy, or even foggy 3D glasses. What really happened and where the truth appears is always somewhere in the middle. What we usually always remember is the people we shared those memories with and how it makes us feel when we think about them. I will hear the laughter of the kids at the funny parts and the quiet whispers as they tried to figure out what was going on in parts or predict what was going to happen. It's a good memory, one I hope to hold on to until the reboot 30 years from now when I hopefully get an invite to go to a Star Wars movie with my kids and grandkids and maybe some nieces and nephews. As the movie came to a close, much like at the end of Empire decades ago, people in the theater began to applaud, I smiled. As we left the megasuperawesomeplexin3D I could almost feel the echoes of that summer night so many years ago,a couple of bushy haired kids in high tube socks, terrible tank shirts and awful shorts not knowing how something so simple as the memory of a movie would still hold so much magic. I hope I helped create a similar memory for my kids, not just with me but with the rest of their family. Those are the kinds of memories that only come around every so often.They can stick with you for the rest of your life. Memories can fade into family lore or burn bright, like ancient squabbles about how an older brother used his careful manipulation to trick a sweet innocent 4 yr old boy into picking the R2D2 action figure over Chewbacca, just so he could get Chewbacca instead of his little brother. Leaving the poor little boy crying all the way home from White Mart pissed off at a seemingly useless toy droid, I mean come on, he didn't even have a laser pistol. Sonnuvabitch.
(SPOILER: Personally I enjoyed every second of the movie, and I believe it got a full 8 Wilde approval rating from the entire crew. I understand some people didn't like it, I just don't understand that some people didn't like it.)
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Friday, September 11, 2015
Dylan was right...................
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.
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.
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!)
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Pobody's nerfect!
"I'm not perfect!!" If you are visualizing me saying this, then you are probably heading to your calendar to write it down, including date and the time you read it. Another likely outcome is you have read all you need to read and will disregard the rest. I accept that, because, yes I deserve it, but, we've all used that statement to hide behind at one time or another. Sometimes this statement is used to get out of an argument or hide behind when things didn't quite go our way. I'm not perfect. Nobody is of course, for the most part(I'll get to that later). Yet we all believe we are perfect. I've seen the people that believe they are perfect, I've believed I am perfect. We all believe we are perfect because as a general rule we believe our way is the right way to live and act as a human being. The only time we don't believe this is when we get caught not being perfect. The reason is we all think we know what perfect means. We can label our lives as perfect, relationships, golf game, and dogs. All perfecto! The stretching and reaching for perfection has plagued mankind for his entire existence. It's a need for everyone of us to display an outward appearance of perfection. We've got our shit together. Some might be reading this and thinking that I am being a sanctimonious ass. True, I am, because I am just as guilty as the rest of humanity. Just look at facebook. It's littered with the endless parade of "look at me", "look at what I chose for dinner", "look at all of the perfect things I have displayed for you to make up a story in your head on how I am living my life. I'm a perfect spouse. I'm a perfect parent. My kids are perfect. My parents are perfect. My Fantasy Football team is perfect(you drafted Romo? Come on. I don't need to be perfect to know that was stupid.)We all groan a little when we see a picture of this or that, and I'm sure I've posted stories of this or that, that have caused eye rolls. I accept that, but it's all superficial surface feelings that I don't need to be Professor X(I am required to have one geek reference per blog) to pick up on.
Now, people might say, "But, I don't think I'm perfect." Honest answer? B.S. If at any time you have believed that your answers on an abstract subject are unequivocal, you have believed you are perfect by the default your opinion is the correct one. I'm not saying ditch every thing you believe to be a truth. Innately, we will all cling to the core of our belief structure, just be accepting that their are people who have a different belief system(Yes, I know, sometimes I go for the throat on this myself). There are moments of honesty and truthfulness where people let themselves be vulnerable, that are straight out beautiful to read or know. I do love those moments and I do celebrate them. I would like more of this connection between people, more of the honesty. "Dan your an ass! And this is why....." That's perfect, of course then you think you are perfect! "Traffic was so bad on the way home from work today, I shit my pants. LOL!" includes a pic. When's the last time you saw that on a Twitter feed? That would be honesty on a whole new level and letting people in to say, I'm not all that perfect. It's difficult to let down that guard of your perfect public persona. The one that let's others know everything about how you look and nothing about how you feel. I hear the voices again saying "But Dan you comment on a lot of stuff and try to impose your thought processes on me!" True. I'm not perfect, also it's good to bear in mind, I quite literally hold back 95% of the things I want to say, it used to be 25%. I'm working on it, I know I used to say pretty much whatever I wanted with little thought of caring what people thought of me. That's not true though. The people who say they don't care what other people think, usually care the most. Otherwise, why research 15 stories, share 10 other posts, and 45 memes all supporting a personal position? Because they don't care right? We've built ourselves up so much in our lives, our passions and our own personal stories, we have difficulties accepting other viewpoints that aren't in harmony with our own. Part of this is our inability to accept our own imperfections in an effort to remain in our concept of perceived perfection. Great right? Only the price we pay is this prevents us from moving forward with the changes we truly desire in life. In short we can't get to know people, especially the ones we love, if we don't accept where they operate from emotionally. If we can shed all of that and work towards a true life-balance with our surroundings and literally just drink it all in. Life-Balance to me is an achievement of the entire person that moves a person forward emotionally with the rest of society with the least amount of conflicting energy that is possible while maintain a changing sense of self. With a true Life-Balance there is enough positive energy in life that generating any conflict should become non-existent. In short, get along, find out what stuff is about, and in general be open. Following this can create a path of multiple individual successes, when joined together can create a direction of infinite possibilities. Does this mean I won't call out a clearly biased story or lie that is presented as truth? Of course not, but I will try to respect your belief structure as long as you respect mine. I can discuss everything with a clear head, as long as another person does as well. Does this mean I am perfect? No, of course not, my buttons can be pushed as easily as anybody else's can. The anger that anyone displays when their belief structure is put to the test is perhaps one of the most frightening and puzzling aspects of being a person. It's so tough to say after 10, 20, 30 or whatever amount of years...."I'm wrong. I'm not perfect.I have to change now."
Pretty heavy stuff for a Sunday night Ogre. Sometimes I still wonder if Dog really spells Cat(google it Nerds). On the other hand I don't know if this is brilliant or regurgitated hippy crap. I do know the expectations of perfections is a deep seated issue in our society. Therapists make a pretty good living off of it. The truth is we all have achieved our own level of perfection that we have allowed ourselves to reach, and that's where we all will remain. Unless we break through our individual "perfection"ceilings and come together as a human race we will remain in a state of "perfection is bliss" and It's hard to let that guard down and just say "hey, by the way I shit myself on the way home from work today. LOL!" But. maybe we should all try it just once instead of posting pics of today's egg-salad sandwich, which incidentally, might have caused you to shit your pants on the way home from work.
(Once again...I am not a therapist, I am in no way accredited in any way, shape or form other than I probably think too much. This advice is strictly for your amusement, if you decide to incorporate it into your own life. Be careful: It may increase thinking, cause questioning of who you are in the universe and cause you to get "lucky" at least 1.5 more times a year)
Now, people might say, "But, I don't think I'm perfect." Honest answer? B.S. If at any time you have believed that your answers on an abstract subject are unequivocal, you have believed you are perfect by the default your opinion is the correct one. I'm not saying ditch every thing you believe to be a truth. Innately, we will all cling to the core of our belief structure, just be accepting that their are people who have a different belief system(Yes, I know, sometimes I go for the throat on this myself). There are moments of honesty and truthfulness where people let themselves be vulnerable, that are straight out beautiful to read or know. I do love those moments and I do celebrate them. I would like more of this connection between people, more of the honesty. "Dan your an ass! And this is why....." That's perfect, of course then you think you are perfect! "Traffic was so bad on the way home from work today, I shit my pants. LOL!" includes a pic. When's the last time you saw that on a Twitter feed? That would be honesty on a whole new level and letting people in to say, I'm not all that perfect. It's difficult to let down that guard of your perfect public persona. The one that let's others know everything about how you look and nothing about how you feel. I hear the voices again saying "But Dan you comment on a lot of stuff and try to impose your thought processes on me!" True. I'm not perfect, also it's good to bear in mind, I quite literally hold back 95% of the things I want to say, it used to be 25%. I'm working on it, I know I used to say pretty much whatever I wanted with little thought of caring what people thought of me. That's not true though. The people who say they don't care what other people think, usually care the most. Otherwise, why research 15 stories, share 10 other posts, and 45 memes all supporting a personal position? Because they don't care right? We've built ourselves up so much in our lives, our passions and our own personal stories, we have difficulties accepting other viewpoints that aren't in harmony with our own. Part of this is our inability to accept our own imperfections in an effort to remain in our concept of perceived perfection. Great right? Only the price we pay is this prevents us from moving forward with the changes we truly desire in life. In short we can't get to know people, especially the ones we love, if we don't accept where they operate from emotionally. If we can shed all of that and work towards a true life-balance with our surroundings and literally just drink it all in. Life-Balance to me is an achievement of the entire person that moves a person forward emotionally with the rest of society with the least amount of conflicting energy that is possible while maintain a changing sense of self. With a true Life-Balance there is enough positive energy in life that generating any conflict should become non-existent. In short, get along, find out what stuff is about, and in general be open. Following this can create a path of multiple individual successes, when joined together can create a direction of infinite possibilities. Does this mean I won't call out a clearly biased story or lie that is presented as truth? Of course not, but I will try to respect your belief structure as long as you respect mine. I can discuss everything with a clear head, as long as another person does as well. Does this mean I am perfect? No, of course not, my buttons can be pushed as easily as anybody else's can. The anger that anyone displays when their belief structure is put to the test is perhaps one of the most frightening and puzzling aspects of being a person. It's so tough to say after 10, 20, 30 or whatever amount of years...."I'm wrong. I'm not perfect.I have to change now."
Pretty heavy stuff for a Sunday night Ogre. Sometimes I still wonder if Dog really spells Cat(google it Nerds). On the other hand I don't know if this is brilliant or regurgitated hippy crap. I do know the expectations of perfections is a deep seated issue in our society. Therapists make a pretty good living off of it. The truth is we all have achieved our own level of perfection that we have allowed ourselves to reach, and that's where we all will remain. Unless we break through our individual "perfection"ceilings and come together as a human race we will remain in a state of "perfection is bliss" and It's hard to let that guard down and just say "hey, by the way I shit myself on the way home from work today. LOL!" But. maybe we should all try it just once instead of posting pics of today's egg-salad sandwich, which incidentally, might have caused you to shit your pants on the way home from work.
(Once again...I am not a therapist, I am in no way accredited in any way, shape or form other than I probably think too much. This advice is strictly for your amusement, if you decide to incorporate it into your own life. Be careful: It may increase thinking, cause questioning of who you are in the universe and cause you to get "lucky" at least 1.5 more times a year)
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Fear. It's a tough emotion. It can grip you and hold you down. Rob you of rational thought, passion, and of course confidence. We all have our little fears. Some are little, like spiders and clowns. Some are huge, like spiders and clowns. Some fears will drive us forward into success and passion. Others will hold us back and keep each of us from fulfilling a part of our lives we always wanted to be successful. Sometimes we need help from others to get over our fears.
The other morning while driving to work, the local DJ's were discussing moments of their greatest fears. People were calling in and sharing their stories. Moments where they didn't face their fears and turned back. It's not too hard too imagine how every single person's life could be different if they had faced their fears. I easily thought of my own greatest moments of fear. Let me take you back in time to 1991. It was magical time the Simpsons were on T.V., a Clinton and a Bush were running for President, Jurassic Park is King in the theaters and we were just finishing up a war in the Middle East....wait-a-minute.......anywho.....
My initial military training was loaded with fears. I was a 17 year old kid from a small town in South Dakota. I was cliché as it gets. I was handed a ticket and a time I had to be in Atlanta, GA for basic training and advanced training. My family and a few friends saw me off at the airport in Sioux Falls SD. At the time, the furthest I had ever been was Omaha to the south, Minneapolis to the east, Aberdeen to the north and Devil's Tower to the west. I had never ridden in an airplane. The first two I would land like a normal person. The third one was an experience altogether different.
The military was a whole different world for me. I knew no one. Mostly, everybody was in the same boat. When in high pressure and tension situations like this, bonding and working together come together quite quickly. The fear of failure was always in the back of my mind. What would it be like to go back, never having completed training? It pushed you to try harder. Firing rifles all night and all day long might seem fun to some people, do it while someone is screaming over top of you alongside a few hundred others who had never had any sort of gun safety courses while growing up. Visions of Full Metal Jacket danced in our heads. The good news is nobody died during my training, there were drop outs, people who couldn't cut it physically or mentally. It happens, they aren't bad people, they just weren't made for it. Fear drove me the whole time. Fear of being singled out, fear of punishment, all of it. It would seem that a guy like me, who had spent his fair share of detention and probation officer conferences, would have somehow gotten in trouble. I didn't. We were identified by individual numbers on our lockers and helmets. Drill Sergeants called you by that number until they learned your real name. they usually learned your real name after you screwed up a lot. The last week of training the Platoon Drill Sergeant asked me my name because he hadn't learned it and asked what platoon I was in. I told him that I was in his platoon with a wide smile. Fear. I had laid low and stayed off the radar. It was my only goal the whole time I was in training to make it out of there without being brutalized mentally or become the whipping boy for the Drill Sergeants. Fear can be used to push you forward, it also can lock you up.
After my initial training I went on to Jump School. 3 weeks of training to teach soldiers how to properly exit a military airplane alongside a couple hundred other soldiers at the same time. I'm not sure who pitched this idea to the military during WWII. I assume it was Don Draper who had sold them this idea as a good one. If you had a fear of heights, you learned pretty quick. Thankfully by this time I had turned 18 during Basic and I was still young and stupid enough to buy in to this idea. Fear was still there everyday as we learned to fall and roll to minimize the damage to our knees(and heads). Every exercise was designed to build confidence. Finally the last days of training we loaded onto C-130 planes and headed up. There were about 50 soldiers in my plane. Fear. A plane full of people who had never jumped out of airplanes that were flying in a roller coaster like fashion, because the Air Force pilots think they are funny. The third plane I had ever rode in, I didn't plan on landing in. Failure to jump, as we were told could lead you to be tried by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. At least that's what they told the wide-eyed idiots that were about to fill the air over a drop zone near Ft Benning GA. This is where trust comes in. Trust your training. Trust that the Jumpmaster lets your Stick(that's the line of soldiers on one side of the plane that run out the door when told to like camouflaged lemmings)jump out over the Drop zone rather than in the trees. Trust the guy in front of you not to get hung up. Trust yourself. When the time came for us to go out the door that was now open. The wind and the sound of the planes engines roared, even through the earplugs we all had in. I followed all of the instructions, repeated them loudly in unison with the entire Stick so every soldier could hear what was going on. I could see nothing but the parachute on the back of the soldier in front of me. I stood there with my tether line in hand. We had hooked all of our tether lines to the cable running lengthwise of the airplane. The tether line would stay connected to the line and would pull the parachute out as gravity took you down. 3 bad things could happen as you fell out of the plane: You could fail to hand the line over correctly to the Jumpmaster and your arm could become entangled in the line and it would rip your bicep down to your forearm making you look like Popeye(Google him if you are under 30 years old). Hope your parachute opens after that because, I'm pretty sure you instantly go into shock as you fall. Or the line could get caught up and you could be dragged behind the plane. At this point the Jumpmaster will try to dislodge you and hopefully the chute pulls out. Failing that, they will cut you loose and you are on your own to pull your emergency chute, which has it's own inherent set of dangers. The last really bad thing that could happen is your chute fails completely and you plummet with only a low 1500 feet between you and the ground to deploy your emergency parachute. Fear at this moment in my life may have been running quite high. The green light came on and we were issued the command of "Green Light Go!". The line of soldiers shuffled forward each handing their lines carefully and quickly to the jumpmaster and then exiting the plane in short swift steps and placing their hands on the exterior of the door then jumping out. I kept my eyes forward looked the instructor in the eye and handed him the tether. Took the steps like I was trained, turned my body, placed my hands outside the edge of the door and looked out. Fear. I froze there in a haze of adrenaline. I had locked up. All the preparation all of the talking myself through it. And then I felt it. The swift kick of freedom, or at least of my Jumpmaster's boot. That son of a bitch had just kicked me! Out I fell. I'm pretty sure a choice swear word escaped my lips as I felt the jolt around my shoulders as my parachute deployed. I opened my eyes. There we all hung in the air drifting slowly to the ground, as safely as a spores blown free from a dandelion. It was amazing! Adrenaline like I had never felt in my life. When we all got our parachutes wrapped up and hauled back, our Jumpmaster walked up with his own chute. He eventually walked up to me and told me he wouldn't let me fail. I told him I had no idea what he was talking about.
The lesson to be taken is that we can focus through all of our fears and come out the other side. Sometimes when it grips us so badly we need help from other people that care about us to make it through. Last, sometimes when we see that fear has gripped people we care about so much it freezes them, a well intentioned kick in the ass can help them move forward when they least expect it. Except for spiders and clowns, it's best just to shoot them and explain your irrational fear of spiders and clowns. Most people understand that.
In all my glory prior to one of my last jumps......
(Unfortunately Spiders and Clowns were not harmed in the making of this Blog. Ranked in order of which famous clown or famous spider you should kill first if attacked: IT(Because IT is an alien space clown spider), Shelob, The Clown from Poltergeist, The arachnophobia spider, and Bozo).
The other morning while driving to work, the local DJ's were discussing moments of their greatest fears. People were calling in and sharing their stories. Moments where they didn't face their fears and turned back. It's not too hard too imagine how every single person's life could be different if they had faced their fears. I easily thought of my own greatest moments of fear. Let me take you back in time to 1991. It was magical time the Simpsons were on T.V., a Clinton and a Bush were running for President, Jurassic Park is King in the theaters and we were just finishing up a war in the Middle East....wait-a-minute.......anywho.....
My initial military training was loaded with fears. I was a 17 year old kid from a small town in South Dakota. I was cliché as it gets. I was handed a ticket and a time I had to be in Atlanta, GA for basic training and advanced training. My family and a few friends saw me off at the airport in Sioux Falls SD. At the time, the furthest I had ever been was Omaha to the south, Minneapolis to the east, Aberdeen to the north and Devil's Tower to the west. I had never ridden in an airplane. The first two I would land like a normal person. The third one was an experience altogether different.
The military was a whole different world for me. I knew no one. Mostly, everybody was in the same boat. When in high pressure and tension situations like this, bonding and working together come together quite quickly. The fear of failure was always in the back of my mind. What would it be like to go back, never having completed training? It pushed you to try harder. Firing rifles all night and all day long might seem fun to some people, do it while someone is screaming over top of you alongside a few hundred others who had never had any sort of gun safety courses while growing up. Visions of Full Metal Jacket danced in our heads. The good news is nobody died during my training, there were drop outs, people who couldn't cut it physically or mentally. It happens, they aren't bad people, they just weren't made for it. Fear drove me the whole time. Fear of being singled out, fear of punishment, all of it. It would seem that a guy like me, who had spent his fair share of detention and probation officer conferences, would have somehow gotten in trouble. I didn't. We were identified by individual numbers on our lockers and helmets. Drill Sergeants called you by that number until they learned your real name. they usually learned your real name after you screwed up a lot. The last week of training the Platoon Drill Sergeant asked me my name because he hadn't learned it and asked what platoon I was in. I told him that I was in his platoon with a wide smile. Fear. I had laid low and stayed off the radar. It was my only goal the whole time I was in training to make it out of there without being brutalized mentally or become the whipping boy for the Drill Sergeants. Fear can be used to push you forward, it also can lock you up.
After my initial training I went on to Jump School. 3 weeks of training to teach soldiers how to properly exit a military airplane alongside a couple hundred other soldiers at the same time. I'm not sure who pitched this idea to the military during WWII. I assume it was Don Draper who had sold them this idea as a good one. If you had a fear of heights, you learned pretty quick. Thankfully by this time I had turned 18 during Basic and I was still young and stupid enough to buy in to this idea. Fear was still there everyday as we learned to fall and roll to minimize the damage to our knees(and heads). Every exercise was designed to build confidence. Finally the last days of training we loaded onto C-130 planes and headed up. There were about 50 soldiers in my plane. Fear. A plane full of people who had never jumped out of airplanes that were flying in a roller coaster like fashion, because the Air Force pilots think they are funny. The third plane I had ever rode in, I didn't plan on landing in. Failure to jump, as we were told could lead you to be tried by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. At least that's what they told the wide-eyed idiots that were about to fill the air over a drop zone near Ft Benning GA. This is where trust comes in. Trust your training. Trust that the Jumpmaster lets your Stick(that's the line of soldiers on one side of the plane that run out the door when told to like camouflaged lemmings)jump out over the Drop zone rather than in the trees. Trust the guy in front of you not to get hung up. Trust yourself. When the time came for us to go out the door that was now open. The wind and the sound of the planes engines roared, even through the earplugs we all had in. I followed all of the instructions, repeated them loudly in unison with the entire Stick so every soldier could hear what was going on. I could see nothing but the parachute on the back of the soldier in front of me. I stood there with my tether line in hand. We had hooked all of our tether lines to the cable running lengthwise of the airplane. The tether line would stay connected to the line and would pull the parachute out as gravity took you down. 3 bad things could happen as you fell out of the plane: You could fail to hand the line over correctly to the Jumpmaster and your arm could become entangled in the line and it would rip your bicep down to your forearm making you look like Popeye(Google him if you are under 30 years old). Hope your parachute opens after that because, I'm pretty sure you instantly go into shock as you fall. Or the line could get caught up and you could be dragged behind the plane. At this point the Jumpmaster will try to dislodge you and hopefully the chute pulls out. Failing that, they will cut you loose and you are on your own to pull your emergency chute, which has it's own inherent set of dangers. The last really bad thing that could happen is your chute fails completely and you plummet with only a low 1500 feet between you and the ground to deploy your emergency parachute. Fear at this moment in my life may have been running quite high. The green light came on and we were issued the command of "Green Light Go!". The line of soldiers shuffled forward each handing their lines carefully and quickly to the jumpmaster and then exiting the plane in short swift steps and placing their hands on the exterior of the door then jumping out. I kept my eyes forward looked the instructor in the eye and handed him the tether. Took the steps like I was trained, turned my body, placed my hands outside the edge of the door and looked out. Fear. I froze there in a haze of adrenaline. I had locked up. All the preparation all of the talking myself through it. And then I felt it. The swift kick of freedom, or at least of my Jumpmaster's boot. That son of a bitch had just kicked me! Out I fell. I'm pretty sure a choice swear word escaped my lips as I felt the jolt around my shoulders as my parachute deployed. I opened my eyes. There we all hung in the air drifting slowly to the ground, as safely as a spores blown free from a dandelion. It was amazing! Adrenaline like I had never felt in my life. When we all got our parachutes wrapped up and hauled back, our Jumpmaster walked up with his own chute. He eventually walked up to me and told me he wouldn't let me fail. I told him I had no idea what he was talking about.
The lesson to be taken is that we can focus through all of our fears and come out the other side. Sometimes when it grips us so badly we need help from other people that care about us to make it through. Last, sometimes when we see that fear has gripped people we care about so much it freezes them, a well intentioned kick in the ass can help them move forward when they least expect it. Except for spiders and clowns, it's best just to shoot them and explain your irrational fear of spiders and clowns. Most people understand that.
In all my glory prior to one of my last jumps......
(Unfortunately Spiders and Clowns were not harmed in the making of this Blog. Ranked in order of which famous clown or famous spider you should kill first if attacked: IT(Because IT is an alien space clown spider), Shelob, The Clown from Poltergeist, The arachnophobia spider, and Bozo).
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Happy Father's Day to all friends, family and aquaintances! Happy Father's Day to people I don't even know, that may have stumbled across this blog on accident. In the past it seems I am always working on this day, rather then relaxing. Years in the restaurant business taught me one thing: We're going to be busy so put your own plans on hold. Not this year. A career change has suddenly given me these weekends off. So, this year I spent most of my day reflecting on many wasted Father's Days, and how it came to be that I could even consider my parenting skills worthy of such a day.
Through time I have learned a lot of methods of being a parent while watching different people with their own kids. While growing up, I learned parenting from some of my friends' Dads. Most every Dad I know, I have stolen some of their techniques and ways of handling things. When your own dad had maybe 5 or 6 rules for you, it always stuck out more when other parents would put additional rules on your friends. Come home at midnight? What's that all about?
Even my own Dad with some of his worst moments of parenting, I at least gathered some sort of "What to do..." or "What not to do..." for every situation. His anti-drug talk always stuck with me the most. "If I ever catch you doing drugs I'll break both your arms". Be very clear here, my father had no capability to break any arms, he was 5'3" and 140 lbs after eating and still wearing boots. To be fair with all the posturing and veiled threats my Dad had made over the years. I don't think he ever even cuffed me in the back of the head, when I did something that truly deserved it. These messages however stuck with me. Dad evidently felt strongly enough about drugs he would wish bodily harm upon his kids rather than see them fall into that abyss. Not, a bad thought actually if you see the destructive nature of so many narcotics. It's not an approach I take, but I know it's important to let your kids know there might be consequences. This would be one of his rules for me. The rest of the rules Dad deemed important entailed don't break any laws, and don't get anyone pregnant. That's pretty much all he asked for and I pretty much tried not to break most laws(there have been instances), and nobody got pregnant before they were supposed to(there were no instances). So, in a way his style of parenting was a success with me.
I have watched all of my friends and brothers raise their kids and have marveled at the job they do. I look at their kids and I hear their dad's in their voices and see the mannerisms they have emulated. I try to integrate what I think works, and I ask questions.
Mostly, I learned about being a Dad from two brothers who had done their own fair share of helping raise me when no one else was bothering with the idea of it. I learned a lot of what not to do from their advice when I was 8, after all they were both only 11 and 14 at that time. They had some pretty bad advice. Mostly I have learned a lot from them over the past decades as they have raised their own crews of incredible kids, who are now going on to make families of their own. Those are the two guys I admire the most.
Personally. I try to keep my own opinions on raising kids to myself unless someone asks. I have learned one thing in this life about parents. When you give unasked for advice about raising kids to other parents: They don't like it. So I keep it to myself and observe, every once in a while I ask a question or just talk about how I handle some things with my own kids. If someone wants to know something I usually answer.
Some might think my parenting skills as....well.....less. So, not a lot of people probably hold me up as a "This is how you should parent guy". I enjoy the free-range parenting more than most. It's how I grew up, I just like to add a few more rules, but probably not as many as I should. I want them to learn on their own too, develop their own way of solving problems and interacting with society. So, far my children have amazed me every step of the way. I hope they get jobs soon, we had our own paper routes by 7. Graham's almost 8, he's falling behind. I guess that's the difference between then and now. Mostly, nobody reads the paper anymore. I also used to light fireworks off when I was 4, I now hand the kids their sparklers. Wheee! Probably a good thing since I remember looking down the barrel of my lit Roman candle to see what was taking so long when I was 6. Luckily, my Mom moved my hand causing the candle to be aimed in the sky just in time before I would have gotten the nickname of Cyclops. Good times! So there's some parenting advice right there: Never look down the wrong end of a lit Roman candle. See, we can help each other.
Everyday of parenting is a growth process and I try to be a little better than the day before. I wouldn't be the Dad I am without all the other Fathers out there. Being a Dad takes a lot of doing things on the fly. We are supposed to fix things, bikes, footballs, homework, hearts and minds. It's a tall order. We all do our best, and sometimes we don't lean on each other like we should, it wouldn't be as macho if we asked another dad for advice. Sometimes we come through with an 'S' on our chest, other times we just fall short. We were supposed to know all this stuff by the time we had kids right? Yeah, right.
So, I'll end it like I started it. Happy Father's Day to all the family, friends, and even the guy in Walmart losing it a little bit in the toy section. Thanks for all the coaching you didn't know you were giving me over the years! I sorely needed it.
Through time I have learned a lot of methods of being a parent while watching different people with their own kids. While growing up, I learned parenting from some of my friends' Dads. Most every Dad I know, I have stolen some of their techniques and ways of handling things. When your own dad had maybe 5 or 6 rules for you, it always stuck out more when other parents would put additional rules on your friends. Come home at midnight? What's that all about?
Even my own Dad with some of his worst moments of parenting, I at least gathered some sort of "What to do..." or "What not to do..." for every situation. His anti-drug talk always stuck with me the most. "If I ever catch you doing drugs I'll break both your arms". Be very clear here, my father had no capability to break any arms, he was 5'3" and 140 lbs after eating and still wearing boots. To be fair with all the posturing and veiled threats my Dad had made over the years. I don't think he ever even cuffed me in the back of the head, when I did something that truly deserved it. These messages however stuck with me. Dad evidently felt strongly enough about drugs he would wish bodily harm upon his kids rather than see them fall into that abyss. Not, a bad thought actually if you see the destructive nature of so many narcotics. It's not an approach I take, but I know it's important to let your kids know there might be consequences. This would be one of his rules for me. The rest of the rules Dad deemed important entailed don't break any laws, and don't get anyone pregnant. That's pretty much all he asked for and I pretty much tried not to break most laws(there have been instances), and nobody got pregnant before they were supposed to(there were no instances). So, in a way his style of parenting was a success with me.
I have watched all of my friends and brothers raise their kids and have marveled at the job they do. I look at their kids and I hear their dad's in their voices and see the mannerisms they have emulated. I try to integrate what I think works, and I ask questions.
Mostly, I learned about being a Dad from two brothers who had done their own fair share of helping raise me when no one else was bothering with the idea of it. I learned a lot of what not to do from their advice when I was 8, after all they were both only 11 and 14 at that time. They had some pretty bad advice. Mostly I have learned a lot from them over the past decades as they have raised their own crews of incredible kids, who are now going on to make families of their own. Those are the two guys I admire the most.
Personally. I try to keep my own opinions on raising kids to myself unless someone asks. I have learned one thing in this life about parents. When you give unasked for advice about raising kids to other parents: They don't like it. So I keep it to myself and observe, every once in a while I ask a question or just talk about how I handle some things with my own kids. If someone wants to know something I usually answer.
Some might think my parenting skills as....well.....less. So, not a lot of people probably hold me up as a "This is how you should parent guy". I enjoy the free-range parenting more than most. It's how I grew up, I just like to add a few more rules, but probably not as many as I should. I want them to learn on their own too, develop their own way of solving problems and interacting with society. So, far my children have amazed me every step of the way. I hope they get jobs soon, we had our own paper routes by 7. Graham's almost 8, he's falling behind. I guess that's the difference between then and now. Mostly, nobody reads the paper anymore. I also used to light fireworks off when I was 4, I now hand the kids their sparklers. Wheee! Probably a good thing since I remember looking down the barrel of my lit Roman candle to see what was taking so long when I was 6. Luckily, my Mom moved my hand causing the candle to be aimed in the sky just in time before I would have gotten the nickname of Cyclops. Good times! So there's some parenting advice right there: Never look down the wrong end of a lit Roman candle. See, we can help each other.
Everyday of parenting is a growth process and I try to be a little better than the day before. I wouldn't be the Dad I am without all the other Fathers out there. Being a Dad takes a lot of doing things on the fly. We are supposed to fix things, bikes, footballs, homework, hearts and minds. It's a tall order. We all do our best, and sometimes we don't lean on each other like we should, it wouldn't be as macho if we asked another dad for advice. Sometimes we come through with an 'S' on our chest, other times we just fall short. We were supposed to know all this stuff by the time we had kids right? Yeah, right.
So, I'll end it like I started it. Happy Father's Day to all the family, friends, and even the guy in Walmart losing it a little bit in the toy section. Thanks for all the coaching you didn't know you were giving me over the years! I sorely needed it.
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Find your passion. Three words that somehow evoke fear, panic, doubt, even denial. The passions have always been there in my head. Everything I've wanted to do, every little thing I've wanted to achieve. But the programs of your hardwiring in your brain can kick in pretty fast "Can't make any money at that?" "What will people think of that?" "What if it fails right away?" or worse "WHAT IF IT SUCCEEDS RIGHT AWAY?" These are just a few roadblocks running through at any given moment. I'm not looking for just success. I think just about anybody can do that. I am looking for individual success in something I am passionate about, not what you or anyone else is passionate about.
The old saying goes, find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life. I've worked a lot of days, then, I think everyone has. There are those and you see them and read about them, that truly have no idea what year it is. They are having so much fun fulfilling their lives in a manner that they have a passion about. Just, think if the whole world was doing something they were truly passionate about. Wouldn't the world be something truly great? I hate to go to far into alternate realities, but how much less hate in the world there would be had Hitler truly pursued a career as an artist and kept working at it? Would there even be an atomic bomb? Could the greatest scientists ever assembled have come up with something far more useful to the benefit of mankind than the ability to dispose of it? The butterfly effect is crazy in that one specific scenario. Now, I'll get back on task.
Pursuit of a passion is a pursuit of happiness. The journey is the goal. Every single one of us goes through it. The hardest part of every journey towards any goal or dream is the people that surround you. Some are good, some are bad. For sure I have rested squarely on the "bad" at more times than not, for some people. More than likely if there was a story about my influence it would be more like the grasshopper than the ant (no literary or cartoon reference left unturned). It's hard to keep everything upbeat and moving forward, it's hard to turn that around. Eventually, you can look around and you have attracted what you are going to attract for like-minded people. Some you keep, and some you don't. When you do turn it around(a little)you find the people that were like you, become fingernails on the chalkboard. Just listening to them agitates you and drives you back to where you don't want to be anymore.
There is a story I have heard on several occasions, it only made true sense to me a few months ago when told from a perspective I was ready to accept. Most people know it as the crab mentality. If there is a single crab in a bucket, it will surely escape. If there are several crabs in the bucket, every time one crab tries to escape the other crabs in the bucket pull it down in the bucket with them. If they are left to their own devices all of the crabs would die(well except maybe the last one)as they prevent each other from achieving a goal in leaving the bucket.
In my head I was always the crab trying to escape and reach the goal. As it turned out, I was the crab trying to make sure no one else was getting ahead, because life in the bucket was supposed to be hard. That's what I had told myself, and that is what everyone had told me. Luckily someone talked me into trying to turn that around. She pulled me out of the bucket with her. I am very thankful for that(love you honey!). Seeing the world with a different perspective is a lot more fun than it used to be.
Yes, the crabs in the bucket are still there and some of them will always be there. I am doing my best to pull them up and out. I'm not perfect. I slip, I question, I peek back in the buckets and see what is going on. I get angry with the crabs in the bucket. I get angry with the crabs outside of the bucket. All of the above. No one said it was going to be easy. It takes leaps of faith in people, to know when they are done with just "making it through the day." I try to help those crabs when I can, in turn I hope it helps me. If none of that makes sense, then just think that nobody likes crabs, of any sort.
Every day begins with the potential to be as great as the effort I put into it. If I pull a few people up and out with me in that effort, not such a bad thing.
(No crabs were hurt in the writing of this blog. As far as I know they will all be released eventually and free to live out their lives as they deem fit. If you weren't thinking of crustacean crabs while reading this blog please get your heads out of the gutter. I am in no way, shape, or form a licensed therapist or even a reasonable person at most times. Taking any advice from me can be enlightening yet somewhat disturbing to some who viewed me as the guy in the back of the class just trying to make it through.......)
The old saying goes, find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life. I've worked a lot of days, then, I think everyone has. There are those and you see them and read about them, that truly have no idea what year it is. They are having so much fun fulfilling their lives in a manner that they have a passion about. Just, think if the whole world was doing something they were truly passionate about. Wouldn't the world be something truly great? I hate to go to far into alternate realities, but how much less hate in the world there would be had Hitler truly pursued a career as an artist and kept working at it? Would there even be an atomic bomb? Could the greatest scientists ever assembled have come up with something far more useful to the benefit of mankind than the ability to dispose of it? The butterfly effect is crazy in that one specific scenario. Now, I'll get back on task.
Pursuit of a passion is a pursuit of happiness. The journey is the goal. Every single one of us goes through it. The hardest part of every journey towards any goal or dream is the people that surround you. Some are good, some are bad. For sure I have rested squarely on the "bad" at more times than not, for some people. More than likely if there was a story about my influence it would be more like the grasshopper than the ant (no literary or cartoon reference left unturned). It's hard to keep everything upbeat and moving forward, it's hard to turn that around. Eventually, you can look around and you have attracted what you are going to attract for like-minded people. Some you keep, and some you don't. When you do turn it around(a little)you find the people that were like you, become fingernails on the chalkboard. Just listening to them agitates you and drives you back to where you don't want to be anymore.
There is a story I have heard on several occasions, it only made true sense to me a few months ago when told from a perspective I was ready to accept. Most people know it as the crab mentality. If there is a single crab in a bucket, it will surely escape. If there are several crabs in the bucket, every time one crab tries to escape the other crabs in the bucket pull it down in the bucket with them. If they are left to their own devices all of the crabs would die(well except maybe the last one)as they prevent each other from achieving a goal in leaving the bucket.
In my head I was always the crab trying to escape and reach the goal. As it turned out, I was the crab trying to make sure no one else was getting ahead, because life in the bucket was supposed to be hard. That's what I had told myself, and that is what everyone had told me. Luckily someone talked me into trying to turn that around. She pulled me out of the bucket with her. I am very thankful for that(love you honey!). Seeing the world with a different perspective is a lot more fun than it used to be.
Yes, the crabs in the bucket are still there and some of them will always be there. I am doing my best to pull them up and out. I'm not perfect. I slip, I question, I peek back in the buckets and see what is going on. I get angry with the crabs in the bucket. I get angry with the crabs outside of the bucket. All of the above. No one said it was going to be easy. It takes leaps of faith in people, to know when they are done with just "making it through the day." I try to help those crabs when I can, in turn I hope it helps me. If none of that makes sense, then just think that nobody likes crabs, of any sort.
Every day begins with the potential to be as great as the effort I put into it. If I pull a few people up and out with me in that effort, not such a bad thing.
(No crabs were hurt in the writing of this blog. As far as I know they will all be released eventually and free to live out their lives as they deem fit. If you weren't thinking of crustacean crabs while reading this blog please get your heads out of the gutter. I am in no way, shape, or form a licensed therapist or even a reasonable person at most times. Taking any advice from me can be enlightening yet somewhat disturbing to some who viewed me as the guy in the back of the class just trying to make it through.......)
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