On the Downward Spiral

I don't know how many people wake up in the morning thinking that today could be the end.  I doubt someone gets out of bed and wonders am I going to be murdered by a random act of senseless violence?  Is my mundane trip to the grocery store going to end my life?  It feels like today there are so many external threats to our safety, even though if you look at the statistics, it's technically safer now than it's ever been.  Somehow I can't shake the ever-present feeling that I shouldn't get too comfortable and should always be prepared for something horrible to happen.  It's not because my life has a history of terrible incidents.  I doubt someone who finds themselves in the middle of a mass shooting or forest fire could have seen it coming because they just faced that same kind of problem last year.  I try to not give into fear mongering, however, I can't help but wonder how is my story going to end.  I'm old enough now that death is not some vague thing that could possibly happen at some distant time, but instead it could be literally around the corner.  This of course starts the runaway train of thoughts that has me wondering will I be ready when it happens?  What will happen to my family?  Granted when it does happen, I'll be dead so most of my Earthly concerns will no longer be anything I have to worry about.  The thing is, I'm still alive, so I'm still worried about what the consequences of my death will be on the world around me.

The whole thing got me thinking about not just my own end, but the end of things in general.  For instance, what is going to happen to my car when I'm done with it or the next person after that?  What happens to the things in our lives when they're no longer in our lives?  Maybe they end up in a festering pile somewhere.  If you live in a fairly green place, you may have a vision that all the stuff you use will somehow magically get recycled and put back into the perpetual loop of usefulness.  I recycle, but I'm pretty confident that most of the stuff that goes int the bin ends up rotting away somewhere out of sight and mind.  For the most part I've been one to try and pass something along if I'm no longer using it.  Eventually though, everything comes to its end.  What is that though?  Most of us probably don't get to truly see the final destination of the things in our lives.

If you were to go back and talk to people from the different eras, it's very likely that they all shared similar fears about the world seemingly spinning out of control.  Each one convinced that things had never been as bad as they were right then.  Today is no different.  The country feels increasingly divided on fundamental issues.  Each side is convinced that they are right and treats anyone opposed to them as the enemy.  It's gotten to the point that I have to wonder if there is any empathy left in the world beyond the initial shock of sadness as you look at your phone and see that heartbreaking headline with numbers that represent people impacted by some tragedy.  I've said before that you have to mentally and emotionally shield yourself otherwise you can drown in the sadness of the world.  Still, it seems like the constant barrage of disasters and violence has gotten us to the point that we willingly forget until the next time something happens. 

Mass shooting, we argue about gun control and the Second Amendment and how it wasn't the weapon that killed those people, but rather the mentally unstable person.  Never mind that we've created a society where it's just accepted that if you want an instrument of death, you just need to go to the store and pick one up.  If someone questions that ability, it immediately devolves into a screaming match between two parties who don't want to hear the other side, much less change their mind.  So while we argue endlessly, the people who have been hurt by gun violence get drowned out by the rhetoric and posturing.  It's easy to debate theoretical ideas in the abstract.  When you're running for your life while someone is shooting at you or hearing that someone you love was a victim of unspeakable violence, it must seem that much more hopeless knowing that regardless of outcome, nothing will change.  The next person this happens to will experience that same hopeless terror of being a statistic in some debate.

Hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, mudslides, and forest fires all remind us that the Earth doesn't give a shit about our petty little problems.  Storms are more frequent and stronger, but as a nation we still can't agree on the scientific facts because doing so would mean some major changes have to happen.  That could cost someone money or force them to abandon what they've been doing their whole life.  It's one thing to be skeptical of something you don't fully understand.  It's another to dismiss it outright because it doesn't match with what's already in your head.  It's another thing entirely to purposefully work against the greater good of people and the planet in order to appease those who profit from harmful industries.  It honestly feels like our country is being run by cartoon villains.  The problem is we don't have Captain Planet or The Avengers protecting us.

Some of the worst aspects of all this is the affect it's had on me internally.  I find myself more likely to stay away from people.  I'm constantly concerned that people are in it for themselves and will take what they can, when they can.  The logical part of my brain keeps trying to remind me that most people are good.  They want what's best for their family and the people they care about.  Still, as I'm driving down the road, I just see the opposition.  Everyone is trying to take.  There isn't enough for everyone and someone is going to get left behind.  The whole world is not the enemy, but it sure feels like it's not a very hospitable place right now.

On Today

As a species we seem to hate ourselves.  It's almost as if we are pre-programmed to be self-destructive.  Even when faced with overwhelming information that is contrary to our beliefs, we still manage to barrel forward into harm and then cry out about how the world isn't fair, that we weren't warned.  I often wonder how we've made it this far when literally every day you can find examples of people falling back on their base instincts to mistrust and hate things they don't understand, including others.  It scares me to think that at this point we are the most enlightened than we've ever been in all of human history and we're still having debates about the very nature of our species.  How can there still be people who believe that a person from a different race is less than someone else?  How can there be men, who are so afraid of women doing anything, that they would threaten them with death?  I'm not talking some developing nation that hasn't figured out electricity or clean drinking water.  This is happening here in America.  This is happening in my town.  How can we still be so backwards in our thinking?  The most frustrating part is that no amount of logic is going to change their minds because they don't want their minds changed.  I've talked before about how perception shapes our reality.  So if someone comes along and says or does something that upends that reality, we tend to react with hostility and even violence.  I sometimes wonder if mankind just needs a different thing to focus on hating.  It wouldn't exactly fix the fundamental problem we have, but it could potentially push off our eventual extinction at our own hands.  Sorry alien travelers, but humans are a bit like determined toddlers, we need to be distracted and redirected otherwise we will put our hands on that hot oven burner, even though someone smarter than us keeps saying "No, that will hurt you".  We need something or someone to focus our anxieties on.  Someone to blame for our troubles.  Because obviously it's not our fault.

I'm still trying to figure out how to explain to my daughter that our society will likely be working against her in ways I've never experienced.  How do I tell her that even walking down the street means being careful because someone bigger than her may see her as an object rather than a person?  Which is at the heart of the problem, we stop seeing each other as people.  There are so many humans on the planet that we can't possibly know them all, therefor most of them are strangers and not people we can care about.  I don't know if there were less of us if it would be any different.  Maybe it is all a matter of scale.  Numbers too large lose all meaning to most people.  Picture a million people in one place at one time.  The individuals stop being a person and just become part of the mass of people.  If a million people die, it's hard to really comprehend what that is like.  Instead think of everyone you know and love.  All the people you like and interact with on a daily basis.  All your Facebook friends, even the ones you don't really know why you're friends with.  All of those people would still only be a fraction of a million people.  Now imagine all those people just died.  That is what's happening around the world.  People, along with everyone they know, are dying on a regular basis and our brains can only register a number.  Because if we were to try and truly empathize with that level of suffering, I think we would break.  We read about disasters, accidents, and attacks with the number of people dead as a highlight of the story.  Dam breaks killing 48 people.  Shooter kills 12 people in a shopping mall.  I can't imagine losing 12 people I know in a single event and yet when I look at the headline, I have to somehow disconnect the reality that those were people.  They have families and stories that came to an abrupt end.  Their lives end and the people left alive will potentially use their deaths to further promote their agenda or try to prove a point.

I've taken a break from writing because I really haven't anything to say.  And in rereading this post, it feels like our world is rather bleak.  Then I remember that we as a species are miracles.  The fact that the universe aligned in such a way that we are able exist should be celebrated.  It's taken for granted that we're here.  Think about what has to happen just for you specifically to exist and continue living.  Maybe the meaning of life is living.  Maybe it's trying to find hope and joy among the sometimes overwhelming sense that the world and our own species doesn't care about you.  Will we ever be enlightened enough to stop hating ourselves?  It's possible.  I think it just takes not giving in or giving up.  Maybe it takes standing up and knowing that your purpose is to make the world better, not just for yourself, but for everyone around you.  Maybe then we have a chance.

On the Rollercoaster

There are a lot of people claiming that 2016 is a terrible year.  I suppose I can get why they feel that way.  In some cases it had some pretty low moments.  Without doing too much research into the bleakness that is previous years, I wonder if it's roughly just another average year with ups and downs.  The thing is that 2016 probably means a lot of different things to different people.  For me it will always be a great year because my daughter came on the scene right near the beginning and she's pretty much set the tone for me ever since.  With that said, almost right after she was born I lost an old friend very suddenly.  I had no idea that the weird dichotomy of joy and sadness would pretty much be how I'd end up describing the year.

We may as well talk about the election.  I've kept my opinion offline because honestly the internet really doesn't need yet another extreme view, which only serves to further divide people.  That's the part that makes me sad.  I've never been a very political person to start with so maybe I've been blind to this kind of divisiveness in elections and politics in general.  Like some kind of idealistic fool, I always thought that the things that divided us were smaller than the things that brought us together.  And while I initially wasn't a fan of our current President, I eventually came to the conclusion that he was trying to do good, even if he wasn't always successful.  For the most part my life in the last eight years hasn't really changed all that much because of anything he or any other elected official was doing.  Apparently that can be seen as being wrapped up in my own little white blanket of privilege.  Because even though I've worked hard for what I have, there have always been advantages that I've taken for granted, blissfully unaware of many people out in my country who struggle every day in a system that seems to be actively working against them.  A lot of those people see the President as someone who doesn't represent or care about them.  And this is one of the many reasons why the election results came as such a shock to someone like me.

I live in a pretty liberal state and a very liberal city.  It's the kind of place where people are well off enough that they can be concerned about the name of the cow that supplied the steaks in the artisan butcher shop next to their favorite organic juice bar.  People tend to be socially conscious of the world and while I don't know if there is a lot of actual activism, there is at least perceived activism about issues.  Granted, like many Americans, we have a very short attention span and move on quickly to the next moral outrage or internet meme that is trending today.  So many of us gathered around our cable-free televisions to watch what was going to be an obvious victory for the seemingly obvious choice to run the country.  When it became obvious that things were going in a different direction I, like many others, were trying to figure out how it was possible?  How could this have blindsided me, when 24 hours before I would have been pretty confident that we'd have our first female President.  I hadn't taken into account the sheer amount of hatred for the Democratic candidate.  She was a politician and their very nature means they are going to do some shady things, but somehow she had managed to have normal people foaming at the mouth when they would even say her name.  There had always been a part of me that wanted to sit down with some of these people and get a real accounting of what it was they disliked about her.  By now, the term 'echo chamber' has been tossed around a lot and it makes sense.  We tend to surround ourselves with comfortable things and that includes information.  If someone or something challenges our ideas or beliefs, it's natural to shy away from that.  Toss is some good old fashion misinformation (or propaganda) and you've got millions of people who believe something that isn't always based on fact.  Or worse, based on a portion of fact, that has been isolated to prove their point.  Somewhere along the way we start to villainize people who disagree with us.  Social media was full of people who were saying not only did they disagree with the other side, but the other side was now bordering on evil, stupid, or brainwashed.  I found myself even falling into the trap of taking my disagreement on one thing and making it seem as though I was fundamentally opposed to these other people, who may as well been aliens because their beliefs were so different from mine.  I'm sure there are some truly awful people out there.  People who are excited to see hatred making a comeback.  Maybe it stems from fear or jealousy or ignorance.  Maybe it's simple greed.  I don't know at this point.  I would have thought in 2016 that pettiness and racism would be something we talk about as a thing of the past.  If not the past, then something that was getting better.  If anything, this year has made me wonder is the world really as good as I thought it was.  Then again, maybe that's what certain people want.  They want you to be afraid.  Afraid of the people around you that aren't on your side.  If you're not with us, then you're against us?  One has to ask, who benefits from us being afraid and hating those who are different from us?

As we close out this year, it feels like the nation is divided more than it's been in recent history.  Or maybe it just feels that way because I started paying attention.  There is a whole group of people in our country who have felt left behind.  I've been very fortunate to not know what that is like.  I don't know if those same people felt that the Republican candidate was the best candidate, but it was the one that they got.  The alternative being more of a government that wasn't listening to them.  In the end there was a massive shift from the status quo, which is how things tend to go after eight years with one party running the show.  People were bound to be upset either way, but now it seems to go beyond that where the winning side is taking victory laps and the losing side, still in disbelief, is doing anything it can to halt the inevitable reality that is coming in 2017.  It feels like a fight with a loved one.  Lots of things were said and done.  It seems like everyone now has this emotional bruise that's still tender.  I don't know how long it will last with people still holding their animosity towards each other.  Maybe like many things for our country, it too will pass.  At least right now it seems to be the capstone on a year that felt a bit bleak.

So as I think about this year, I have to remind myself that there has been some pretty great things as well.  The Cubs broke a 100+ year streak to finally win the World Series, giving the people of Chicago something to cheer about.  Our good friends had adorable babies, that will hopefully become friends with my daughter as they grow to be adorable together.  A private company, headed by the closest thing to Tony Stark, has successfully landed a rocket vertically, getting us one step closer to leaving Earth.  Doctors and scientists have created cybernetic implants that helped a man move his fingers for the first time.  Stem cells have been injected into stroke patients allowing them to walk again.  Someone with a lot of time on their hands discovered a new prime number, although I don't know how that helps us, but it's more to prove that we can keep finding new things, even when we think we've seen it all.  By the way, they've confirmed (again) that there is a ninth planet in our solar system.  I remember growing up with Planet X as a possibility so it's good to know that we've got people staring out into the cosmos and seeing things that have been hiding from us for longer than we know.  And finally, we got a new Star Wars movie.  Being the same age as Star Wars, I will always be thankful that I get to go back to that galaxy far, far away and see if the good guys and overcome impossible odds to save the day.  Maybe with the perspective of time, we'll all look back at 2016 as just another strange year in a long weird journey.  I'm excited to see what happens in 2017.

On Fatherhood

As with many things in life, it's hard to know how it's really going to be until you experience it.  No matter how much preparation you think you have, when the actual time comes, you are just along for the ride and hope that you don't mess up too bad.  People would say how you don't know how you'll be able to love someone as much as you do your children.  You think, I've experienced love before, this must just be more of it.  It's amazing how much of an understatement that really becomes once you look into the eyes of your child.  For a father it's a little different because it takes a few months of looking into their eyes before they start to show signs of recognition and understanding that you as an entity are going to keep showing up.  Also after a few months they transform so much and into the start of a person.  Plus it doesn't hurt that my daughter thinks I'm the most hilarious shaved ape out there.

The part that they don't really talk to you about is the sheer terror that's constantly in the background.  It's a bit like that low level hum you hear when near power lines.  Even when things are going well and you've had a good dad moment, I feel it in the back of my mind.  If you read the news for even a minute, you get the impression that the survival rate of the average person is pretty bleak.  If you are lucky enough to avoid some random tragedy or bout of senseless violence, then there is a whole host of parasites, viruses, and cancers that are willing to eat you from the inside.  Then again it seems like the whole point of the news is to keep you paying attention to the news for just a little longer.  Is the world really such a terrible place?  Is life really that hard?  I know that for some people it's harder and shorter than it should be, but we've been blessed with a fairly safe and happy environment.  Still, I look at her and don't like thinking about there being a moment when she figures out that the world isn't as magical as I've made it out to be.  Sometimes I wish I could just take her out of this reality and off into cartoon land.  The logical part of me knows that this isn't fair to her as a person, but I don't know how to handle when they find out that the world as a whole doesn't really care about them in the way that their people care about them as an individual.  I wonder about what lies I'll have to tell to keep her safe a little longer.

I've found myself looking at everyone very differently.  Seeing my daughter experiencing the world for the first time, I wonder how any person becomes what they are today.  Even the asshole who cut me off this morning was once a child.  Once, a long time ago, they had a world of potential, where they could dream of doing or being anything.  They still may be on that journey, but that route went directly in front of MY journey.  Granted it doesn't always change the way I interact with people because I'm still me.  There are moments where I can't help but wonder how someone's life brought them from being a wide-eyed child to a cynic.  I suppose one could ask the same of me and I had a pretty good childhood.  I look differently at various forms of entertainment too.  Movies and television where characters are killed or hurt make me wonder what would it be like to be their parents.  I still enjoy the things I always have, it's just now there is an added bit of empathy that intrudes in on everything.

I worry about what she's going to be like when she's old enough to realize I'm not the funniest person on the planet.  There will come a time when she doesn't want to hang out with me, which only makes me want to spend that much more time with her now.  I want her to be smart and clever and funny and able to exist in the world without me because if everything goes according to plan that's how it's going to be.  I worry about being around for as much of her life as possible.  I worry that all those stupid cheeseburgers have quietly stolen years from me.  I worry that one day I'll be driving and look right when I should have looked left and have my story with her end.  I worry about her life and all the things that could happen and won't even say them here, in some superstitious belief that I don't want to give them power, in the event that there is some malevolent entity controlling our reality that would find humor in taking my daughter from me.  I worry about how she's going to handle love.  I wonder if she'll find a partner in life like I did.  I hope it doesn't take her as long to get there as it did me, even if it was worth the wait.  I worry that I may never get to see her own children, if she decides to have them.  Basically I worry about everything.

Even with all that being said, I've been rewarded with this tiny happy, crazy, curious person in progress that looks to me like I'm the expert on life.  It would be silly to say I hope I don't screw up because it seems impossible to not make mistakes along the way.  I just hope that she's able to forgive me for not having all the answers.

On Building Tomorrow

Are we the sum of our past?  Is it possible that our personality is just a collection of events that have slowly shaped us into the person we are right now?  Like water tumbling over rocks, it slowly changes the shape of things.  What happens though if you can't remember the things that built you into you?  If I can't remember all the little things that turned me into the person I am now, do I really know who I am?  Maybe the things I do or think are more influenced by the unremembered past than my current perception of the world around me.

I suppose one could argue that aren't defined by our past, but rather by our actions.  That's all well and good, except that we hold to the past for so many things.  Your ability to purchase things is dictated by your credit history.  The jobs you're able to qualify for are determined by the jobs you've already done.  Or at least claimed to have done on your resume.  Criminals are branded by the crimes of their past, even if they will never do anything like that again.  We are haunted by our past.  Even if you can't or won't remember the past, it's likely that someone will remember it for you.  Now with more and more of our private lives living on the internet, it's likely that our pasts will outlive us.  Facebook potentially has the ability to track an entire lifetime.  Granted they are doing it to make sure they know exactly how to market to you, but it's possible that one day someone will go back and study a Facebook-like timeline to try and better understand the life and times of someone who has yet to be famous.

There is a part of me that wishes I had the ability to travel back into my own memories.  What would I see if I could go back to my grandmother's farm in Wisconsin circa 1985?  How did that last conversation with a childhood friend really go before they left your life forever?  I'm not looking to change things.  What's done is done.  Still it would be interesting to be able to revisit the moments in your past that your memory can't quite grasp onto.  What did my grandfather's voice really sound like?  What did the living room look like for my baby brother's first Christmas?  Would seeing and hearing these memories change who I am now?  Would they simply reinforce the beliefs I already hold onto?

We all carry around little time preservers in our pockets.  They capture where we were, what we were doing, who we were with, what we ate (and how great it looked), and creates a sense of holding onto that moment in time.  I don't know about you, but it's gotten to the point now where you don't take just one picture.  You snap a dozen shots to find that one good one.  That's the one that makes it.  That's the one you share and the one you'll ultimately look back on and use as your memory anchor.  My daughter doesn't know how to sit still, so for every picture I show to the world, there are many that are thrown aside and lost forever.  Most of those pictures are of a blurry little baby with her eyes half closed, but still they are part of the moment I'm trying to save.  Never mind the fact that the times I have pictures of something are when I had the foresight to pull out my phone to take a picture.  There are times when I just want to experience the moment without trying to save it.  In the moment I appreciate it more by just living rather than recording.  It doesn't take long after though that I wonder if I'll remember it later.  Is it just another moment that will fade into the background?

Maybe the past is just a sort of guide to our future.  It helped us get here and generally points us in a direction.  All of our history only serves to take us to the next place.  It does make me wonder though how today will influence tomorrow.

On the Island

The world is full of great things.  Full of terrible things.  Mostly it seems to be full of things I know nothing about.  I like a lot of different things: movies, television, comics, art, books, trees, toys, video games, the outside in general, travel, music, good beer, somewhat good beer, and of course delicious food.  It would seem like I'm fairly diverse in the things I like, but it's becoming increasingly apparent that for every interest I have there are glaring blind spots.  Someone will tell me about a television show or album that they enjoy and I wonder how is it that something like that has escaped me?  Maybe it's become easier and easier in today's world to customize our lives to the things we like.  You go to a webpage and tell it your interests and it will start building you a feed of information.  The better ones will help you discover new things, but most of them really just let you reinforce the wall of our own tastes.

I'm not saying it's bad to like what you like.  It's more that it feels a bit overwhelming when there is so much content out there.  How is one expected to keep up?  Maybe we're not supposed to.  Maybe it's alright to miss out on that one thing that you'd probably love, but just don't have space for in your life.  How do you know when that's OK though?  How do you know if you're spending too much of your time on the old standby when there are so many other options out there?

Like music?  You could listen to new music every day for a year and not hear the same song repeated, if you didn't feel that compulsion to re-listen to old favorites.  Hey I like Zeppelin as much as the next person, but seriously it's been forty year.  Maybe it's OK to see how music has grown and changed since then.  You never know, you may find something you like that was made after 1973.  It's got me wondering how it happens.  At one point the world was full of new and wonderful things.  Everything felt fresh and exciting.  Then we find something we like and say to ourselves "This is it.  My search is over."  This also leads to that feeling that certain things are now sacred and anyone or anything that attempts to build upon that is seen as an affront to the original.  The problem with this is that most of the world is a remix.  Everything is an iteration and for the generation that creates it, it feels like the source.  My daughter is going to grow up in a world where Ninja Turtles and Transformers are these loud, garish, obnoxious movies of explosions and silliness, whereas I grew up with them being something completely different, while still being fairly annoying to my parents.  It took me awhile, but I've gotten to a point where it's OK for the next generation to have their versions of stuff.  It doesn't take away from my version.  The remakes are made for me.  They don't care about me or my old ass opinion, even though the property was originated when I was their target audience.

The whole thing has me wondering about the things I like.  Do I like them because they are still interesting to me?  Or do I like them because for as long as I can remember I have liked them?  It's OK to ask yourself why you're interesting in something.  It could be the previous version of yourself found it compelling, but the current version of you doesn't get the same thrill as you used to.  For me it's caused me to reconsider how I spend my time because it's becoming increasingly valuable to me.  Sometimes that means picking up something I put down years ago and seeing it with different eyes.  Sometimes that means putting something on a shelf because it doesn't provide the same value it had in the past.  Maybe by doing that I'll be able to open myself up to being able to see the new things out there that could blow my mind and make me ask myself how I've lived this long without knowing about them.

On Lost & Not Found

I remember when I was very little, a friend had given me a Snake-Eyes GI Joe figure.  He was my favorite character and I was very excited to have one of my own.  That night I was taking a bath and playing with my new guy when my mom came in and said that another friend of mine, we'll call him "Tom", was outside and wanted to know if he could borrow a toy to play with.  I wasn't super close with Tom and he tended to move a lot so it was hard to say when I'd see him again.  So I decided to let him borrow one of my other figures.  A few minutes later my mom came back and said that Tom had asked specifically for Snake-Eyes.  To this day I wish I could go back and tell the younger version of me that he shouldn't loan out his favorite toy, but that's not how it works.  So being a young idiot, I gave my favorite toy to my mom to give to Tom to borrow.  That was the last time I ever saw that toy.  The next time I saw Tom I asked where my Snake-Eyes was and he said he lost it, which I knew was a lie, but I didn't really have a whole lot of power to do anything about it.  It's been thirty years and it still haunts me a little bit (obviously).  Now I know that in the grand scheme of my life that little action figure wasn't a big deal.  To my childhood self though it was a hard lesson in trust and loss of that trust.  It changed the way I looked at Tom too because now I realized that he wouldn't hesitate to take away something valuable to me.

Being a little kid you lose things all the time.  Most of the time it was my own fault for putting something down and forgetting where it was.  Sometimes I imagine all the toys and knickknacks that must be scattered around my dad's property.  Of course there is the possibility that they've simply blinked out of existence or have been consumed by the world somehow.  Maybe in a thousand years someone will dig up all those lost things and start to piece together a story about my life based on the things I had when I was young.

We all lose things.  If you think about it, most people have probably lost more things than they currently have.  It's a strange thing though to have something simply vanish from your world without a trace.  I've joked before that I wish I could have Google Life.  I could call out and say "Google where is that necklace we've been looking for?" and Google would respond with "It's behind the refrigerator.  It has been there for 2.3 weeks".  It seems like there should only be a finite number of places something should logically be, but as we all know when we do manage to recover lost things, that they tend to be in what seems like random locations.  Finding the television remote in the pantry with the plates.  That black shirt you like in a completely different closet.  A pair of glasses in the trunk of your car.  It makes one wonder what was going on at the precise moment when an object became lost to us.

Strangely enough though I find myself being a fairly good finder of things.  This is especially true around the house when asked if we have something, usually a tool of some kind, and my weird little mind suddenly recalls the possibility of a square bit for a drill sitting on a shelf in the shed.  Sure enough it's there.  The how and why my brain can sporadically remember the location of random items has never been quite clear.  It's almost as though some part of my mind saw the item and thought that it was important enough to note for later.  Meanwhile the thing I know we have, but isn't in the location where it should be, draws a complete blank.  That's kind of the blessing and curse of living with someone though.  You have a second person that may be able to find something you've misplaced.  On the flip side though you can never be sure if that other person isn't the cause of something going missing in the first place.  There is always that shadow of doubt.  Did you really lose your favorite t-shirt or was lost on purpose when you weren't looking?

Crossed Wires

On Batman

Another one of those times when I'm thinking way too much about something totally trivial.  Maybe it's good to let my mind wander on silly things for a minute.

Batman is seventy five years old.  That means most living Americans have spent their whole lives with him as a character.  After all that time, he is still insanely popular, even though he's becoming more and more antiquated as a character.  Everyone knows the story about how his parents were murdered and from that day forward he vowed to fight against crime.  Depending on the story, his parents' murderer may or may not be found, leaving even the greatest detective a mystery that cannot be solved.  I actually kind of prefer the time when it's not part of some greater conspiracy and is instead a random act of senseless violence that shook the city to its core.  The murderer was some sad, desperate person who resorted to murder more out of fear than anything else.  Then they were gone into the night, not realizing the thing they unleashed.

Gotham is supposed to be a stand in for the city of New York, although it's apparently a darker version of it, whereas Metropolis is the shining beacon of hope that shows what the world could be.  Never mind that they have Superman, who can solve most problems before they become problems.  The basic idea about Gotham is that the city has become so corrupt that its rotten to the core.  Every story talks about how organized crime really runs things and the police are all on the take.  If it's really a stand in for New York, that's basically saying that in a city of eight million people there are only two kinds of people; criminals and victims.  Somehow criminals have taken over ever facet of the city and anyone who opposes them is corrupted or destroyed.  Even before Batman arrives there is really only one police officer who is willing to stand up to the corruption and do the right thing.  So in what would likely be the biggest police force in America, out of over thirty thousand police officers, there is only one guy attempting to stem the tide of evil?

So Bruce Wayne dedicates his life to becoming the perfect instrument to fight against crime.  He does this by traveling the world and learning to become a ninja, because that's the most reasonable way to counter corruption in your home.  After a decade away, learning untold secrets that will help him on his crusade against injustice, he comes back to Gotham and teams up with his butler to start his one-man attack against the concept of crime.  Using the icon of something that scared him as a child, he dresses up as a bat and calls himself Batman, which may be a little on the nose if you think about it.

His real power comes from his willingness to do whatever it takes to fight against crime, except for using a gun or committing murder himself.  I get that if your parents were murdered by a gun, then you'll probably have an aversion to them, however, throwing razorbladed metal bats at people's faces, using explosives, and breaking bones with your bare hands probably isn't much better than shooting a small piece of metal at high velocity into someone in order to stop them.  Regardless of his method of choice, he's still one man fighting a fight, he knows he'll never win.  The stories keep making sure to point out that Bruce Wayne is a billionaire and uses his vast fortune to supplement his war on crime.  It seems like a drastic misuse of resources to have an armored car outfitted to look like a bat, a super computer that only he gets to use, and various pieces of tech that are necessary as the story requires.  He has the money and influence of Elon Musk and uses that to put on a cape, drop down into alleyways and punch out bad guys.  That's his war on crime.  It's like fighting cancer with aspirin.  Bruce Wayne could probably do more good with his money as a humanitarian than as a crime fighter.  At the very least he could use the money to make organized crime irrelevant by buying them out or creating opportunities for people that would mean crime would seem like the more risky option than the legitimate one.

Most of the time Batman is defined by his villains.  He lives in a city that has been driven so insane that it creates literal monsters.  It could be that his very existence helped create them.  It's almost as though he showed Gotham that it's OK to dress up like a lunatic and do whatever you wanted.  If you don't want to be just another widget in the system of criminals and victims then dust off that purple suit and name yourself after a playing card.  At least that way you'll stand out from the crowd.  Those crazies aren't even the real threat, they're just the most colorful.  The Joker is going to release a hot air balloon of poisonous gas on the city and only Batman can stop him?  What about the Gotham police force, the National Guard, the FBI, or the NSA?  That would be an act of terrorism and they're able to stop a lot of those plots long before they start filling up the balloon.  Try checking the abandoned fairgrounds on the edge of town.  That would leave Batman the ability to fight actual corruption.

I get that he's a fictional comic book character.  After seventy five years though, you'd think there would be a way to make him relevant to today's world, instead of constantly rehashing the same story over and over again.  What would someone with his willpower and resources really be able to do if he stopped and rethought his strategy on fighting crime.  That's probably where most people get lost and realize that it's a lot more complicated of an issue.  There isn't some evil Court of Owls that secretly controls the whole city.  Instead it's just people doing whatever they think they can get away with.  Since that would require a lot more nuance, we go back to the well of having a man dressed as a bat showing how bad ass he is by breaking the face of that would-be rapist.

On Object Permanence

Throughout most of my life the decisions I've made have been fairly reversible.  That's not to say that they weren't big or even life-altering decisions, but the vast majority of them have been decisions I could ultimately change my mind about later.  Sure it could cost me a large some of money or time or even a bit of humiliation.  There could be a cost and if I wanted to pay it, then I could potentially undo what I just did.  Part of this has been because my decisions have only had an effect on just my own life.  If I wanted to move from Colorado to Arizona or from Arizona back to Colorado with only a couple of weeks lead time, then it wasn't really a problem for anyone except me.

Some could argue that there is a sense of freedom to being able to pick up and go at a moment's notice.  The whole world has opportunities just around the next corner, it's just up to you to go off and find them.  While I was young that was both amazing and terrible.  It was great being able to throw everything I owned into a truck, toss the stuff that didn't, and then drive off into the sunset and onto the next adventure.  If I thought about it too much, I'd start to realize that my life was so temporary that I could leave it behind with very little notice.  It felt like I was always just getting started.  The real problem was always my inability to see what I was leaving because I was so focused on where I was going, with hopes that just over the next hill would be the thing I thought I was looking for.  Every place I left, I left people and a life, even if that life wasn't exactly what I thought I wanted.  I think it was easier to leave because I knew that if things didn't work out, then I could easily return.

It's only been very recently in my life that my decisions have started becoming more permanent.  It's not always easy for me to recognize that because my old mindset creeps back in and I think the person I'm being introduced to is just another face in the crowd.  Nope, that's a future family member.  The house I'm moving into isn't just some random apartment that I'll ditch in a year or so when the lease is up.  Even my career is changing.  It used to be a string of unrelated jobs, where as long as it paid well and they didn't treat me like garbage, then I'd stick around for a year or so.  It's been difficult for me at times because living a momentary life meant that while you wouldn't have to deal with anything terrible for too long, it also meant that I wouldn't really feel attached to anything in a meaningful way.  It's only after I had left something/someone behind that I'd realize how good it was for me.

I'm about to have what could be considered the most permanent life event.  I woke up one day and realized that when my child is born, I'll forever be her father.  No matter what else happens in my life, that will always be true.  My life and the choices in it will stop being so fleeting and start becoming more permanent aspects of my world.  It's almost as though all those one-off decisions and events have been leading to this.  The one that matters most.  It's a little intimidating to think about.  It's something I've wanted for a long time, but it's always been an abstract.  Very soon it will be a reality and it makes me want to be better than I currently am.  

On How It Could Be

There are many times in my life when I wonder how things could be.  Maybe not so much a perfect world, but maybe a slightly better one.  I don't know if we could ever achieve perfection.  It's something of a fool's errand to think you could reach it.  It shouldn't stop us from trying though.  Plus I don't know how we would react if we found ourselves in a perfect world.  No, I sometimes think about what would it be like if things were just a little bit different.  Sometimes it's seemingly small changes that could have a huge impact.  Like what if our internet was cheaper and faster?  What if it was free?  I try to imagine what life could be like if everyone across the country was connected by incredibly fast connections to each other.  Could we create true virtual experience that brought us together, even though we're miles apart?  I know that technology isn't always the answer to bringing people together.  When used right though, it can bridge some of those gaps.

What could the world be like if our teachers were some of the best paid, best educated, most respected people in our society?  I have nothing against athletes, movie stars, or pop singers.  I enjoy a lot of what they do.  Honestly though aren't they a bit like junk food?  Watching someone excel at sports is a great experience.  It probably encourages young people to see what they can accomplish with their own bodies either alone or within a team.  That part is great and should be applauded.  To an outside observer it must seem strange that we give the most money to someone who can put a ball through a net better than anyone else.  When you go home after seeing that you're life isn't changed all that much.  Sure it may have been exciting in the moment, but that wasn't your moment.  That was someone else's fabricated moment.  With movies and music there can be a story being told.  Someone can transport you to an imaginary place and time.  They can make you think about things in a different way.  Even with that we're essentially saying that the guy who grew out a beard and pretended to be a fur trapper this year is one of the most important people, at least from a financial perspective.  Meanwhile the person who gets up early every day so they can sit with a student to help them learn the fundamentals of life makes enough money to live, but still has to worry about money when it comes summer time.  Imagine if the salary of the athlete and the teacher were reversed?

I wonder what it could be like if our political system were just a little bit better.  If you felt like the people elected to represent you were not only someone you could trust, but someone you respected.  And not because you paid them or promised them a favor in return, but because as your representative they wanted not just the best for you, but for all of us.  I'm not a politician and I know that the world is complicated.  It's just a little sad to me that in order to get anywhere in the professional world of politics you have to be something of a shark already.  Or at least keep yourself surrounded by sharks for protection.  How can you hope to accomplish anything if you're spending so much of your time trying to not get eaten by the system?  I try to imagine a world where you know in your heart that the government is an institute for good and that they are working hard at making the world better for everyone.

It's mostly a dream.  It's not much different than fantasizing about what you'd do if you won the lottery.  It seems like the trick is to accept that the world may not be anywhere close to perfect, but it has the potential to be better.  And if that's not always possible, we always have the choice to be a little bit better ourselves.  Maybe that's enough.

On Halloween II

It occurred to me that this Halloween will be the last of its kind.  For the past several years there has been a constant question mark about what to do for Halloween.  Should we dress up and go to a party?  Should we stay home and hand out candy to hapless children brave enough to venture towards our house?  Maybe instead we should just scamper off into the darkness and be devils.  That's this year.  Next year though we will have a built-in reason to celebrate holidays in a different way.  Granted the tiny little person we bring with us won't be capable of saying 'Trick or Treat', but I'm hoping that her inevitable cuteness dressed as something easily recognizable and yet vaguely ironic will prompt people to dish out candy with abandon.

Halloween is one of the few American holidays that really attempts to twist reality a bit.  It's meant to be fun and feel just a little bit dangerous.  For a kid it's a bit like a scary movie coming to life.  Dress up as something else and go out in the world and ask for sugar door to door.  Who knows if you're going to make it back in one piece or more importantly, who knows how many boxes of raisins you're going to get stuck with.  I thought my days of dressing up and asking for candy were behind me, but now there is a chance to make a comeback!  As an adult if you dress up and go trick or treating it's very likely that you're going to get yourself arrested or at least not given a full share of candy because everyone knows you have the ability to just go out and buy the candy yourself.  As an adult if you dress up and go trick or treating in a combined costume with your child then at the very least you'll be entitled to 25% of said candy earnings throughout the evening in question.

I think the part that will be most interesting to me is trying to see the world through the eyes of someone who doesn't have my level of experience.  I don't pretend to understand all the various aspects of this world and probably know only enough to be dangerous.  I'm not the smartest guy in the room, but I'm also not the dumbest.  That said, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on some of the basics about what can exist and what can't.  A child doesn't know that the goblin attempting to ensnare that hot girl in a bikini (what on Earth are they watching?) isn't real and is based on someone's imagination.  The lines of reality and fiction are still being formed.  What was a normal street in the morning is now something sinister in the evening because Halloween blurs the lines of reality ever so slightly.  Someone changed the rules for one night.  Never mind the fact that as parents we constantly try and warn our children about the dangers of strangers.  Then on one night we say it's OK to not only interact with strangers, but to go house to house asking people we don't know for candy.  It's the only holiday we celebrate where it's expected that you wander through your neighborhood relying on the good nature of your neighbors.  The other major holidays are more focused on turning towards the people you already know and celebrating the season.  For a child it's probably a strange paradigm that really speaks to the way we as a society has separated ourselves from each other.  Or it's about the candy.  Yeah it's probably about the candy.

On the Unreliable Narration of Our Minds

Where do our memories go when we're not remembering them?  Somewhere within our minds are all these experiences and feelings that have occurred throughout our lives.  We don't know how they get put there or how we get them out when we want them.  Our very perception of reality is being monitored by a system we don't fully understand and have very little control over.

There have been several times in the last few years where someone I grew up with would reminisce with me about our shared past and I have no memory of the event.  I have to take their word for it that it happened.  And even more important, that it happened the way they remember it.  It's a strange thing to have pieces of my own past that others remember and I don't.  Granted there are whole chunks of my early childhood that I can't remember because I was way too young to retain those memories.  Both of my parents may not remember those events either.  Logically, I know that the event must have happened, but if something happens and no one can remember it, how do you know what is real?  Maybe it falls into that same category as the soundless tree in the woods.  What if I remember something one way and someone else remembers it differently?  What is the truth?  Is there a singular truth when it comes to memory?  If I can't remember something then I have to rely on someone else's memory to tell me what happened and that's a tricky thing when we already know that memory can't be trusted, even when it bothers to show up.

Have you ever been reminded of something you hadn't thought of in a very long time?  It could have been years since you heard a song or saw a person or thought of that birthday party where the clown caught on fire.  Suddenly the memory comes flooding back to the forefront of your mind.  Where did it come from?  How do I know what I'm remembering is the 'real' event and not some cobbled together amalgamation of memory and imagination?  It's very weird to think that today may not be remembered very well a year from now.  Even though this moment now is so clear in your mind, we seem to have very little control over what items make it into our long term memory.  How much of our experience just fades away into nothing?

Today's world may be different because we as a society are so much more focused on capturing the moment, even if the moment is us eating a bacon taco with our friends on a random Tuesday evening.  I'm not saying selfies and other forms of self-narration are bad.  It's just that I've already covered how things like Facebook are a highlight reel of your life events.  It's not the real record of truth, even though the outside world may think you lead an amazing life because you spent three months traveling the world and have all these great pictures standing next to things you see in movies.  No one else gets to remember all the non-picture-worthy moments except us.

When I lived alone it became easy to assume that my narration was the right one.  There wasn't anyone around to tell me differently.  You start to believe everything you think, which may not always be what really happened.  Now that I live with someone, there is a constant second observer to the events.  Granted there are many times where we both experience something and immediately disagree on what actually happened, which really causes one to question if the person they're talking to is in fact crazy.  The even scary part is, what if they're not and it's you who just went through something and perceived it completely out of whack with reality?  Having a partner with you is both a blessing and a curse because you're often forced to immediately look back at something that happened, but through different eyes.  Does this second person change the memory that would have been formed?  Are you both now remembering variations on single event?  Given enough time how will you know if your version is even close to what happened?

On Groundhog Day

One of my first real jobs in high school was working at a video store.  I was the runner, which meant that I would take the newly returned movies and place them back on the shelves.  I ended up having a lot of downtime while still technically being at work.  One of the perks of working there was that we were able to watch movies the whole time.  Well not so much watch them as exist in the same general area as they were playing.  Still given a long enough timeline you were bound to see one of the movies in its entirety.  It could just happen over the course of a week.  Since this was a family place there were only so many movies you could really play without offending someone.  One of these movies was Groundhog Day, which may be close to a perfect movie and one of the last Bill Murray movies where he was still in 'original' Murray mode, like he was in Ghostbusters and Scrooged.

This is a movie that is a bit surreal to watch in bits and pieces because you may not always know where he is at any given point since so many of the repeated scenes have only slight differences.  Over the years though I've seen this movie countless times and it's one that if it comes on I'll probably be fine watching it, even if I catch it somewhere in the middle.  Being the movie nerd that I am I started to really think about some of the implications of what's going on in this movie.  Sure I could take the movie at face value, but that'd make for a really short post and that's now how I think so let's get started.

First off, either Phil Connors is an incredibly slow learner or the universe is mercilessly cruel.  It took him several years to make it through that one day.  Years to learn all the things that needed to be done right so that he'd be the kind of man that Rita would want.  There has been a lot of speculation on exactly how much time passed since he started repeating the day, but a safe assumption is that it's more than ten years and likely less than fifty.  Think about all the things that happen in a single day and he was somehow required to do them in a specific way.  Plus he's still just a person so he may not remember what happened three and a half years ago when he tried this one thing.  He had no way of knowing which combination of deeds and actions would lead him out of the maze that had become February 2nd.  It was a lot of trial and error, which we saw as he kept behaving as his old self.

That brings me to the next thing.  It's implied at the end that Phil has finally become a better person and saw people as being generally good if you give them a chance.  He realizes that maybe Punskatanee isn't such a bad place.  We assume that he's escaped the repetition that was Groundhog Day and will live the rest of his non-repeating days with Rita.  This is all very wonderful for the sake of a two hour movie.  What if though the next morning when he wakes up he's now trapped in February 3rd and has to go through that day over and over until he figures out how to move onto the next day.  Wouldn't this be the equivalent of being trapped in Hell?

Speaking of which, if it happened to Phil, could it happen to other people?  I mean are they living in a universe where bad people (or at least people who behave like jerks) are punished by having to relive a day over and over again until they become a better person?  What's the criteria for this?  Is it just mean weathermen or would say the African warlord, who is slaughtering children be on the list as well?  Maybe it's just happening in that tiny town, but would that mean Phil is the only one to experience it, or just the first?  Plus there doesn't seem to be any real rules as to what's the 'correct' way to proceed through a day.  We saw at the end Phil helped a ton of people in a single day and was loved by anyone who came across him.  That would mean though before the last day he saved the guy from choking and changed the tire of the old ladies.  Alone those things weren't enough for him to escape, but together they added up to enough through some invisible tally system that Phil didn't know about until he woke up.

And while we're on the subject of him waking up, what's is happening to all those other realities that Phil keeps resetting?  Those are people with lives and souls and with only one exception, that world seems to cease to exist once Phil kills himself.  Are those worlds continuing on with all the mistakes that Phil made?  Is the world where Phil stole the groundhog and drove it and himself off a cliff into a fiery explosion still going on, trying to make sense of what just happened?  What are those people's lives like in the aftermath of that?  It seems either several lives were traumatized for the sake of teaching one jerk a lesson on humanity or they were snuffed out once Phil died.  Either one is kind of terrible.  If those realities continue on, what happened to the countless ones where Phil didn't kill himself?  Are they just floating out there, wondering what happened to him now that he's vanished after going to sleep?

Finally, in this world or worlds, are there any people with free will?  Phil had to do everything right to progress to the next day.  He was beaten down until he finally submitted to how the Universe told him that a day was supposed to happen.  If this is happening to other people then it's likely that you have people who aren't like Phil, in that they learned something, but rather they finally figured out what was necessary to get to the next day or were broke to the point that they just gave in to whatever the whims of the Universe dictated at that moment.  Never mind the poor souls who just couldn't get their day right, no matter how many times they tried.  They're off living the same day over and over for all of eternity.

In the end Phil may have been forced to become a better person.  It was a valuable lesson I'm sure.  One that took him possibly decades to learn.  He's now like someone who was just released from prison.  He only knows the routine of Groundhog Day.  How is he going to cope with living in a reality where he doesn't know exactly what's going to happen next?  Plus he's mentally aged by at least ten years, maybe more.  That will likely have shifted his perspective quite a lot.  Granted the new and improved Phil Connors may now see the world entirely differently and be thankful for his extended time trapped in a single day.  Betterment through attrition is still betterment right?

On the Center of the Universe

After over a year of planning we were able to come together and make our relationship 'official'.  Mostly it was a chance to have all of our friends and family around us to share in a ceremony that shows our commitment to each other and our future together.  The entire time we were planning I kept thinking to myself that I didn't want to put anyone out.  I didn't want to mess with their Labor Day plans.  It is the last holiday of the summer and that can be important.  Much more important than me.  We sent out the invites and I kept asking myself if I was being too presumptuous to ask people to spend nearly three days hanging out with me.  There were moments when I thought, if no one shows up I wouldn't really blame them.  I mean I'm just me.

Not all that long ago I used to strive to keep my various worlds separated from each other.  I'm not sure why I did that.  Mostly I think it was because I wanted to separate myself.  I could be this way with one person because that's how they knew me.  With someone else I could be somewhat different.  There was also that fear that this aspect would conflict with that aspect and it would call into question if one of them should go.  This weekend all of my worlds collided with each other in a fantastic explosion.  Friends and family from past and present and all over the country came to a single place at the same time.  I was amazed at the people who took the time to come and spend a weekend with me.  Had I somehow tricked them into making Labor Day weekend all about me?

The brothers who I grew up with as my second family.  My lunatic best friend from college.  The quiet man with a huge heart, who made his home my home.  The one who started as a voice over the internet has become a trusted friend.  Someone who is years younger than me, but astounds me with his integrity every time we speak.  The most recent friend, who's joy for life constantly drives me to look at things in new and different ways.  A baby brother, who has grown up to be such an amazing man that I find myself looking up to him.  Having any one of these people in my life would make me a lucky man.  To have all of them with me for one of the biggest events of my life makes me incredibly blessed in a way that I didn't think I deserved.

Saying 'thank you' or 'I love you' didn't seem like enough.  It's not like how it is in movies when the music swells or the moment goes into slow motion so you know that it's important.  Instead all the things I wanted to say in the moment kept getting drowned out by those silly emotions that kept smashing through.  I only hope that my bumbling muttering somehow got the message across.

When I was little I thought the world revolved around me.  Most little kids think this because they have no concept of their place in such a large place.  As I got older I started to realize that I was not, in fact, the center of the universe.  I was only the center of mine.  Over the weekend that changed for me.  The center is now someone else, with a tiny additional center coming soon to a universe near you!  I never thought I'd find something more important than myself to focus on, but now that she's here, I wonder what was I thinking all this time up until now.  I'm just glad everyone got to see my universe realign itself to how it was always meant to be.

Sunridge

On Fallen Heroes

When I was very little I loved Picture Pages.  They were lots of fun with my crayons and my pencils.  I also loved watching Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.  I was known to eat a pudding pop or two in my time.  Now that we know what we know about the man, it makes me wonder if a large portion of my childhood has been tainted.  Sure his personal life never encroached on any of the things I saw while growing up, but now I know that for all of my life I was laughing and learning with a serial rapist.  That kind of revelation makes one wonder if we're looking up to the wrong people.  And even worse for me is that it makes me more cynical.  Now when I see someone doing something wonderful or heroic there is a small scratch of a voice in the back of my mind that asks 'What horrible secret are they hiding?'  It doesn't help that we can't go very long without some famous person or hero to many making it onto the news and letting us down.  A man who overcame cancer and won the Tour de France several times becoming an inspiration for millions, showing that with hard work and determination you could kick cancer in the balls.  Except that we find out it was hard work, determination, and literally swapping his blood out while aggressively attacking anyone who dared question if he ever cheated.

There were plenty of people who felt some strange bit of satisfaction when that story came to light.  Finally that man who seemed super human in his physical ability was brought back down to our level.  It seems as though there are people who secretly want heroes to fail so that they don't feel as small compared to them, but wouldn't wanting that make them both petty and small?  I see the flip side though and wonder how it affects the people who look up to these heroes.  Imagine having someone you look to for inspiration turn out to be something of a monster.  Does that mean you weren't smart enough to see it?  Were you a fool for ever having hope in someone else?  Maybe it means we're looking up to the wrong people.  Or maybe we're putting too much onto a single person because in the end, they are just people.  It could be that the person started out wanting to do and be good, but eventually the pressure to constantly serve as a hero to the masses meant pushing to win at any cost, including ruining other people's lives.  There was a specific story that had to be maintained.  You know, for the greater good.  And of course money.

It could be that the person in question wasn't always a terrifying monster.  They began as anyone else, with a sense of right and wrong that was mostly in tact.  Then as time went on they started to believe their own hype and listened to all those people saying how great they were and how there weren't limits for a person like them.  The money and the fame warping all semblance of a moral compass.  I mean was the Subway guy always into exploiting children or did that come because he had the money and means to do what he wanted because no one expected him to be anything other than a hero?  Being given endless amount of praise for simply being you probably messes with anyone's morals because there isn't any context for what's not acceptable.  Look at that small Asian nation, lead by a fat little man who is so delusional with power that he has decided to great his own time zone.  That's the epitome of corrupted by power.

We have this constant need for things to be fair.  It's a concept we learn at a very young age.  Share your toys.  Make sure everyone gets a turn.  Don't take more than your fair share.  When someone does something wrong there is supposed to be justice that keeps things fair.  Strangely enough though we also want that same sense of fairness for people who seem to be 'better' than us or have more than us.  Never mind the circumstances that got the rich or famous person to their place in the world.  I want that too.  How come they get to have it and I don't?  Thoughts like that lead back to that secret want.  That hope that one day we'll get to watch them fall.  That they deserve to be knocked down because they had so much and we didn't.  Is it part of our nature to feel this way?  To want to make sure that everyone is humbled enough that no one feels like they're lesser than someone else?

Then again maybe we should stop treating athletes and celebrities as though they're heroes.  Sure that guy is an incredible golfer, but being good at one thing shouldn't necessarily mean that we look to them as an inspiration for life.  It could by why fictional heroes are so popular right now.  We need someone to look up to.  Someone who won't let us down because the story won't allow it.  There is very little chance we're going to find out that Han Solo was actually a child molester or that Captain America was a white supremacist.  How come it's not doctors or scientists or people pushing for social improvements in quality that are being hoisted up as heroes?  Maybe the real heroes are the ones who are left alone to do the actual good work and not be corrupted by the very people who look up to them.

Peaking Light

On the Binary State

"There are two types of people in this world: Those who like Neil Diamond, and those who don't. My ex-wife loves him"

- Bob Wiley

It's interesting to me how we quickly divide up a population of people into one of two things.  And not just people, but things in general.  Awhile back I was having problems finding anything to watch on Netflix.  While I think Netflix is an overall great service, there have been a lot of times where I wonder what they must think of me.  I've given Citizen Kane five stars as well as The 40 Year-Old Virgin.  For other movies I would give more moderate rating.  While I enjoyed that romantic comedy with the reformed action star who smolders on screen, it wasn't something that I would feel the need to watch again.  Three stars.  The problem with this was that after awhile Netflix found that maybe I would enjoy more three star movies.  I don't seek out movies that are visual smooth jazz.  I want something that I can enjoy and not reach for my phone as something more entertaining.  So in order to stop Netflix from wasting my time I started rating everything on a scale two or four stars.  Three didn't exist anymore because it was worthless as far as making a recommendation.  Don't tell me about movies that I may walk away from saying "well I didn't hate it".  My time is becoming more and more precious.  Since I still want to enjoy movies with a finite amount of time to do so, I can only watch those things which a computer tells me that I'll love.  That has become my movie watching world; love it or hate it.  If you're not one thing then you must be the other thing.  The sad thing is though that seems to be the world in general.

When I was little I knew there were good guys and bad guys.  The bad guys were easy to spot because they looked bad.  Or they had names that made it obvious.  If you grew up with the name Skeletor or Dr. Mindbender then I'm guessing your career choices are really limited.  Plus people's expectations of you would already be colored.  What were the motivations of these "bad" guys?  It didn't matter because they were bad.  The good guys stood for everything right and true.  Even in history class we were taught about how the Nazis were bad (which they were, no doubt there) and the Allies were good.  If you go and read more than your eighth grade history book you find out that not everyone saw things so clearly.  Germany as a whole wasn't full of people bent on world domination and destruction of an entire people.  Sure there were people within that country and within that particular power group that felt it was their duty and right to exterminate whomever they saw beneath them.  We don't want that story though.  We want to know that we're the good guys and we defeated the bad guys.  It helped that they wore uniforms.  Oh you're one of the bad guys.  Here's your black uniform with skulls and lightning.  Most German soldiers were just people from Germany who felt compelled to fight for their country, much like our own people who have served.  To the enemy though our troops are the bad guys.  Most likely though there aren't any good guys or bad guys.  It's all just a bunch of guys (and gals) who are doing things that vary from good to bad.  Even that is probably up for debate.  A soldier or a police officer has to make decisions about that sort of thing in an instant and then live with the consequences, or maybe not if they made the wrong choice.  It's made much more difficult when they are forced to make these decisions so quickly that everything is boiled down to a black and white scenario.

Is everything really black and white?  We encourage people to play games where there is a definitive winner and an obvious loser.  We watch teams, who work together and overcome their differences in order to accomplish a common goal.  That goal is defeating another team, who was doing the same thing.  Only one can be considered a winner though.  The other teams, even if they are working well together, are now considered inferior because we can't allow for there to be something other than a winner or a loser.  Granted I'm not saying we go so far as to give everyone a trophy for simply showing up because that doesn't help either.  Still we're showing our children at a very early age that even if you give your best and work hard that you can still be considered a loser.  For some children that will create drive in which they decide to work even harder so that they can become the winner.  For other children they give up or accept their place in the world as someone who's best simply isn't good enough.  Is it possible to play a game for the enjoyment of it without having there be people divided up into two different camps?  Maybe it's just built into our brains that things are one thing or another.  Our very survival meant being better than the next guy.  While we're not really allowed to savagely murder each other for the sake of our own genes making it to the next round, we can certainly feed that primal urge in our brain by watching a couple teams play for relatively low stakes that feel very important at the time.  Have we not really evolved beyond needing that feeling?

Life itself may not even be as simple as we once though.  Sure when something is dead then it's dead, but now we've learned there is brain dead as well.  Your body could be alive, but there isn't anyone in there.  Are you still alive at that point?  We can barely begin to agree on when life starts or what on our planet is alive in the sense that makes us comfortable.  A virus may not really be alive if all it is is a set of genes that are using another life form to replicate itself.  Somewhere in the vastness of the universe something could look at us and think we're not really alive because we don't meet some lofty criteria that they've set out for themselves.  We don't even have to go into what happens when our physical body dies to have the issue being incredibly nuanced to the point of being vaguely unknowable.  The world is full of nuance.  Most things aren't clearly black or white.  There are shades of...I'm not even going to say it because I don't want some search engine to mistakenly identify my writing with that book/movie.

I think about art or food or food that looks like art.  Sometimes you just know what you like, even if you can't explain why.  This thing is pleasing to my palette (visual or tasty kind) so if asked I'll probably say I liked it, but to varying degrees.  If forced to choose between love or hate then a lot of things are going to get pitched over the side because I don't exactly want to say that I love it.  I never thought I'd say this, but sometimes I wish the world would appreciate ambivalence about most things rather than forcing us to choose between being with them or against them.  If asked about a complex issue one normally can't just say "I disagree" without at least explaining why.  And in doing so we tend to find out that while we may fundamentally disagree with someone or something, there may be a lot of area that we do agree with.  It could be that our brains haven't really caught up to the fact that there is more than two classifications for anything in the world.  Then again maybe it all comes down to if you like Neil Diamond or not.

On the Game Change

For most of my life my primary concern has been myself.  Sure I would care about other people, as much as my programming would allow.  In the end though my universe was centered around me.  That may sound selfish, but if I'm not around then everything else for me doesn't really matter.  It may not have been the best way to run a ship, still it was my way and it was working for me.  Mostly.  There have been times where I'm watching a show or movie and I see people behaving how I wish I could be.  It's an idealized version of friendship.  Almost as though a Norman Rockwell painting has come to life.  I know this and I still sometimes want it for myself and the people I call friends.  That's not to say what I have is bad in any way.  It's just more real.  People can be thoughtless.  I can be thoughtless.  More often than not the thing I meant to say comes out as something else and people look at me like I'm trying to swallow a whole octopus.  Even with all these blunders, I still knew what to expect.

Watching a lot of movies and television I felt like I had seen the story where a character is going to have a baby plenty of times.  Sometimes they're sad, a lot of times they are happy, but almost always they are freaked the hell out.  Just when you think you've got the game figured out, a new player comes onto the board.  These characters would run around doing all sorts of wacky things or go through montages where they buy baby books, find a good doctor after sifting through all the crazy ones, and then going to various appointments.  All this normally happens in the span of like twenty minutes because in the end the movie is still about the characters and not the tiny alien that's gestating inside one of them.  The movie comes to an end with the birth of said alien and if you're lucky they may show a little bit of how wonderful it all is.  Aw that's nice.  I feel like I'm prepared.

We've been having babies since before we could call ourselves human.  While I'm not sure I'd say we are exactly experts at the whole thing.  I do feel like we've learned enough to be dangerous, but not quite deadly.  Honestly it's a miracle that we're alive.  Think about all the things that had to happen for you to be here right now?  If the exact scenario of your conception didn't happen it's likely you wouldn't be around to read this.  Millions of things have to go right for each person to be born.  Change the timing and a boy may be a girl.  Change the environment and maybe the whole thing falls apart halfway through.  Our bodies are these complex mechanisms that we really have very little control over.  Sure we can shovel fuel in the form of our favorite flavors into it in order to keep things running, but we can't exactly tell our kidneys to step up their game.  Most of the time I can't get my stomach on board with the same food I've eaten a hundred times before  Sometimes I wish there was some kind of external monitoring system that told me what the hell was going on inside of me.  I suppose it wouldn't matter because without control that information is useless.  I could tell you my heart rate right now, but that doesn't really give me the whole picture of all the other things connected to that piece of information.  Now think about how inside someone they're building a completely new person from scratch.  Sure I helped in my small way, but it was really a fire and forget.  Somehow it's putting together its own brain.  If it's doing that then it means we did that ourselves at some point.  We really created ourselves.

Knowing this it kind of makes me sad to think how easily we forget about the miracle that is our own lives.  Sure reality means there's more to it than simply marveling at how amazing our bodies are.  As adults we're kind of over the whole magic of life and the world around us.  Now go watch a little kid in the same environment and notice how ensorcelled they are by the smallest things.  I can't quite remember when the world stopped being so overwhelmingly magical to me.  I think with the internet and the world being full of people who are genuinely trying to hold onto or at least recapture that sense of wonder, it's not a lost cause.  Children are the constant reminder that the world can be a wondrous place.  While they're running around being amazed at everything in the world, the adults are running right behind them being terrified of that same world consuming the tiny versions of ourselves.  This means my primary concern is no longer myself.  Instead it's going to be this external portion of myself that is scampering off to go eat dirt and actively put itself into dangerous situations because it has no idea that a mountain lion wielding a chainsaw isn't something you run towards.