This is something I wanted to discuss a few days ago but it, unfortunately, got pushed to the back burner. Why is it we always think our own intentions are the purest? Or is this a problem that only lies with me? Either way, Relient K comes to the rescue again...but only serves to make me think even more.
"The Rest Is Up To You"
"I was just about to quote Mark Twain
When I realized that it's all in vain.
A twist of fate, a twisted look of pain.
To defeat the wheat go against the grain.
I know, I know, I know, I know
I know what you've been through
But there's only so much one can do.
Now the rest is up to you
The rest is up to you.....
Your mentor's become your tormentor
Give him the money but is it for rent or,
Will you get burnt for the countless time
Your head starts to hurt, you just close your eyes.
I know, I know, I know, I know
I know what he did to you
But there's only so much one can do
Now the rest is up to you
The rest is up to you.....
This speech is merely words
It's even worse because it rhymes
Give me a minute or your time
Give me a minute of your time
And I can't make this click
And I can't tattoo your mind
But you know this ain't no trick
Take it or leave it all behind..
The rest is up to you
The rest is up to you
The rest is up to you...."
And then another song...
"Over It"
I'll admit to who I am
The day I come to understand
I haven't got a clue
Been searching for a few years now
Well if I don't repeat myself
Then I'll change into someone else
Well I don't quite know who
Been searching for a few years now
I'm over it
Yeah behind me now
I'm just over it
Over it
Yeah I'm finding out
I'm just over it
No I don't know what's over just yet
But I won't go slow and time can let the mind forget
Don't tell me you don't know
Already
(Don't tell me you let go
Already)
I'll protect your universe
Or make a mess to make it worse
Time will only tell
You and no one else so
I'm over it...
You say you made up your mind and you've finally decided
But those that helped you choose
Haven't the slightest clue as to the magnitude of what you're about to lose
I'm guarded and therefore I can endure
A little bit more
Just a little bit more
Than some people would
If I'm not misunderstood
It's still an attempt to be egoless while self-assured
If I'm still unsure that I'm pretty sure
That I am pretty good
God you know I'm good and
I'm over it...
Some of these lyrics hit me a little bit more than others. They are highlighted. But it comes back to what I was saying at the beginning of the post...we always think that we're right, don't we? Our own thoughts make so much more sense than anything anyone could ever say to us. And it's so often that we're misunderstood, even if we try to explain ourselves. It definitely doesn't always work. And that's when the trust comes in...if we can't trust someone - let the rest be up to them - then we're only adrift in our own feelings. This is a hard lesson that is being forced down my throat. And, as Relient K always so eloquently puts it, "I So Hate Consequences."
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Interruptions and Surprises
It seems that my blog has recently taken on a singular tone, whereby I am wondering aloud the best time to make a change. And not only am I concerned with the time, but also the best way to go about it. Change is never easy, and it seems harder for me. This is a common outlook for folks, thinking that our circumstances are the worst. We have this "poor me, woe to us" syndrome which makes it very difficult to put our problems and despairs in perspective. Further, it's even crazy hard for us to properly laud our triumphs, consumed as we are with comparisons. If, for example, we do something tremendous, we will inevitably look over at Charlie with slight pangs of jealousy, for he was able to do the same thing cheaper and at a younger age. It's a never-ending cycle of defeat by the innermost workings of our fragile psyches. I wonder if anyone is immune to this...
And then, almost as if real life finally decided to mesh with my words, I got a job! I will be teaching Econ/Civics, World History, and 9th grade English at Madison High School in Madison Heights, Michigan! Suddenly it feels like my heart is lifted. But to what extent? I'm going to update more on this tomorrow. But I wanted to make this my announcement post!
And then, almost as if real life finally decided to mesh with my words, I got a job! I will be teaching Econ/Civics, World History, and 9th grade English at Madison High School in Madison Heights, Michigan! Suddenly it feels like my heart is lifted. But to what extent? I'm going to update more on this tomorrow. But I wanted to make this my announcement post!
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Comfortably Numb
I've been thinking lately about comfort and the illusory sense of happiness that is seemingly associated with it. Now this may be a dour way to approach a subject that should be full of joy, but bear with me and we may be able to come up with some answers. Although if this post is going to be anything like the other posts I've submitted, we'll probably just come up with more questions. Oh well...
First, let's figure out what comfort truly is. Comfort is, to me, one of the ultimate goals of human existence. I don't exactly have a full list of what those goals are, but I know that comfort would definitely make the cut. We are made to seek out comfort. Most of us don't look for a situation in which we will be morose and unhappy. And even if we do begin in that situation, we fully expect to adapt and become comfortable. We have the natural urge to come to grips with our lives and search for the people and places that make us most comfortable. If we have a job that is rotten, we will forget it at closing time and hang out with friends, or try to bond with co-workers more. If our personal life remains something to be desired, we will throw our life into our work, once again creating a sense of comfort. If we are in a place that we don't want to be, we will, perhaps subconsciously, latch onto those people who have always brought us comfort. It's a natural way to approach those things in life that we are not too fond of.
So far I've mostly been discussing the feeling of comfort we get from other people, but there are, of course, many ways to feel comfortable. It could be from food, a good book, or even solace. Shutting out the world, alienating ourselves from the cacophony of a society in which sometimes we don't fit into and oftentimes want to escape from is another sense of comfort. I've certainly felt that way sometimes. I've thought about escaping into a world where I could be, conceivably, endlessly happy. Some may find comfort in their hopes and dreams, with the most extreme comfort-seekers completely shutting out the real world entirely to flit into the apparent perfection of dreams.
And right there, I think, is where the good feeling of comfort morphs into something dangerous. If we are constantly at odds with our surrounding community that we solely seek a created comfort, we are lost. This happens when we choose to not come face-to-face with our present circumstances. If we are not to have that sense of adaptability, we tend to fall into a false reality, where comfort is only gained from within ourselves. I am of the mind that social interactions are one of the healthiest things we can do. And turning off those interactions in favor of a personal sense of comfort can only create problems. We can fall into a spiral and, like the title of this blog, become comfortably numb. We lose feeling and our sense of worldliness. We become, to the outside world, lonely and numb. But aren't we comfortable? Isn't that happiness? Heavy thoughts...
Admittedly the above is a worst-case scenario. It happens, of course, but that's not what I'm here to talk about. I've been wrestling with using comfort as an escape. Coming back to a place after sometime away can be an incredibly frustrating experience, especially when the place we're returning to is, on the exterior, inferior in every way. We naturally pine for that old place. Some may shut down and others may seek comfort in what used to be comfortable. I remember when I came back to Detroit after spending the summer in Colorado. I didn't want to run on those stupid streets, I didn't want to go back to that less-than-stellar school, and I didn't want to abandon my Domino's manager Laura (though she had a boyfriend...tilt). Those first few weeks in Michigan were kind of miserable. But eventually I returned to school, remembered how awesome my friends on the team were, and, after a short while, fell back in love with Detroit. That year, my last as a collegian, was the best of my entire life, perhaps because I let it be. I thought often about those months in Colorado, traveling and living the dream, but I did not let it derail my present.
All of this leads me to happiness. Happiness can be, I believe, an emotion of choice. I remember that scene in the movie Say Anything when John Cusack is upset because his sister is always so sour because her husband left. He asks her "Why can't you be in a good mood? How hard is it to decide to be in a good mood and be in a good mood once in a while?" It's never easy, however, to choose this happiness. There are so many attacks from the world that can mortgage our happy feelings...but does this happen only if we let it? Or does it happen regardless? This is very hard for me to answer right now. I could look at certain situations in my life and choose to ignore the negative in favor of the potential for more happiness. In the meantime, I could put on a face of happiness, in hopes that it may manifest itself as the real thing. Does that compromise our sense of self? Does it affect our sense of self to others? Hmm...could be tangent time here.
If we choose to be happy, don't we appear on the outside to be more happy? Wouldn't that attract more people to us who are also happy? Wouldn't their happiness further influence our sense of happiness? I mean, if we learn that the key to getting ahead in life is to be more happy, wouldn't he jump at the chance? And if we could see that being happy is simply an emotion that we can either embrace or shun, wouldn't we, without question, be happy? But what happens when that sense of happiness is exploited? What if our happiness draws in angry people who are looking for an equalizer? What if our faux sense of happiness is somehow exposed and we become angry again? But take that a step further. Wouldn't the resulting anger be a choice as well? I mean, if we're in charge of our happiness and good moods, aren't we, by default, in charge of our anger, sorrow, fear, and every other mood? The short answer, yes. The long answer will have to be in another blog.
Returning to the discussion of happiness resulting from comfort. Doesn't all happiness come from a sort of comfort? We seek out comfort to be happy with ourselves and our circumstances. We never find comfort and are sad because of it. So I guess this is where I get a bit confused. Where is the line between finding comfort in the person who's always been there, for instance, and the comfort in the person who's been there more recently? Are they not one in the same? Especially if we're finding comfort to escape certain realities? Being comfortable, especially with a person or people, is what we're looking for, correct?
I can't answer this question. I can't even adequately explain it. I guess that's part of the problem. We can only answer it individually.
On second thought, I can. Finding comfort in the people who are closest to us, the people who have always been close to us, is true happiness. Especially if they're offering that comfort. But doing something just because it's comfortable...what to make of that? Isn't that the amalgamation of what I've been talking about the last few days?
Doing what's comfortable because it made us happy for a really long time, or doing what's comfortable because it made us happy more recently...which to cling to? And then, taking it a step further, what is that happiness? Pretty philosophical stuff...
First, let's figure out what comfort truly is. Comfort is, to me, one of the ultimate goals of human existence. I don't exactly have a full list of what those goals are, but I know that comfort would definitely make the cut. We are made to seek out comfort. Most of us don't look for a situation in which we will be morose and unhappy. And even if we do begin in that situation, we fully expect to adapt and become comfortable. We have the natural urge to come to grips with our lives and search for the people and places that make us most comfortable. If we have a job that is rotten, we will forget it at closing time and hang out with friends, or try to bond with co-workers more. If our personal life remains something to be desired, we will throw our life into our work, once again creating a sense of comfort. If we are in a place that we don't want to be, we will, perhaps subconsciously, latch onto those people who have always brought us comfort. It's a natural way to approach those things in life that we are not too fond of.
So far I've mostly been discussing the feeling of comfort we get from other people, but there are, of course, many ways to feel comfortable. It could be from food, a good book, or even solace. Shutting out the world, alienating ourselves from the cacophony of a society in which sometimes we don't fit into and oftentimes want to escape from is another sense of comfort. I've certainly felt that way sometimes. I've thought about escaping into a world where I could be, conceivably, endlessly happy. Some may find comfort in their hopes and dreams, with the most extreme comfort-seekers completely shutting out the real world entirely to flit into the apparent perfection of dreams.
And right there, I think, is where the good feeling of comfort morphs into something dangerous. If we are constantly at odds with our surrounding community that we solely seek a created comfort, we are lost. This happens when we choose to not come face-to-face with our present circumstances. If we are not to have that sense of adaptability, we tend to fall into a false reality, where comfort is only gained from within ourselves. I am of the mind that social interactions are one of the healthiest things we can do. And turning off those interactions in favor of a personal sense of comfort can only create problems. We can fall into a spiral and, like the title of this blog, become comfortably numb. We lose feeling and our sense of worldliness. We become, to the outside world, lonely and numb. But aren't we comfortable? Isn't that happiness? Heavy thoughts...
Admittedly the above is a worst-case scenario. It happens, of course, but that's not what I'm here to talk about. I've been wrestling with using comfort as an escape. Coming back to a place after sometime away can be an incredibly frustrating experience, especially when the place we're returning to is, on the exterior, inferior in every way. We naturally pine for that old place. Some may shut down and others may seek comfort in what used to be comfortable. I remember when I came back to Detroit after spending the summer in Colorado. I didn't want to run on those stupid streets, I didn't want to go back to that less-than-stellar school, and I didn't want to abandon my Domino's manager Laura (though she had a boyfriend...tilt). Those first few weeks in Michigan were kind of miserable. But eventually I returned to school, remembered how awesome my friends on the team were, and, after a short while, fell back in love with Detroit. That year, my last as a collegian, was the best of my entire life, perhaps because I let it be. I thought often about those months in Colorado, traveling and living the dream, but I did not let it derail my present.
All of this leads me to happiness. Happiness can be, I believe, an emotion of choice. I remember that scene in the movie Say Anything when John Cusack is upset because his sister is always so sour because her husband left. He asks her "Why can't you be in a good mood? How hard is it to decide to be in a good mood and be in a good mood once in a while?" It's never easy, however, to choose this happiness. There are so many attacks from the world that can mortgage our happy feelings...but does this happen only if we let it? Or does it happen regardless? This is very hard for me to answer right now. I could look at certain situations in my life and choose to ignore the negative in favor of the potential for more happiness. In the meantime, I could put on a face of happiness, in hopes that it may manifest itself as the real thing. Does that compromise our sense of self? Does it affect our sense of self to others? Hmm...could be tangent time here.
If we choose to be happy, don't we appear on the outside to be more happy? Wouldn't that attract more people to us who are also happy? Wouldn't their happiness further influence our sense of happiness? I mean, if we learn that the key to getting ahead in life is to be more happy, wouldn't he jump at the chance? And if we could see that being happy is simply an emotion that we can either embrace or shun, wouldn't we, without question, be happy? But what happens when that sense of happiness is exploited? What if our happiness draws in angry people who are looking for an equalizer? What if our faux sense of happiness is somehow exposed and we become angry again? But take that a step further. Wouldn't the resulting anger be a choice as well? I mean, if we're in charge of our happiness and good moods, aren't we, by default, in charge of our anger, sorrow, fear, and every other mood? The short answer, yes. The long answer will have to be in another blog.
Returning to the discussion of happiness resulting from comfort. Doesn't all happiness come from a sort of comfort? We seek out comfort to be happy with ourselves and our circumstances. We never find comfort and are sad because of it. So I guess this is where I get a bit confused. Where is the line between finding comfort in the person who's always been there, for instance, and the comfort in the person who's been there more recently? Are they not one in the same? Especially if we're finding comfort to escape certain realities? Being comfortable, especially with a person or people, is what we're looking for, correct?
I can't answer this question. I can't even adequately explain it. I guess that's part of the problem. We can only answer it individually.
On second thought, I can. Finding comfort in the people who are closest to us, the people who have always been close to us, is true happiness. Especially if they're offering that comfort. But doing something just because it's comfortable...what to make of that? Isn't that the amalgamation of what I've been talking about the last few days?
Doing what's comfortable because it made us happy for a really long time, or doing what's comfortable because it made us happy more recently...which to cling to? And then, taking it a step further, what is that happiness? Pretty philosophical stuff...
Monday, August 27, 2012
The Long Way Home
So I couldn't find a link to this article, so I went to the bookstore and I'm just going to transcribe it here. I'm not sure about the legality of this practice, but I guess as long as I cite the article, I should be fine. This article goes along with what I was saying the last few days about getting "fired" and retiring gracefully, but does so with much more eloquence than I could possibly possess. It's about hopes, dreams, boundless optimism, and the morality associated with all of it. There's really no conclusion - I still don't know if it's better to keep going even with no hope, or to retire with head held high and pride intact - but this article is yet another thinking point. Please enjoy!
The Long Way Home
by Bill Donahue, from Backpacker, September 2012, Volume 40, Issue 297, Number 7, pg. 84-87, 95
In spring 2006, Karl Bushby crossed the Bering Strait from Alaska to Siberia, walking on shifting ice floes and swimming gaps of open water. It was an audacious endeavor, to say the least. Bushby and his partner, Dimitri Kieffer, towed 200-pound sleds through a rubble heap of fractured ice. They skittered up 30-foot-high pressure ridges, scrambled along thin shelves of ice, hoping they didn't crack, and laboriously dog paddled through 32F pools of salt water that were often clogged with frozen slush. At one point, Bushby and Kieffer got swept 52 miles north as they tried to push west, because the ice floes moved with the wind. They ended up traveling roughly 150 miles over 14 days to cross the 53-mile-wide strait. Near the end, the pair had to jettison every ounce of excess weight in order to complete the journey. "My expedition was on the line. So we threw the supplies overboard - the shotguns, the radio..." Bushby recalled later.
The BBC and other media covered the successful traverse with fanfare. And not only because the pair was following, almost literally, in the footsteps of prehistoric travelers who crossed a land bridge between Asia and North America. The feat also marked the most challenging stage of Bushby's Goliath Expedition, the singular campaign that has consumed him since 1998. He aims to complete the world's longest hike, becoming the first human ever to walk and ski an unbroken path around the globe - or, more accurately, from the tip of South America back home to industrial Hull, England. Before setting off, he'd done nothing to suggest he was capable of such a trek. But when he reached Russia - with the technical cruz behind him, and some half the distance done - it appeared the one-time British Army paratrooper might actually finish the 36,000-mile journey.
But what should have been the expedition's high point quickly became the low. Russian authorities arrested Bushby and Kieffer for entering the country illegally and deported them back to the U.S. Kieffer, who had joined Bushby only for the Bering Strait crossing, didn't plan a return to Russia. But Bushby's efforts to resume his journey have been repeatedly hampered by visa and financial problems. Over the following six years, Bushby managed nothing but sporadic stints on the Siberian tundra, which is only passable on foot in subfreezing conditions. On his spring 2011 visit, he inadvertantly strayed into one of the off-limits "security zones" Russia maintains near its borders. Authorities barred him from returning to Russia for five years. He enlisted a lawyer to lobby Moscow's visa czars, but the Goliath Expedition appeared stalled, perhaps indefinitely.
Still, Bushby had accomplished much simply getting this far. Few would have called it a defeat if he abandoned the journey. Every hike has an end, right? But Bushby didn't go home. Nor did he go forward. He simply disappeared from the adventure stage. Which is when Karl Bushby became captivating in a whole new way. Where had he gone? What happened to the record-setting hiker who couldn't keep hiking?
"I'm 42 years old and I'm broke and I'm homeless," Karl Bushby lamented as he trudged along through the coarse brown sand of a beach in Melaque, Mexico, where I caught up with him last year. "I'm a professional parasite. I'm a professional hobo. I'm 42 years old, and I have to walk other people's dogs, just so they'll feed me. My job is picking up dog shit!"
Bushby paused now, and when I looked over at him he was faintley smirking, charmed by the dolefulness he exuded as we made our way through the twilight toward the tiny village on Mexico's west coast. There was a sparkle in his blue eyes, but a fleeting one. Since late 2008, mostly living in Melaque (pronounced muh-lah-kay, population 8,000), Bushby had been undernourished, subsisting on less than 2,000 calories a day as he cadged lodgings from friends and did them occasional favors in return. His skin was pallid, as though he were back home in the north of England, where his mother still works in a confectionery factory, and his movements were restrained - sluggish, even. "I've shut down the extremities. These days I'm just preserving my core," he said. His tone was at once morose and faux dramatic. "I'm at the mercy of other people's kindness. I'm a nobody. But in a matter of months, of course, I could be conquering the world."
Well, not exactly conquering the world, but slowly plying his way across it. From 1998 to 2006, Bushby averaged about 2,000 miles a year. Not noteworthy by thru-hiker standards, but no one will question the pace if he completes the journey. The unprecedented length, along with potentially deadly obstacles like the Bering Strait's shifting ice, make it a hike no one will likely ever repeat.
The expedition began, he said, as a bad bet. "I had something to prove to my paratrooper mates." He also had something to run from - in 1998, he was still embroiled in the aftermath of a nasty divorce. He flew to Punta Arenas, Chile, with $800 and a wheeled cart full of gear.
Strangers fed and sheltered him. He scored a few meager sponsorships, and he just kept plodding along. Bushby walked up South America's Pacific coast, battling wind in Patagonia and long waterless stretches in Chile's northern deserts. He crossed Central America's Darien Gap, a guerilla-ridden jungle region where he backpacked into a no-man's land against the advice of the Colombian military. He walked through sizzling heat in the Southwestern U.S. and numbing cold in Canada and Alaska. Then, famously, he crossed the ice to Russia in 2006. And then, not so famously, he retreated (by plane) to this beach town in Mexico, where he could look for sponsors - film producers were nibbling - as he conserved funds. The unemployed Bushby had a grand total of $700 in his bank account when I visited him and he couldn't even access the money, having lost his bankcard. The replacement was still en route. As we walked through the sand, Bushby cracked open his wallet to reveal a single 20 peso bill, worth about $1.70. "That's it," he said. "That's all I have at the moment."
His words sprouted a diagram in my mind: I envisioned life as a series of squiggly, branching lines. We make choices, and nearly all of us start out incubating some grand, youthful ambition. We want to write novels when we grow up, or scale unclimbed peaks. But then we do grow up and we become practical. We choose lines that are easier, more conventional. We limit our adventures to what fits in the vacation schedule, and eventually, well, we do end up getting that minivan.
Karl Bushby refused to part with his grand plan, and the diagram of his life reflects that decision. He has experienced moments of triumph, to be sure, but he has also paid dearly for his stubbornness, as have others around him. When he set out on his hike almost 14 years ago, he left behind an eight-year-old son. Along the way, in Colombia, he met "the only woman who ever mattered to me." They're no longer together, though, and now Bushby passes the time in limbo here in Melaque. He is responsible to nothing but his dream. But does this make him the ultimate inspiration for adventure visionaries? Is Karl Bushby a latter-day Thoreau who's dared to live deliberately? Or is he instead a sad case of arrested development: a freeloader who has failed to see that even the best hikes must end?
We kept walking. "Even the clouds here in the tropics are dynamic," Bushby said now, looking up. "At a certain time of night, right at dusk, when the light is a certain way here, I feel like I'm in a dream state."
Every long hike has its dream-like episodes - moments when the wilderness shines out and life seems exquisite in ways that it can't amid the din of the civilized world. One winter night early in his journey, when Bushby was wending north through the Andes, he woke up in a tent covered with ice. Freezing rain dripped down on him from nearby trees. He broke camp and began climbing a mountain road, hauling his gear-laden cart - The Beast, he called it. "Up ahead of me," he writes in his 2006 memoir, Giant Steps, "the clouds of fog meet the warmer air and explode into huge spirals, moving so quickly they look like giant flames, before they evaporate into nothing. On the hills to my left, huge dust devils are whipped into mini-tornadoes, sending columns of dust hundreds of meters into the sky."
A headwind whipped up against Bushby. He kept climbing, his legs burning. When he reached the peak, finally, he was "absolutely destroyed." Blowing sand stung his face. But he'd ascended more than 6,000 feet in three hours, and he was able to gaze out at the Atacama plateau and at the snow-capped peaks to the east.
And that night, as he sat outside his tent in the wind, eating pasta from a pan, he says he was "awestruck" by how clear and dark the starry sky was, looming above him, and also deeply content. "I was a very keen naturalist as a kid," he explained to me in Melaque. "I used to bring wounded birds into the house and nurse them back to health. I gathered up dead animals and then glued their skeletons back together. But then when I went into the army I had to put all that aside. On this walk - on days like that one in Chile - I've been able to connect with nature again."
Joining the military as an adolescent had changed the trajectory of Bushby's life, and it seemed this walk was his attempt to reroute it. "I was a skinny, small lad," he told me. "I was very immature, physically." Still, his father, a star paratrooper in his day, convinced him to join the British Army's paratrooper unit at age 16. "I was trying to enter a division of the army where 80 to 90 percent who try out don't make it," Bushby recalled. He took the entrance test five times, and then, he said, "They cut me some slack. They let me in. It was the worst thing they could have done."
As a paratrooper, Bushby was often required to parachute out of a plane and then run 10 miles in an hour and 45 minutes with 30 pounds on his back. "I had anxiety attacks," he said. "I don't know how many times I woke up in the medical center with IV's in my arms."
Bushby stayed in the army for 12 years, but always, he said, "I was considered the weak link in our unit. I was an outsider. All the other guys had pictures of motorcycles and guns by their bunks. I had a poster of the solar system over mind."
It's unlikely Bushby ever imagined anything like Melaque when he lay in his bunk, gazing at the stars. The beachside town is a winter haven for Canadian snowbirds. In the sumer, when I visited, it was steamy hot, and dead. Mangy dogs could lie on the pavement of side streets, unperturbed, for hours. At La Flora Cafe, a rail-thin American Buddhist, who revealed only his first name, Renee, sat alone every morning, sipping his coffee and staring contemplatively into the distance. When I asked him where he was from, he said, "Well, right now, I'm living in this chair."
In Melaque, Bushby was just another wandering soul, albeit more sociable than some. He was living here with just three t-shirts and two pairs of pants (his gear was stowed in Fairbanks) and mostly waiting for a call from Hollywood. A well-connected two-man production team was pitching TV networks a reality show starring Karl Bushby as a bumbling, endearing everyman explorer. "They're very close to signing the contract," he told me. "I should know by the end of the month." (At press time, Bushby was still in the dark.)
While he waited, Bushby steadfastly eschewed anything resembling a job. "I've offered him work as a housecleaner," said his friend Kyla Poirer, a Canadian who manages a swank Melaque hotel. "And other friends asked him to haul jet skis out of the water, but he always has an excuse. He says he's got to be available to talk to the film producers." Once, Bushby did a stint as a waiter at a fancy restaurant. "It was horrible," he said. "After three shifts, I was done with the clients and all their snootiness - with their sideways comments about how the tea wasn't hot enough and their food wasn't arranged on the plate the right way. If I did that for a living, I'd end up putting a plate over someone's head."
Most mornings, Bushby took his own table at La Flora. He enjoyed a bottomless cup of coffee, complements of La Flora's owner, an admirer of his expedition, and he peered at his laptop, poaching a Wi-Fi signal from a nearby shop.
While Bushby is clearly consumed by his goal, he doesn't glorify his achievements. At La Flora, we watched a BBC video about his 2006 Bering Strait crossing, and he never got boastful. "I'm an average guy," he said. "I'm less than average. I'm an underchiever. All I'm doing is putting one foot in front of the other."
On the laptop's screen, the BBC's narrator whipped himself into a lather over how cold the Bering Sea is, and Bushby rolled his eyes, the aped the man's fretful upper crust British delivery. "One could perish in that water in a matter of seconds," he crowed. "Seconds, I say! Mere seconds!"
The moment yielded more than a brief laugh. It also pointed toward the very quality that's endeared him to strangers across two continents. He's a world traveler, yes, and a record setter, but he remains a working class bloke from the north of England. Encountering him, you recognize at once that his quest is not Olympian, but human and plodding. You want to shelter and feed him. You want to buy him a cup of coffee.
With the Bering Strait behind him, Bushby will likely survive if he manages to continue his journey. Though what remains isn't easy. Russia still presents formidable obstacles - skiing isn't one of Bushby's strengths, visa regulations are maddening, temperatures can reach -80F, and chartered flights into Siberia can cost more than $12,000.
But once he clears those hurdles, it's just a long hike home, through Asia and Europe. Bushby's goal is to walk back into Britain via the emergency service corridor inside the Chunnel, the 31-mile train tube beneath the English Channel. Then he'll continue on to the modest brick home in Hull, England, where his mum waved him good-bye so long ago. With ongoing visa issues, Bushby can't say with any certainty when he'll complete the journey. But he knows this: He will not touch British soil unless he gets there on foot.
The don't-go-home rule is, of course, completely arbitrary, since he's allowed himself to fly to and from Alaska, Mexico, Colombia, and other locations. But he won't allow himself even the briefest return to England. The self-imposed rule has defined Bushby's life - he exiled himself from his son Adam's growing-up. He missed birthday parties and much more. He said he's certain that, if his parents die before he walks home, he'll skip their funerals.
In Melaque, I pressed Bushby several times on the logic of the don't-go-home rule and it was almost as though he couldn't think outside of it. "I made a commitment..." he'd begin. I sensed a fear of failure that's been decades in the making. In Giant Steps, Bushby describes his late 20s and feeling "frustrated and unfulfilled." And it wasn't just his unhappy military career and ill-advised marriage. As a youth, he often felt weak and ineffectual. In primary school, he was made to stand on a chair in front of the class because he couldn't spell (he was later diagnosed with dyslexia.) His happiest childhood moments were spent outdoors, walking through the fields, exploring. So when he began contemplating a transformative experience for his post-military freedom, the answer came naturally. The world's longest hike, the biggest test he could imagine, would be his chance to prove himself in a way no one could ignore.
But Bushby had a hard time transforming himself from army misfit to world explorer. Early in his trek, he sometimes ran out of food when the distance between towns was vast. He got so hungry, he says, that he hallucinated. "Everything looked like food. I'd see food in the bushes." At times it was so windy in Patagonia that he had to walk tilting forward at a 45-degree angle - a posture that ravaged his ankles joints. In Alaska, he had to overcome snow and cold the likes of which he'd never seen. During one three-day stretch, trudging along through soft powder in a -40F wind chill near Dunbar, Alaska, he covered only a mile.
Despite these trials, Bushby led a charmed life during much of his travels, receiving aid from strangers along the way, and from his parents back in England, who managed grassroots fundraising efforts. In South America, especially, Bushby found a warm welcome everywhere he went. In tiny villages, he was greeted as a windswept blond god.
"South America was like a boy's adventure story," Bushby said. "It was the happy experience I should have had in my teens - it was the best time of my life."
Every morning I was in Melaque, Bushby checked his email, hopeful from a note from his producers. The correspondance was spare, though, for Jordan Tappis and Beau Willimon are busy fellows. Tappis produced the recent documentary God Bless Ozzy Osbourne. Willimon is a playwright whose 2008 drama, Farragut North, was the basis of a recent film, The Ides of March, starring George Clooney.
Early in 2011, the pair laid out about $30,000 to send Bushby from Melaque to Chukotka, Russia, with a video camera, so he could shoot two months of lonely ice road travel. Now there were hopeful that the footage would sing to Hollywood titans. "Karl has a great story," said Willimon when I called him. "He's a down-to-earth guy, and he's gone through everything in his travels. He's been imprisoned, he's fallen in love."
The tragedy of this romance was a topic that Bushby kept returning to. Bushby met Catalina Estrada when he walked through Colombia, and he returned again and again to see her, even as he traveled north. With me, he spoke of walking the streets of Medellin with Estrada wrapped in his arms. Mostly, though, the love story is a tale about craving the impossible. For three years, Bushby tried in vain to get Estrada a visa, so she could visit him as he hiked. Finally in 2008, she wrote Bushby from Medellin: "Don't come back here. We can't do this anymore."
They have not seen one another since, but when I called Estrada in Madrid, where she currently lives, she spoke of Bushby with a sweet wistfulness. "When you see a person like Karl, you can think, 'This guy is absolutely crazy,' or 'It is incredible that a person could fight for his dreams.' Karl makes me think that the human spirit is big. Karl is the big love of my life. When I was with Karl, I cried for seven years; I was so happy for seven years. It is very difficult to love a person who isn't there."
As we dined on the plaza in Melaque one night, Bushby acknowledged that he's hurt people by refusing to live a settled life. "There are moral questions involved in what I'm doing," he said, "and my son has paid the highest price. He grew up without a father at home. I don't know the guy. I don't know my own son."
Bushby is hardly the first explorer to prioritize his adventures over his parenting. Ernset Shackleton blithely left three young children behind when he sallied off on his last - and fatal - Antarctic expedition in 1921. Captain James Cook famously spent years at sea during his voyages. He had six children. Today's adventure obituaries are filled with climbers and skiers who have left children fatherless. Still, Bushby felt guilty as he told me that, throughout his adolescence, Adam was depressed. "I bear a lot of responsibility for that," he said. "And he's still lost."
Adam, now 22, works at a record store in Belfast. He has a tattoo of the grim reaper on his forearm, and he plays bass in a metal band. As his father sees it, Adam lives in a "soul-sucking, culturally deprived environment. He doesn't know what he wants in life."
Bushby believes that what Adam needs is precisely what he needed himself: a long hike. "Going to the Arctic would be a struggle for him," he told me. "But it could change his life."
In 2010, when the film producers flew Adam to Mexico, for his first paternal visit in six years, they asked him if he wanted to accompany his dad in the Arctic. With the cameras rolling, Adam Bushby entertained the idea. Later, I called Adam myself. He was genial discussing his dad, but also tentative and pained. "This long hike was something he wanted to do and I have nothing against it," he said. "But it was kind of hard not having him there as I grew up. I did suffer in a way, I suppose."
I asked Adam if he was ready for the Arctic. "Oh, the Russia thing," he said. "We did talk about that, but I don't know, that walking - that's my dad's thing. I want to stay here in Belfast and get my own life sorted out."
Of course, when Karl Bushby set out from England some 35 million footsteps ago, he too was bent on sorting out his life. Has he succeeded? If success means attaining stability and some measure of material comfort and a certainty about, say, where your next meal is coming from, well then no, he's failed miserably. But if success means being at peace with the path you have chosen, Bushby appears triumphant. Even in Melaque, at an obvious low - without money, without a certain timetable for returning to Russia - Bushby exhibited only hints of sadness. "There have been times, walking," he told me, "when I'm out in the pouring rain looking through someone's window, into their living room. I've felt a tinge of jealousy."
When I saw him at La Flora, just before heading to the airport, I was aware that I was leaving Bushby to fester in Spartan poverty. I just hoped that his bankcard arrived soon. It seemed as though his spirits were fraying.
But when my taxi pulled up, Bushby was smirking. "OK, then, mate," he said. "It was a good time, wasn't it?"
The cab rolled off. When I looked back, Bushby was already checking his email, and I knew that he was hunting for a message that would promise him a glorious future. For hope is always on his horizon. A couple of weeks later, as we talked over the phone, Bushby imagine emerging out of Russia, finally, and coming onto the homestretch of his epic hike. "Europe," he said, "is going to be nothing but one big drunken party. I won't even remember it. And I can't wait to get there."
The Long Way Home
by Bill Donahue, from Backpacker, September 2012, Volume 40, Issue 297, Number 7, pg. 84-87, 95
In spring 2006, Karl Bushby crossed the Bering Strait from Alaska to Siberia, walking on shifting ice floes and swimming gaps of open water. It was an audacious endeavor, to say the least. Bushby and his partner, Dimitri Kieffer, towed 200-pound sleds through a rubble heap of fractured ice. They skittered up 30-foot-high pressure ridges, scrambled along thin shelves of ice, hoping they didn't crack, and laboriously dog paddled through 32F pools of salt water that were often clogged with frozen slush. At one point, Bushby and Kieffer got swept 52 miles north as they tried to push west, because the ice floes moved with the wind. They ended up traveling roughly 150 miles over 14 days to cross the 53-mile-wide strait. Near the end, the pair had to jettison every ounce of excess weight in order to complete the journey. "My expedition was on the line. So we threw the supplies overboard - the shotguns, the radio..." Bushby recalled later.
The BBC and other media covered the successful traverse with fanfare. And not only because the pair was following, almost literally, in the footsteps of prehistoric travelers who crossed a land bridge between Asia and North America. The feat also marked the most challenging stage of Bushby's Goliath Expedition, the singular campaign that has consumed him since 1998. He aims to complete the world's longest hike, becoming the first human ever to walk and ski an unbroken path around the globe - or, more accurately, from the tip of South America back home to industrial Hull, England. Before setting off, he'd done nothing to suggest he was capable of such a trek. But when he reached Russia - with the technical cruz behind him, and some half the distance done - it appeared the one-time British Army paratrooper might actually finish the 36,000-mile journey.
But what should have been the expedition's high point quickly became the low. Russian authorities arrested Bushby and Kieffer for entering the country illegally and deported them back to the U.S. Kieffer, who had joined Bushby only for the Bering Strait crossing, didn't plan a return to Russia. But Bushby's efforts to resume his journey have been repeatedly hampered by visa and financial problems. Over the following six years, Bushby managed nothing but sporadic stints on the Siberian tundra, which is only passable on foot in subfreezing conditions. On his spring 2011 visit, he inadvertantly strayed into one of the off-limits "security zones" Russia maintains near its borders. Authorities barred him from returning to Russia for five years. He enlisted a lawyer to lobby Moscow's visa czars, but the Goliath Expedition appeared stalled, perhaps indefinitely.
Still, Bushby had accomplished much simply getting this far. Few would have called it a defeat if he abandoned the journey. Every hike has an end, right? But Bushby didn't go home. Nor did he go forward. He simply disappeared from the adventure stage. Which is when Karl Bushby became captivating in a whole new way. Where had he gone? What happened to the record-setting hiker who couldn't keep hiking?
"I'm 42 years old and I'm broke and I'm homeless," Karl Bushby lamented as he trudged along through the coarse brown sand of a beach in Melaque, Mexico, where I caught up with him last year. "I'm a professional parasite. I'm a professional hobo. I'm 42 years old, and I have to walk other people's dogs, just so they'll feed me. My job is picking up dog shit!"
Bushby paused now, and when I looked over at him he was faintley smirking, charmed by the dolefulness he exuded as we made our way through the twilight toward the tiny village on Mexico's west coast. There was a sparkle in his blue eyes, but a fleeting one. Since late 2008, mostly living in Melaque (pronounced muh-lah-kay, population 8,000), Bushby had been undernourished, subsisting on less than 2,000 calories a day as he cadged lodgings from friends and did them occasional favors in return. His skin was pallid, as though he were back home in the north of England, where his mother still works in a confectionery factory, and his movements were restrained - sluggish, even. "I've shut down the extremities. These days I'm just preserving my core," he said. His tone was at once morose and faux dramatic. "I'm at the mercy of other people's kindness. I'm a nobody. But in a matter of months, of course, I could be conquering the world."
Well, not exactly conquering the world, but slowly plying his way across it. From 1998 to 2006, Bushby averaged about 2,000 miles a year. Not noteworthy by thru-hiker standards, but no one will question the pace if he completes the journey. The unprecedented length, along with potentially deadly obstacles like the Bering Strait's shifting ice, make it a hike no one will likely ever repeat.
The expedition began, he said, as a bad bet. "I had something to prove to my paratrooper mates." He also had something to run from - in 1998, he was still embroiled in the aftermath of a nasty divorce. He flew to Punta Arenas, Chile, with $800 and a wheeled cart full of gear.
Strangers fed and sheltered him. He scored a few meager sponsorships, and he just kept plodding along. Bushby walked up South America's Pacific coast, battling wind in Patagonia and long waterless stretches in Chile's northern deserts. He crossed Central America's Darien Gap, a guerilla-ridden jungle region where he backpacked into a no-man's land against the advice of the Colombian military. He walked through sizzling heat in the Southwestern U.S. and numbing cold in Canada and Alaska. Then, famously, he crossed the ice to Russia in 2006. And then, not so famously, he retreated (by plane) to this beach town in Mexico, where he could look for sponsors - film producers were nibbling - as he conserved funds. The unemployed Bushby had a grand total of $700 in his bank account when I visited him and he couldn't even access the money, having lost his bankcard. The replacement was still en route. As we walked through the sand, Bushby cracked open his wallet to reveal a single 20 peso bill, worth about $1.70. "That's it," he said. "That's all I have at the moment."
His words sprouted a diagram in my mind: I envisioned life as a series of squiggly, branching lines. We make choices, and nearly all of us start out incubating some grand, youthful ambition. We want to write novels when we grow up, or scale unclimbed peaks. But then we do grow up and we become practical. We choose lines that are easier, more conventional. We limit our adventures to what fits in the vacation schedule, and eventually, well, we do end up getting that minivan.
Karl Bushby refused to part with his grand plan, and the diagram of his life reflects that decision. He has experienced moments of triumph, to be sure, but he has also paid dearly for his stubbornness, as have others around him. When he set out on his hike almost 14 years ago, he left behind an eight-year-old son. Along the way, in Colombia, he met "the only woman who ever mattered to me." They're no longer together, though, and now Bushby passes the time in limbo here in Melaque. He is responsible to nothing but his dream. But does this make him the ultimate inspiration for adventure visionaries? Is Karl Bushby a latter-day Thoreau who's dared to live deliberately? Or is he instead a sad case of arrested development: a freeloader who has failed to see that even the best hikes must end?
We kept walking. "Even the clouds here in the tropics are dynamic," Bushby said now, looking up. "At a certain time of night, right at dusk, when the light is a certain way here, I feel like I'm in a dream state."
Every long hike has its dream-like episodes - moments when the wilderness shines out and life seems exquisite in ways that it can't amid the din of the civilized world. One winter night early in his journey, when Bushby was wending north through the Andes, he woke up in a tent covered with ice. Freezing rain dripped down on him from nearby trees. He broke camp and began climbing a mountain road, hauling his gear-laden cart - The Beast, he called it. "Up ahead of me," he writes in his 2006 memoir, Giant Steps, "the clouds of fog meet the warmer air and explode into huge spirals, moving so quickly they look like giant flames, before they evaporate into nothing. On the hills to my left, huge dust devils are whipped into mini-tornadoes, sending columns of dust hundreds of meters into the sky."
A headwind whipped up against Bushby. He kept climbing, his legs burning. When he reached the peak, finally, he was "absolutely destroyed." Blowing sand stung his face. But he'd ascended more than 6,000 feet in three hours, and he was able to gaze out at the Atacama plateau and at the snow-capped peaks to the east.
And that night, as he sat outside his tent in the wind, eating pasta from a pan, he says he was "awestruck" by how clear and dark the starry sky was, looming above him, and also deeply content. "I was a very keen naturalist as a kid," he explained to me in Melaque. "I used to bring wounded birds into the house and nurse them back to health. I gathered up dead animals and then glued their skeletons back together. But then when I went into the army I had to put all that aside. On this walk - on days like that one in Chile - I've been able to connect with nature again."
Joining the military as an adolescent had changed the trajectory of Bushby's life, and it seemed this walk was his attempt to reroute it. "I was a skinny, small lad," he told me. "I was very immature, physically." Still, his father, a star paratrooper in his day, convinced him to join the British Army's paratrooper unit at age 16. "I was trying to enter a division of the army where 80 to 90 percent who try out don't make it," Bushby recalled. He took the entrance test five times, and then, he said, "They cut me some slack. They let me in. It was the worst thing they could have done."
As a paratrooper, Bushby was often required to parachute out of a plane and then run 10 miles in an hour and 45 minutes with 30 pounds on his back. "I had anxiety attacks," he said. "I don't know how many times I woke up in the medical center with IV's in my arms."
Bushby stayed in the army for 12 years, but always, he said, "I was considered the weak link in our unit. I was an outsider. All the other guys had pictures of motorcycles and guns by their bunks. I had a poster of the solar system over mind."
It's unlikely Bushby ever imagined anything like Melaque when he lay in his bunk, gazing at the stars. The beachside town is a winter haven for Canadian snowbirds. In the sumer, when I visited, it was steamy hot, and dead. Mangy dogs could lie on the pavement of side streets, unperturbed, for hours. At La Flora Cafe, a rail-thin American Buddhist, who revealed only his first name, Renee, sat alone every morning, sipping his coffee and staring contemplatively into the distance. When I asked him where he was from, he said, "Well, right now, I'm living in this chair."
In Melaque, Bushby was just another wandering soul, albeit more sociable than some. He was living here with just three t-shirts and two pairs of pants (his gear was stowed in Fairbanks) and mostly waiting for a call from Hollywood. A well-connected two-man production team was pitching TV networks a reality show starring Karl Bushby as a bumbling, endearing everyman explorer. "They're very close to signing the contract," he told me. "I should know by the end of the month." (At press time, Bushby was still in the dark.)
While he waited, Bushby steadfastly eschewed anything resembling a job. "I've offered him work as a housecleaner," said his friend Kyla Poirer, a Canadian who manages a swank Melaque hotel. "And other friends asked him to haul jet skis out of the water, but he always has an excuse. He says he's got to be available to talk to the film producers." Once, Bushby did a stint as a waiter at a fancy restaurant. "It was horrible," he said. "After three shifts, I was done with the clients and all their snootiness - with their sideways comments about how the tea wasn't hot enough and their food wasn't arranged on the plate the right way. If I did that for a living, I'd end up putting a plate over someone's head."
Most mornings, Bushby took his own table at La Flora. He enjoyed a bottomless cup of coffee, complements of La Flora's owner, an admirer of his expedition, and he peered at his laptop, poaching a Wi-Fi signal from a nearby shop.
While Bushby is clearly consumed by his goal, he doesn't glorify his achievements. At La Flora, we watched a BBC video about his 2006 Bering Strait crossing, and he never got boastful. "I'm an average guy," he said. "I'm less than average. I'm an underchiever. All I'm doing is putting one foot in front of the other."
On the laptop's screen, the BBC's narrator whipped himself into a lather over how cold the Bering Sea is, and Bushby rolled his eyes, the aped the man's fretful upper crust British delivery. "One could perish in that water in a matter of seconds," he crowed. "Seconds, I say! Mere seconds!"
The moment yielded more than a brief laugh. It also pointed toward the very quality that's endeared him to strangers across two continents. He's a world traveler, yes, and a record setter, but he remains a working class bloke from the north of England. Encountering him, you recognize at once that his quest is not Olympian, but human and plodding. You want to shelter and feed him. You want to buy him a cup of coffee.
With the Bering Strait behind him, Bushby will likely survive if he manages to continue his journey. Though what remains isn't easy. Russia still presents formidable obstacles - skiing isn't one of Bushby's strengths, visa regulations are maddening, temperatures can reach -80F, and chartered flights into Siberia can cost more than $12,000.
But once he clears those hurdles, it's just a long hike home, through Asia and Europe. Bushby's goal is to walk back into Britain via the emergency service corridor inside the Chunnel, the 31-mile train tube beneath the English Channel. Then he'll continue on to the modest brick home in Hull, England, where his mum waved him good-bye so long ago. With ongoing visa issues, Bushby can't say with any certainty when he'll complete the journey. But he knows this: He will not touch British soil unless he gets there on foot.
The don't-go-home rule is, of course, completely arbitrary, since he's allowed himself to fly to and from Alaska, Mexico, Colombia, and other locations. But he won't allow himself even the briefest return to England. The self-imposed rule has defined Bushby's life - he exiled himself from his son Adam's growing-up. He missed birthday parties and much more. He said he's certain that, if his parents die before he walks home, he'll skip their funerals.
In Melaque, I pressed Bushby several times on the logic of the don't-go-home rule and it was almost as though he couldn't think outside of it. "I made a commitment..." he'd begin. I sensed a fear of failure that's been decades in the making. In Giant Steps, Bushby describes his late 20s and feeling "frustrated and unfulfilled." And it wasn't just his unhappy military career and ill-advised marriage. As a youth, he often felt weak and ineffectual. In primary school, he was made to stand on a chair in front of the class because he couldn't spell (he was later diagnosed with dyslexia.) His happiest childhood moments were spent outdoors, walking through the fields, exploring. So when he began contemplating a transformative experience for his post-military freedom, the answer came naturally. The world's longest hike, the biggest test he could imagine, would be his chance to prove himself in a way no one could ignore.
But Bushby had a hard time transforming himself from army misfit to world explorer. Early in his trek, he sometimes ran out of food when the distance between towns was vast. He got so hungry, he says, that he hallucinated. "Everything looked like food. I'd see food in the bushes." At times it was so windy in Patagonia that he had to walk tilting forward at a 45-degree angle - a posture that ravaged his ankles joints. In Alaska, he had to overcome snow and cold the likes of which he'd never seen. During one three-day stretch, trudging along through soft powder in a -40F wind chill near Dunbar, Alaska, he covered only a mile.
Despite these trials, Bushby led a charmed life during much of his travels, receiving aid from strangers along the way, and from his parents back in England, who managed grassroots fundraising efforts. In South America, especially, Bushby found a warm welcome everywhere he went. In tiny villages, he was greeted as a windswept blond god.
"South America was like a boy's adventure story," Bushby said. "It was the happy experience I should have had in my teens - it was the best time of my life."
Every morning I was in Melaque, Bushby checked his email, hopeful from a note from his producers. The correspondance was spare, though, for Jordan Tappis and Beau Willimon are busy fellows. Tappis produced the recent documentary God Bless Ozzy Osbourne. Willimon is a playwright whose 2008 drama, Farragut North, was the basis of a recent film, The Ides of March, starring George Clooney.
Early in 2011, the pair laid out about $30,000 to send Bushby from Melaque to Chukotka, Russia, with a video camera, so he could shoot two months of lonely ice road travel. Now there were hopeful that the footage would sing to Hollywood titans. "Karl has a great story," said Willimon when I called him. "He's a down-to-earth guy, and he's gone through everything in his travels. He's been imprisoned, he's fallen in love."
The tragedy of this romance was a topic that Bushby kept returning to. Bushby met Catalina Estrada when he walked through Colombia, and he returned again and again to see her, even as he traveled north. With me, he spoke of walking the streets of Medellin with Estrada wrapped in his arms. Mostly, though, the love story is a tale about craving the impossible. For three years, Bushby tried in vain to get Estrada a visa, so she could visit him as he hiked. Finally in 2008, she wrote Bushby from Medellin: "Don't come back here. We can't do this anymore."
They have not seen one another since, but when I called Estrada in Madrid, where she currently lives, she spoke of Bushby with a sweet wistfulness. "When you see a person like Karl, you can think, 'This guy is absolutely crazy,' or 'It is incredible that a person could fight for his dreams.' Karl makes me think that the human spirit is big. Karl is the big love of my life. When I was with Karl, I cried for seven years; I was so happy for seven years. It is very difficult to love a person who isn't there."
As we dined on the plaza in Melaque one night, Bushby acknowledged that he's hurt people by refusing to live a settled life. "There are moral questions involved in what I'm doing," he said, "and my son has paid the highest price. He grew up without a father at home. I don't know the guy. I don't know my own son."
Bushby is hardly the first explorer to prioritize his adventures over his parenting. Ernset Shackleton blithely left three young children behind when he sallied off on his last - and fatal - Antarctic expedition in 1921. Captain James Cook famously spent years at sea during his voyages. He had six children. Today's adventure obituaries are filled with climbers and skiers who have left children fatherless. Still, Bushby felt guilty as he told me that, throughout his adolescence, Adam was depressed. "I bear a lot of responsibility for that," he said. "And he's still lost."
Adam, now 22, works at a record store in Belfast. He has a tattoo of the grim reaper on his forearm, and he plays bass in a metal band. As his father sees it, Adam lives in a "soul-sucking, culturally deprived environment. He doesn't know what he wants in life."
Bushby believes that what Adam needs is precisely what he needed himself: a long hike. "Going to the Arctic would be a struggle for him," he told me. "But it could change his life."
In 2010, when the film producers flew Adam to Mexico, for his first paternal visit in six years, they asked him if he wanted to accompany his dad in the Arctic. With the cameras rolling, Adam Bushby entertained the idea. Later, I called Adam myself. He was genial discussing his dad, but also tentative and pained. "This long hike was something he wanted to do and I have nothing against it," he said. "But it was kind of hard not having him there as I grew up. I did suffer in a way, I suppose."
I asked Adam if he was ready for the Arctic. "Oh, the Russia thing," he said. "We did talk about that, but I don't know, that walking - that's my dad's thing. I want to stay here in Belfast and get my own life sorted out."
Of course, when Karl Bushby set out from England some 35 million footsteps ago, he too was bent on sorting out his life. Has he succeeded? If success means attaining stability and some measure of material comfort and a certainty about, say, where your next meal is coming from, well then no, he's failed miserably. But if success means being at peace with the path you have chosen, Bushby appears triumphant. Even in Melaque, at an obvious low - without money, without a certain timetable for returning to Russia - Bushby exhibited only hints of sadness. "There have been times, walking," he told me, "when I'm out in the pouring rain looking through someone's window, into their living room. I've felt a tinge of jealousy."
When I saw him at La Flora, just before heading to the airport, I was aware that I was leaving Bushby to fester in Spartan poverty. I just hoped that his bankcard arrived soon. It seemed as though his spirits were fraying.
But when my taxi pulled up, Bushby was smirking. "OK, then, mate," he said. "It was a good time, wasn't it?"
The cab rolled off. When I looked back, Bushby was already checking his email, and I knew that he was hunting for a message that would promise him a glorious future. For hope is always on his horizon. A couple of weeks later, as we talked over the phone, Bushby imagine emerging out of Russia, finally, and coming onto the homestretch of his epic hike. "Europe," he said, "is going to be nothing but one big drunken party. I won't even remember it. And I can't wait to get there."
"To-"
Hey! Sorry no updates yesterday...the library was closed. But I did read an exquisite article which pretty much summed up everything that I was trying to say in the last three days. I'm trying to find a link on the Interweb or copy it down some way. Hopefully I can get it up soon. Until then, this poem I read a couple days ago seems pretty legitimate.
"To-"
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory -
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.
-Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1824
Shelley is a tremendous poet and I marked a lot of his poems in my journal in the past few days. This one, I think, is the most poignant. I have my interpretation, but the most glorious thing about literary criticism is that there could be so many different points of view! Boy do I love critical thinking!
"To-"
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory -
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.
-Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1824
Shelley is a tremendous poet and I marked a lot of his poems in my journal in the past few days. This one, I think, is the most poignant. I have my interpretation, but the most glorious thing about literary criticism is that there could be so many different points of view! Boy do I love critical thinking!
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Part III: Rejuvenation
The last two days I've been talking about the ways in which people approach the major changes in life. We can either flail against the dying of the light or we can accept the changes with honor and our heads held high. I still do not know which of these is better. If we accept the changes with merely a whimper, are we possibly wasting something that could be really good? If we choose to go out on our own terms, are we throwing something away? For example, if Derek Jeter had hung the spikes up last year during one of the worst years of his career, as many people were calling for him to do, he would never have been able to experience the career renaissance that he has this season. Where do we draw the line between the possibility of things left on the table and the grim reality that enough is enough?
Yesterday, Lance Armstrong was kicked out of cycling, stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, and had his Olympic gold medal taken away. He has been dodging doping allegations for years and years and was recently drawn up on charges by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. He's been fighting these charges for the better part of two years and decided that he had had enough. He dropped his appeals and released a statement saying, "There comes a time in every man's life when he has to say 'enough is enough.' For me that time is now." Lance gave up the fight to permanently clear his name because it was getting in the way of his current life's calling - taking care of his family and keeping the Livestrong foundation going. Is this right? Should he have done this? He still claims that he never took performance enhancers. If this is true and to be believed, why would he quit now? Why would he give up his fight? Armstrong is known as a man who never quit. Just watch this link if you need another reminder...
How are we to analyze this situation? Is Armstrong bowing out gracefully, retiring on his own terms? Or is he quitting, potentially leaving a lot on the table? Or is it some muddled gray area...retiring, but not exactly on his own terms...but at least he hasn't been completely humiliated? You know, I think a lot of life is made up of those muddled gray areas. Maybe that's why it's so difficult to figure life out fully in the first place. When things aren't purely black and white, there ceases to be a clearly defined choice. We have to choose between black (with conditions), white (with other conditions), or several shades of gray in the middle. It's a headache.
There's a song lyric that I was just thinking of..."Making good decisions is easy when you haven't got a choice." When there's no other factor influencing us in anyway, we can easily make an informed decision...and it will inevitably turn out good, mostly because there was no alternative. Of course it may all be perspective and the result of a positive mindset, but it should turn out good, at the very least. But here's the thing - there is always another choice. Even sitting back and doing nothing is a choice. It's the choice that Lance Armstrong made. Though to him there may seem to be no other choice, there was an alternative. There always has been and there always will be.
Let's talk about Rickey Henderson again, who we briefly touched on yesterday. He still played semipro ball for years after his last MLB game and, according to Wikipedia, is still holding out for that golden opportunity to come back and play at the highest level, even at the ripe old age of 53. He is refusing to accept that his time is done. Isn't that to be applauded? Isn't this a great outlook to have? Shouldn't we never, never, never give up on our dreams, even in the face of adversity and people who tell us that we can't achieve? This is what I've been taught from a young age. It's the American dream. It's a celebrated ideal. So then why are we lauding Chipper Jones as well, for doing the exact opposite thing? He's turning down a sure contract offer, in the midst of another great Chipper season, and riding off into the sunset. I've also been taught this life lesson - to quit while you're ahead, and of your own volition. Quitting on top is a celebrated ideal as well. How am I supposed to keep these two ideals balanced?
There's no answer, but that's not the biggest point of today's update. I want to talk about rejuvenation. Whether we retire or are fired, we have to regroup and, like it or not, embrace what is coming next. Sometimes we don't know what that "next" is, but it always comes...and it's never shy about it. Whether we are approaching these changes because we've brought them upon ourselves i.e. Chipper's retirement, or brought them upon ourselves in another way i.e. losing our skills and becoming something/body else, or had the decision made for us, we must accept the subsequent changes. That may be the hardest part of this process. Actually I'm sure that it's the hardest part. Retirement and termination both bring about the same results - a new direction in life.
Maybe this will change, but I think I know which way I'm leaning on this debate, but I certainly don't have a definitive answer. I'm in a state of flux, continually thinking about ways to approach certain situations and sometimes being proven right, while, more often it seems, sometimes being proven wrong. But neither way matters right now. It's about the rejuvenation process. It's a natural process and accepting it is the first step toward success. It's an interesting thought, to me at least, but as much as humans fear change and the unknown, we pine for success. We love it. And whenever we have that opportunity to grab success again, be it in a different avenue or not, we would be remiss not to take it. Right?
Conclusions are not really my forte. Luckily I don't need to make one today. Many of us don't need to, but it's something to think about. And whenever we're bogged down by that fear of fear itself, remember the rejuvenation that is going to come from it. It may be found in friends, family, a personal faith, personal goals, travelling, or from many other things. But we can be rejuvenated. It will be hard. There will be trials and thoughts that it's all too much. But let yourself become whole again and, it's my sincerest hope, it will prove to be worth it.
I wish I could have an answer. But whatever way we decide to approach change will be hard. And the rejuvenation could be doubly so.
The immortal words of Jimmy Dugan from A League of Their Own seem like an appropriate farewell:
"It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard...is what makes it great."
Yesterday, Lance Armstrong was kicked out of cycling, stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, and had his Olympic gold medal taken away. He has been dodging doping allegations for years and years and was recently drawn up on charges by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. He's been fighting these charges for the better part of two years and decided that he had had enough. He dropped his appeals and released a statement saying, "There comes a time in every man's life when he has to say 'enough is enough.' For me that time is now." Lance gave up the fight to permanently clear his name because it was getting in the way of his current life's calling - taking care of his family and keeping the Livestrong foundation going. Is this right? Should he have done this? He still claims that he never took performance enhancers. If this is true and to be believed, why would he quit now? Why would he give up his fight? Armstrong is known as a man who never quit. Just watch this link if you need another reminder...
How are we to analyze this situation? Is Armstrong bowing out gracefully, retiring on his own terms? Or is he quitting, potentially leaving a lot on the table? Or is it some muddled gray area...retiring, but not exactly on his own terms...but at least he hasn't been completely humiliated? You know, I think a lot of life is made up of those muddled gray areas. Maybe that's why it's so difficult to figure life out fully in the first place. When things aren't purely black and white, there ceases to be a clearly defined choice. We have to choose between black (with conditions), white (with other conditions), or several shades of gray in the middle. It's a headache.
There's a song lyric that I was just thinking of..."Making good decisions is easy when you haven't got a choice." When there's no other factor influencing us in anyway, we can easily make an informed decision...and it will inevitably turn out good, mostly because there was no alternative. Of course it may all be perspective and the result of a positive mindset, but it should turn out good, at the very least. But here's the thing - there is always another choice. Even sitting back and doing nothing is a choice. It's the choice that Lance Armstrong made. Though to him there may seem to be no other choice, there was an alternative. There always has been and there always will be.
Let's talk about Rickey Henderson again, who we briefly touched on yesterday. He still played semipro ball for years after his last MLB game and, according to Wikipedia, is still holding out for that golden opportunity to come back and play at the highest level, even at the ripe old age of 53. He is refusing to accept that his time is done. Isn't that to be applauded? Isn't this a great outlook to have? Shouldn't we never, never, never give up on our dreams, even in the face of adversity and people who tell us that we can't achieve? This is what I've been taught from a young age. It's the American dream. It's a celebrated ideal. So then why are we lauding Chipper Jones as well, for doing the exact opposite thing? He's turning down a sure contract offer, in the midst of another great Chipper season, and riding off into the sunset. I've also been taught this life lesson - to quit while you're ahead, and of your own volition. Quitting on top is a celebrated ideal as well. How am I supposed to keep these two ideals balanced?
There's no answer, but that's not the biggest point of today's update. I want to talk about rejuvenation. Whether we retire or are fired, we have to regroup and, like it or not, embrace what is coming next. Sometimes we don't know what that "next" is, but it always comes...and it's never shy about it. Whether we are approaching these changes because we've brought them upon ourselves i.e. Chipper's retirement, or brought them upon ourselves in another way i.e. losing our skills and becoming something/body else, or had the decision made for us, we must accept the subsequent changes. That may be the hardest part of this process. Actually I'm sure that it's the hardest part. Retirement and termination both bring about the same results - a new direction in life.
Maybe this will change, but I think I know which way I'm leaning on this debate, but I certainly don't have a definitive answer. I'm in a state of flux, continually thinking about ways to approach certain situations and sometimes being proven right, while, more often it seems, sometimes being proven wrong. But neither way matters right now. It's about the rejuvenation process. It's a natural process and accepting it is the first step toward success. It's an interesting thought, to me at least, but as much as humans fear change and the unknown, we pine for success. We love it. And whenever we have that opportunity to grab success again, be it in a different avenue or not, we would be remiss not to take it. Right?
Conclusions are not really my forte. Luckily I don't need to make one today. Many of us don't need to, but it's something to think about. And whenever we're bogged down by that fear of fear itself, remember the rejuvenation that is going to come from it. It may be found in friends, family, a personal faith, personal goals, travelling, or from many other things. But we can be rejuvenated. It will be hard. There will be trials and thoughts that it's all too much. But let yourself become whole again and, it's my sincerest hope, it will prove to be worth it.
I wish I could have an answer. But whatever way we decide to approach change will be hard. And the rejuvenation could be doubly so.
The immortal words of Jimmy Dugan from A League of Their Own seem like an appropriate farewell:
"It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard...is what makes it great."
Friday, August 24, 2012
Part II: Termination
If you haven't been able to take a look at Part I, feel free to give it a quick look! We were talking about Chipper Jones and the way that he is gracefully retiring from the game of baseball at the end of the season...on his own terms. He is not being forced out of the game or sitting around waiting for the phone to ring with that one final contract offer. This sort of behavior is not typical of professional athletes, who tend to endlessly rage against the dying of the light. Just as we learned something from Chipper's decision, so too can we learn from those who fight the inevitable.
I don't know if anyone saw, but Roger Clemens signed earlier this week with an independent team and will be starting on Saturday. He is 50 years old and has not played in the Majors since 2007. Rickey Henderson, the all-time stolen base leader and Hall of Famer, played in the semipros for multiple seasons after he was released by the Dodgers in 2003 but never got another big league call-up. Ken Griffey, Jr., Jose Canseco, and Jerry Rice held on far too long. Jamie Moyer had Tommy John surgery at the age of 48 so that he could come back and pitch. He was signed by the Rockies and started 10 games, then was released. He was then signed to a minor league deal by the Blue Jays, then released again. A few days later, he was signed to another minor league contract by the Orioles, then released once more. He's run through three organizations in less than half a season, and still does not consider himself retired. He wants to come back and keep it going. Why?
America's greatest waffler, Brett Favre, retired once after the 2007 season, after the 2009 season, and after the 2010 season. He couldn't make up his mind and kept returning to the thing that he was, at one time, the best at. But Brett Favre did not go out on top. He was injured, his last play providing him with a concussion that kept him out of competition for good. Was it all worth it?
What is it that keeps people from accepting inevitability? Is it that fear of change, or the pride, or something else unrelated? Athletes likely feel that they have a lot to prove, to their fans, to their teammates, and to themselves. These prideful feelings are not exclusive to athletes. I believe that they run through all of us. We're always trying to prove to ourselves that we've got it, that we can still compete, that age hasn't caught up with us, that we haven't changed, that we're still the same person we were three months ago, three years ago, and three decades ago. As much as we fear change in circumstances, I believe we also fear that change in ourselves. While it's true that a large part of self-change is deliberate and important, it's those low-key changes that strike us when we're not expecting them that frighten us. Well, they frighten me at least. There's always that point when we think we're doing great and, all of a sudden, it changes. We've lost the ability to be the person that we once were. We lose the things that once made us, whether it's athletic abilities, business acumen, looks, a positive mindset, or a host of other things. When those things begin to leave us and we become a shadow of ourselves, our perception from others changes as well.
Sometimes when we change we take a long time to realize it. I think that is true of athletes for sure, and, I'd say, for all of us. At some points we may take our relationships, skills, and occupations for granted. We settle into a routine that robs us of the drive that got us there in the first place. Perhaps this is how ballplayers feel as well, that they took their athletic abilities for granted and, now that they realize they've lost it and they're no longer wanted, they rededicate themselves to the game...but it has passed them by. They waited too long and their former employers and fans have moved on to the next big thing. That's a big pill to swallow.
Again, this sort of situation is not the exclusive domain of athletes or those of high stature. It's true of all of us. We change, and people are affected by those changes. Sometimes those changes are brought upon ourselves, perhaps for self-improvement or some other (hopefully) noble reason. But when those changes catch us unawares, we're not the only ones who have to deal with them. Those closest to us, the ones who have the pleasure to spend so much time with us, see it too. And it doesn't always jibe well. I sometimes like to think that I'm immune to change, that I can rise above it and fight it. It doesn't always work. There are things that we cannot change.
It's also hard when change affects those close to us and we can't do anything about it. Change is everywhere. Some of it is good, and some, as we've seen, can be detrimental to relationships and careers. At some point, the only thing that is left is how we react to those changes.
Change is inevitable. Fighting it doesn't always work. The romantic notion that fighting change, really fighting against it, rallying up all possible strength and trying to kick it in the behind, is not always realistic.
But you know what? Sometimes it does. Michael Jordon retired at the top of his game, on his own terms. He then came back and won three more titles. What does this all mean? There are two basic ways to approach the end and the change that follows it...we can fight it, or accept it with grace and civility. I don't have any conclusions. One may seem so much better, on paper, but is it? Is there something to be admired by those who refuse to quit?
What is the answer?
Stay tuned for Part III tomorrow. Just some extra thoughts, but I can't promise any answers.
I don't know if anyone saw, but Roger Clemens signed earlier this week with an independent team and will be starting on Saturday. He is 50 years old and has not played in the Majors since 2007. Rickey Henderson, the all-time stolen base leader and Hall of Famer, played in the semipros for multiple seasons after he was released by the Dodgers in 2003 but never got another big league call-up. Ken Griffey, Jr., Jose Canseco, and Jerry Rice held on far too long. Jamie Moyer had Tommy John surgery at the age of 48 so that he could come back and pitch. He was signed by the Rockies and started 10 games, then was released. He was then signed to a minor league deal by the Blue Jays, then released again. A few days later, he was signed to another minor league contract by the Orioles, then released once more. He's run through three organizations in less than half a season, and still does not consider himself retired. He wants to come back and keep it going. Why?
America's greatest waffler, Brett Favre, retired once after the 2007 season, after the 2009 season, and after the 2010 season. He couldn't make up his mind and kept returning to the thing that he was, at one time, the best at. But Brett Favre did not go out on top. He was injured, his last play providing him with a concussion that kept him out of competition for good. Was it all worth it?
What is it that keeps people from accepting inevitability? Is it that fear of change, or the pride, or something else unrelated? Athletes likely feel that they have a lot to prove, to their fans, to their teammates, and to themselves. These prideful feelings are not exclusive to athletes. I believe that they run through all of us. We're always trying to prove to ourselves that we've got it, that we can still compete, that age hasn't caught up with us, that we haven't changed, that we're still the same person we were three months ago, three years ago, and three decades ago. As much as we fear change in circumstances, I believe we also fear that change in ourselves. While it's true that a large part of self-change is deliberate and important, it's those low-key changes that strike us when we're not expecting them that frighten us. Well, they frighten me at least. There's always that point when we think we're doing great and, all of a sudden, it changes. We've lost the ability to be the person that we once were. We lose the things that once made us, whether it's athletic abilities, business acumen, looks, a positive mindset, or a host of other things. When those things begin to leave us and we become a shadow of ourselves, our perception from others changes as well.
Sometimes when we change we take a long time to realize it. I think that is true of athletes for sure, and, I'd say, for all of us. At some points we may take our relationships, skills, and occupations for granted. We settle into a routine that robs us of the drive that got us there in the first place. Perhaps this is how ballplayers feel as well, that they took their athletic abilities for granted and, now that they realize they've lost it and they're no longer wanted, they rededicate themselves to the game...but it has passed them by. They waited too long and their former employers and fans have moved on to the next big thing. That's a big pill to swallow.
Again, this sort of situation is not the exclusive domain of athletes or those of high stature. It's true of all of us. We change, and people are affected by those changes. Sometimes those changes are brought upon ourselves, perhaps for self-improvement or some other (hopefully) noble reason. But when those changes catch us unawares, we're not the only ones who have to deal with them. Those closest to us, the ones who have the pleasure to spend so much time with us, see it too. And it doesn't always jibe well. I sometimes like to think that I'm immune to change, that I can rise above it and fight it. It doesn't always work. There are things that we cannot change.
It's also hard when change affects those close to us and we can't do anything about it. Change is everywhere. Some of it is good, and some, as we've seen, can be detrimental to relationships and careers. At some point, the only thing that is left is how we react to those changes.
Change is inevitable. Fighting it doesn't always work. The romantic notion that fighting change, really fighting against it, rallying up all possible strength and trying to kick it in the behind, is not always realistic.
But you know what? Sometimes it does. Michael Jordon retired at the top of his game, on his own terms. He then came back and won three more titles. What does this all mean? There are two basic ways to approach the end and the change that follows it...we can fight it, or accept it with grace and civility. I don't have any conclusions. One may seem so much better, on paper, but is it? Is there something to be admired by those who refuse to quit?
What is the answer?
Stay tuned for Part III tomorrow. Just some extra thoughts, but I can't promise any answers.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Part I: Retirement
It's a good thing that I don't really make concrete plans anymore. When yesterday I thought I was going to be away, I got a call for a job interview. I'm not going to get that job, but I stuck around. At least for today I can say that I'm here with an update.
I really dig sports, so whenever I can make a sports analogy I let it fly. I've been reading a lot on the Interweb about Chipper Jones and the dignified way that he is retiring. He told the Atlanta Braves that this year was going to be his last season. He wanted his career to end on his own terms. Isn't that the way most of us want to go? Chipper didn't want his career to end because no team wanted him anymore and he was stuck playing in a semi-pro league, nor did he want it to end while writhing on the field in injury. He wanted to fulfill his contract and ride off into the sunset. It is a most admirable thing, especially considering how often pro athletes waffle on their retirement plans. Chipper, seemingly going against the norm, is a great athlete deciding for himself when the right time to hang up the spikes was. There's a lesson to be gained from Mr. Jones.
I think I may be classified as one of those people who think that everyone has a unique gift. The only issue is how we use those gifts. Chipper had the gifts of a keen batting eye, light-tower power, a mighty quick bat, and great webbing on the hot corner. Chipper put those gifts together and fashioned a likely Hall of Fame career. He was, at one point, the best player in the game, winning the NL MVP in 1999. He even won a batting title as recently as 2008. Unfortunately, injuries have pretty much decimated his body. His knees are beat up and his back is balky...but he can still hit. He's been having an incredible season for the Braves, complete with walk-off hits and shaving cream pies. He's got enough left that he would get another contract if he wanted it. The Braves would for sure re-sign their franchise icon, but I'm sure other teams would take a flyer on the veteran presence and wicked bat that he would provide. Which is why his decision to walk away from baseball is so refreshingly...odd. It seems, from an outsider's perspective at least, that a Major League Baseball player is wired to stay in the game as long as he can. Players don't just leave money or glory or championships on the table. It's all about playing the game you love for as long as you can. And yet Chipper is bucking that trend.
We can look at Chipper (or at least I can) and see a man to be admired. He's taking his life into his own hands. He's not at the mercy of any other person or circumstance. He alone is making the decisions that are best for himself. Whatever the reasons for his retirement, he has made the choice and is (so far) sticking to it. That kind of self-assuredness mixed with self-confidence is one of the most enviable traits that I can imagine. I don't think Chipper is motivated by fear or pride - getting the game before the game gets him - but rather by the feeling that this chapter in his life is closed. He's ready to move on, to leave that old life behind in favor of whatever may be around the corner. Sure, some may say, he has the luxury to do that since he's famous and dizzyingly wealthy and doesn't have to worry about what's next, but he's still a human. He still has the same trappings of fear of failure and fear of the unknown and fear itself. Those reasons and so many more are why professional athletes are so hesitant to leave the only game they've known. But Chipper is leaving.
And so it should go in our own lives. It's hard. It's harder than hard. We are conditioned to rally against that change and that unknown. But sometimes it needs to be done. Beating the game before the game beats us. There are certain situations in life when we just have to throw up our hands, realize we've given it enough, and embrace that next chapter in life. It could potentially be the scariest thing we ever have to face. But we get through it. With a strong will and close friends and positivity and myriad other characteristics - we make it through it. Chipper is not fearful of change. And neither should we.
It's easier said than done. Part II coming soon.
I really dig sports, so whenever I can make a sports analogy I let it fly. I've been reading a lot on the Interweb about Chipper Jones and the dignified way that he is retiring. He told the Atlanta Braves that this year was going to be his last season. He wanted his career to end on his own terms. Isn't that the way most of us want to go? Chipper didn't want his career to end because no team wanted him anymore and he was stuck playing in a semi-pro league, nor did he want it to end while writhing on the field in injury. He wanted to fulfill his contract and ride off into the sunset. It is a most admirable thing, especially considering how often pro athletes waffle on their retirement plans. Chipper, seemingly going against the norm, is a great athlete deciding for himself when the right time to hang up the spikes was. There's a lesson to be gained from Mr. Jones.
I think I may be classified as one of those people who think that everyone has a unique gift. The only issue is how we use those gifts. Chipper had the gifts of a keen batting eye, light-tower power, a mighty quick bat, and great webbing on the hot corner. Chipper put those gifts together and fashioned a likely Hall of Fame career. He was, at one point, the best player in the game, winning the NL MVP in 1999. He even won a batting title as recently as 2008. Unfortunately, injuries have pretty much decimated his body. His knees are beat up and his back is balky...but he can still hit. He's been having an incredible season for the Braves, complete with walk-off hits and shaving cream pies. He's got enough left that he would get another contract if he wanted it. The Braves would for sure re-sign their franchise icon, but I'm sure other teams would take a flyer on the veteran presence and wicked bat that he would provide. Which is why his decision to walk away from baseball is so refreshingly...odd. It seems, from an outsider's perspective at least, that a Major League Baseball player is wired to stay in the game as long as he can. Players don't just leave money or glory or championships on the table. It's all about playing the game you love for as long as you can. And yet Chipper is bucking that trend.
We can look at Chipper (or at least I can) and see a man to be admired. He's taking his life into his own hands. He's not at the mercy of any other person or circumstance. He alone is making the decisions that are best for himself. Whatever the reasons for his retirement, he has made the choice and is (so far) sticking to it. That kind of self-assuredness mixed with self-confidence is one of the most enviable traits that I can imagine. I don't think Chipper is motivated by fear or pride - getting the game before the game gets him - but rather by the feeling that this chapter in his life is closed. He's ready to move on, to leave that old life behind in favor of whatever may be around the corner. Sure, some may say, he has the luxury to do that since he's famous and dizzyingly wealthy and doesn't have to worry about what's next, but he's still a human. He still has the same trappings of fear of failure and fear of the unknown and fear itself. Those reasons and so many more are why professional athletes are so hesitant to leave the only game they've known. But Chipper is leaving.
And so it should go in our own lives. It's hard. It's harder than hard. We are conditioned to rally against that change and that unknown. But sometimes it needs to be done. Beating the game before the game beats us. There are certain situations in life when we just have to throw up our hands, realize we've given it enough, and embrace that next chapter in life. It could potentially be the scariest thing we ever have to face. But we get through it. With a strong will and close friends and positivity and myriad other characteristics - we make it through it. Chipper is not fearful of change. And neither should we.
It's easier said than done. Part II coming soon.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
..............
I don't know how much Internet access I'm going to have in these next few days/weeks. I'm still going to be writing in my notebook and I will upload when I get the chance. And maybe I will magically procure Internet when I least expect it! In the meantime check out this song. Pretty accurate.
And this one. 2:20 says it all.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Miggy
I was thinking about the Detroit Tigers. They are only two games behind in the American League Central and have been playing some pretty good ball as of late. Of course, the addition of Prince Fielder to the defending division champs prompted many to crown the Tigers as potential AL pennant winners, but contending for a playoff spot is still very good. The Tigers started out the season playing terrifically average baseball, replete with down years/regression from Alex Avila, Jhonny Peralta, and Brennan Boesch. The defense has not been all that it could be, the bullpen is prone to blowing a few games, and the offense still, even with the uptick in wins since the All-Star break, has a few holes in it. But the one constant through everything has been #24, Miguel Cabrera.
This is not intended to be some sort of sappy opus to Cabrera and all his fans. Rather, I'm just trying to point out how criminally under-appreciated the man is! This is his fifth season in Detroit, and all he's done so far is lead the league in home-runs once, in RBI's once, in batting average once, and in on-base percentage twice. He was born to hit the baseball. Sure he's had his run-ins with the law, but he's apologized and worked through it. That off the field stuff, to me, is not relevant when it comes to his on-field performance. But when people undervalue him as a ballplayer? That's what gets me riled up!
I was listening to the sports yak the other day and they were talking about a prominent ESPN baseball writer leaving Cabrera off his top five in MVP balloting. In fact, the writer went on to say, Cabrera wasn't even the best or second best player on his own team! The writer put Justin Verlander and Austin Jackson in front of Cabrera, emphasizing the importance of defense and UZR and WAR and BABIP and all those other stupid acronyms that are starting to blur the line between what we actually see on the field and what we see on paper or a computer screen. One of the biggest losers in this statistical revolution has been Miguel Cabrera, who excels in traditional statistical metrics, hits for average, hits for power, hits in the clutch, and understands baserunning (though he is not fast, by anyone's definition). True, his defense leaves something to be desired, but it's perfectly passable. He's not throwing the ball into the stands on every play and he has pretty good instincts, putting him in position to make most plays. And his hitting exploits! It seems every time the Tigers are down, Cabrera cracks a dinger to win the game, or strokes a timely hit to start the Tigers winning rally. This is coming from someone who watches every Tiger game he can, not one of those ESPN national pundits who has to balance 30 teams but focuses mostly on the Yankees and Red Sox. I am a bona-fide Tiger fan, and I'm telling you that Cabrera deserves more love! Granted I don't really have the chops or professional experience to have an opinion that matters, but I'm still putting it out there.
Cabrera embodies, to me, what a baseball player is supposed to be. He shows up to play, he has fun, and he's startlingly consistent. He has no injury history (at least 150 games every year as a Tiger) and he is willing to put the team first and put in the extra effort (witness his transition to third base this winter after the Prince signing, without the slightest hint of a complaint...Hanley Ramirez could've learned a thing or two). And he hits. I've said it before but I'll say it again...the man flat out hits. The "old-school" statistics tell the story. Solid batting average, low strikeout numbers, hits for power (oh boy does he hit for power), and a discerning batting eye. Year in and year out we know what to expect from him. Is that why he doesn't get any love? Is he not a story? Every year some player does something tremendous that gets the sportscasters talking. This year it's Mike Trout. Last year it was our own Justin Verlander. It seems that consistency is a passe trait when it comes to evaluating the best seasons. But when I get a chance to watch that man in action on the diamond, I can only marvel at his bat and his incredible skill set. And at least I can find some sort of solace in the fact that here, in Detroit, he gets his just rewards.
MVP!!
This is not intended to be some sort of sappy opus to Cabrera and all his fans. Rather, I'm just trying to point out how criminally under-appreciated the man is! This is his fifth season in Detroit, and all he's done so far is lead the league in home-runs once, in RBI's once, in batting average once, and in on-base percentage twice. He was born to hit the baseball. Sure he's had his run-ins with the law, but he's apologized and worked through it. That off the field stuff, to me, is not relevant when it comes to his on-field performance. But when people undervalue him as a ballplayer? That's what gets me riled up!
I was listening to the sports yak the other day and they were talking about a prominent ESPN baseball writer leaving Cabrera off his top five in MVP balloting. In fact, the writer went on to say, Cabrera wasn't even the best or second best player on his own team! The writer put Justin Verlander and Austin Jackson in front of Cabrera, emphasizing the importance of defense and UZR and WAR and BABIP and all those other stupid acronyms that are starting to blur the line between what we actually see on the field and what we see on paper or a computer screen. One of the biggest losers in this statistical revolution has been Miguel Cabrera, who excels in traditional statistical metrics, hits for average, hits for power, hits in the clutch, and understands baserunning (though he is not fast, by anyone's definition). True, his defense leaves something to be desired, but it's perfectly passable. He's not throwing the ball into the stands on every play and he has pretty good instincts, putting him in position to make most plays. And his hitting exploits! It seems every time the Tigers are down, Cabrera cracks a dinger to win the game, or strokes a timely hit to start the Tigers winning rally. This is coming from someone who watches every Tiger game he can, not one of those ESPN national pundits who has to balance 30 teams but focuses mostly on the Yankees and Red Sox. I am a bona-fide Tiger fan, and I'm telling you that Cabrera deserves more love! Granted I don't really have the chops or professional experience to have an opinion that matters, but I'm still putting it out there.
Cabrera embodies, to me, what a baseball player is supposed to be. He shows up to play, he has fun, and he's startlingly consistent. He has no injury history (at least 150 games every year as a Tiger) and he is willing to put the team first and put in the extra effort (witness his transition to third base this winter after the Prince signing, without the slightest hint of a complaint...Hanley Ramirez could've learned a thing or two). And he hits. I've said it before but I'll say it again...the man flat out hits. The "old-school" statistics tell the story. Solid batting average, low strikeout numbers, hits for power (oh boy does he hit for power), and a discerning batting eye. Year in and year out we know what to expect from him. Is that why he doesn't get any love? Is he not a story? Every year some player does something tremendous that gets the sportscasters talking. This year it's Mike Trout. Last year it was our own Justin Verlander. It seems that consistency is a passe trait when it comes to evaluating the best seasons. But when I get a chance to watch that man in action on the diamond, I can only marvel at his bat and his incredible skill set. And at least I can find some sort of solace in the fact that here, in Detroit, he gets his just rewards.
MVP!!
Monday, August 20, 2012
Old Ideas
Leonard Cohen released a new album this year, at the ripe old age of 77. For those of you who don't know who Mr. Cohen is, his biggest claim to fame is that he was the writer and original performer of the song "Hallelujah" that was popularized by Jeff Buckley in the mid-1990's and is featured in a bunch of movies during those sad or inspirational or thoughtful moments. He's basically a poet who recites his poetry with a gravelly voice and accompanied by a few background singers. It doesn't sound like much, but boy does it work.
Many people listen to music for the beats or as background noise or myriad other reasons. I like music for the lyrics. There's something incredible to be said about intense lyrics that say everything that you've wanted to say but never knew how. As much as I like to fashion myself as a wordsmith, the words rarely come out the way that I want them to. Oftentimes it seems that the things that I really want to say were first uttered in a song. Sometimes it makes me feel like my words or emotions are therefore not genuine, since a songwriter had to come up with the words and a catchy hook and some rollicking drums. Perhaps, I've thought, I'm just hanging off the coattails of someone else, one who is successful and positive and always knows the right words to say. Maybe I'm just inspired by those words. Whatever it is, it seems like there's always a song that is describing me at a particular point. Whether I am happy and excited or depressed or melancholy or confused or hurt or angry or ready for a laugh, there's always music and lyrics to help me cope. Yeah, that could be it...maybe it's some sort of coping mechanism. It's similar to when you are talking to people and want to extract a bunch of different opinions because you want well-rounded advice. Listening to all these songs is like that. Everyone of these songwriters have had such varied experiences and I'm just gathering advice from them, in order to make my own decisions. I don't know what it is, but everyone (I think...I hope?!) knows a little of what I'm talking about. Music provides a soundtrack for our life. There's always a song that sums up the feelings.
And sometimes there're a few songs:
These songs provide a startling dichotomy. The first song, to me, is advocating one thing, while the second song is saying something entirely different. These songs are inspiring to me. They make me think, about my life and my choices and my desires and my needs. But at the end of the day, they are not my ideas. Only I can come up with my own life plan. Songs, as much as they've become part of the fabric of my life, do not define me. They are not me. They are not any of us. Life is not a four-minute song, just as it's not a two-hour movie. Life is something else entirely. Just as Mr. Cohen has two old ideas about love and life, so too will I have my own ideas, much like anybody reading this will have his/her own ideas. Those thoughts and ideas can be influenced by outside factors, but they shan't define us.
Mr. Cohen has some ideas for his life. I'm glad he shared them with me. I will ruminate upon them and perhaps I will learn something and grow a bit. But the ultimate idea, the final choice, lies solely with me. I've made my decision. There's no going back now.
Many people listen to music for the beats or as background noise or myriad other reasons. I like music for the lyrics. There's something incredible to be said about intense lyrics that say everything that you've wanted to say but never knew how. As much as I like to fashion myself as a wordsmith, the words rarely come out the way that I want them to. Oftentimes it seems that the things that I really want to say were first uttered in a song. Sometimes it makes me feel like my words or emotions are therefore not genuine, since a songwriter had to come up with the words and a catchy hook and some rollicking drums. Perhaps, I've thought, I'm just hanging off the coattails of someone else, one who is successful and positive and always knows the right words to say. Maybe I'm just inspired by those words. Whatever it is, it seems like there's always a song that is describing me at a particular point. Whether I am happy and excited or depressed or melancholy or confused or hurt or angry or ready for a laugh, there's always music and lyrics to help me cope. Yeah, that could be it...maybe it's some sort of coping mechanism. It's similar to when you are talking to people and want to extract a bunch of different opinions because you want well-rounded advice. Listening to all these songs is like that. Everyone of these songwriters have had such varied experiences and I'm just gathering advice from them, in order to make my own decisions. I don't know what it is, but everyone (I think...I hope?!) knows a little of what I'm talking about. Music provides a soundtrack for our life. There's always a song that sums up the feelings.
And sometimes there're a few songs:
These songs provide a startling dichotomy. The first song, to me, is advocating one thing, while the second song is saying something entirely different. These songs are inspiring to me. They make me think, about my life and my choices and my desires and my needs. But at the end of the day, they are not my ideas. Only I can come up with my own life plan. Songs, as much as they've become part of the fabric of my life, do not define me. They are not me. They are not any of us. Life is not a four-minute song, just as it's not a two-hour movie. Life is something else entirely. Just as Mr. Cohen has two old ideas about love and life, so too will I have my own ideas, much like anybody reading this will have his/her own ideas. Those thoughts and ideas can be influenced by outside factors, but they shan't define us.
Mr. Cohen has some ideas for his life. I'm glad he shared them with me. I will ruminate upon them and perhaps I will learn something and grow a bit. But the ultimate idea, the final choice, lies solely with me. I've made my decision. There's no going back now.
The Expendables...2
It's finally time for The Expendables 2 preview! Yes, this is only a preview...I haven't even seen the movie yet. Think about how exciting the review is going to be!
I used to go to the movies all the time when I was younger. I was also a dweeb and used to keep track of all the movies I saw. I would write down the date I saw it, the movie stars in it, and the rating that I thought it deserved. I remember when I was in 8th or 9th grade and I saw 26 movies in a year. The next year I saw 33! I couldn't drive, I didn't have a job, and yet I used my non-existent cash flow to spend time in a dark room a few times a month. Looking back, I still have no idea how I paid for all those flicks. The moral of the story, however, is that I've always had a love for movies, and it definitely manifested itself during my bizarre adolescent days when I was at my pubescent best.
In the past few years I have been frequenting the cinema much less. With the exception of the Harry Potter movies and a select few others, the thrill and excitement associated with movie going has essentially disintegrated. It's not like I'm longer fraught with wonderment at the concept of well-made films, but it seems like mainstream Hollywood is no longer trying. It's all about the next great special-effects driven moneymaking sequel. Case in point is the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. The first movie was quite good, with some startlingly impressive performances and a unique story full of whimsy and just the right amount of action and adventure. But then the sequels came out, one by one, with nothing new to add. The same people, sailing the same waters, acting the same way, jumping and yelling and fighting in the exact same fashion. I'd already seen this movie! Is it really worth the $10 (!!!) that I'd be plopping down, sans any splurging on popcorn or drinks? Increasingly my answer has been "no." A resounding and emphatic "no" in fact. If my memory serves me correctly, I've only been to three films thus far this year. I saw Titanic 3D because some girl I knew wanted to go, Touchback with Kurt Russell because it was filmed in my hometown, and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter because Abe got destroyed by a horse! That's it. As you can see, I've become particularly choosy with my movies. Perhaps not in terms of quality or anything like that, but when I go to a movie now there's got to be a reason. The Expendables 2, luckily, has about 1000 reasons to see it.
How could I refuse to see a Sly Stallone movie? He is Rocky, Rambo, and the guy from Cliffhanger. He is the American embodiment of what it takes to be a man. I'm pretty sure I would not be an American male if I did not see this film. And then there's Jason Statham, the best that the Brits have (minus James Bond of course). Dolph Lundgren, alias Ivan Drago, Apollo Creed's murderer? Jet Li, the poor man's Jackie Chan (with much better moves?) Stone Cold Steve Austin? Terry Crews, who spent the first film killing every single person in South America? And I haven't even mentioned the Governator, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, JCVD, or Mr. Miley Cyrus! All that testosterone in one film? I went to see the first one at midnight on the day that it came out. I was so impressed by the all-star cast that Sly was able to assemble, and wanted to spend the rest of the night in that movie theater, watching good triumph over evil. And now, two years later, here we are, gearing up for yet another go round with the men who keep this world safe for patriotism!
Why are movies like this so endearing to me? What is it about mindless action films that don't take themselves too seriously that drags me in and refuses to let go? Why will I go see the aforementioned Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Cowboys & Aliens and refuse to go see Avatar or The Avengers? The Expendables and movies like it don't, at least in my mind, try to be anything that they're not. They're not made to bring in the dollars or be presented in 3D or anything like that. To me, they're just good old fashioned entertainment. It's not like I don't like the low-key thinking-man's movies i.e. Woody Allen flicks. In fact, I like them a lot more! But on the small screen, where I can focus and be in control of all the extraneous factors and really dissect the movie in a critical manner. But those goofy action films, where Harrison Ford plays a cowboy opposite James Bond himself, or Sly continues to defy the odds north of 60? Sign me up, and let me see it on the mega-screen! I could use a bit of entertainment.
I used to go to the movies all the time when I was younger. I was also a dweeb and used to keep track of all the movies I saw. I would write down the date I saw it, the movie stars in it, and the rating that I thought it deserved. I remember when I was in 8th or 9th grade and I saw 26 movies in a year. The next year I saw 33! I couldn't drive, I didn't have a job, and yet I used my non-existent cash flow to spend time in a dark room a few times a month. Looking back, I still have no idea how I paid for all those flicks. The moral of the story, however, is that I've always had a love for movies, and it definitely manifested itself during my bizarre adolescent days when I was at my pubescent best.
In the past few years I have been frequenting the cinema much less. With the exception of the Harry Potter movies and a select few others, the thrill and excitement associated with movie going has essentially disintegrated. It's not like I'm longer fraught with wonderment at the concept of well-made films, but it seems like mainstream Hollywood is no longer trying. It's all about the next great special-effects driven moneymaking sequel. Case in point is the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. The first movie was quite good, with some startlingly impressive performances and a unique story full of whimsy and just the right amount of action and adventure. But then the sequels came out, one by one, with nothing new to add. The same people, sailing the same waters, acting the same way, jumping and yelling and fighting in the exact same fashion. I'd already seen this movie! Is it really worth the $10 (!!!) that I'd be plopping down, sans any splurging on popcorn or drinks? Increasingly my answer has been "no." A resounding and emphatic "no" in fact. If my memory serves me correctly, I've only been to three films thus far this year. I saw Titanic 3D because some girl I knew wanted to go, Touchback with Kurt Russell because it was filmed in my hometown, and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter because Abe got destroyed by a horse! That's it. As you can see, I've become particularly choosy with my movies. Perhaps not in terms of quality or anything like that, but when I go to a movie now there's got to be a reason. The Expendables 2, luckily, has about 1000 reasons to see it.
How could I refuse to see a Sly Stallone movie? He is Rocky, Rambo, and the guy from Cliffhanger. He is the American embodiment of what it takes to be a man. I'm pretty sure I would not be an American male if I did not see this film. And then there's Jason Statham, the best that the Brits have (minus James Bond of course). Dolph Lundgren, alias Ivan Drago, Apollo Creed's murderer? Jet Li, the poor man's Jackie Chan (with much better moves?) Stone Cold Steve Austin? Terry Crews, who spent the first film killing every single person in South America? And I haven't even mentioned the Governator, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, JCVD, or Mr. Miley Cyrus! All that testosterone in one film? I went to see the first one at midnight on the day that it came out. I was so impressed by the all-star cast that Sly was able to assemble, and wanted to spend the rest of the night in that movie theater, watching good triumph over evil. And now, two years later, here we are, gearing up for yet another go round with the men who keep this world safe for patriotism!
Why are movies like this so endearing to me? What is it about mindless action films that don't take themselves too seriously that drags me in and refuses to let go? Why will I go see the aforementioned Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Cowboys & Aliens and refuse to go see Avatar or The Avengers? The Expendables and movies like it don't, at least in my mind, try to be anything that they're not. They're not made to bring in the dollars or be presented in 3D or anything like that. To me, they're just good old fashioned entertainment. It's not like I don't like the low-key thinking-man's movies i.e. Woody Allen flicks. In fact, I like them a lot more! But on the small screen, where I can focus and be in control of all the extraneous factors and really dissect the movie in a critical manner. But those goofy action films, where Harrison Ford plays a cowboy opposite James Bond himself, or Sly continues to defy the odds north of 60? Sign me up, and let me see it on the mega-screen! I could use a bit of entertainment.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Addendum
"We are dealing with primal forces of nature here. When primal forces of nature tell you to do something, the prudent thing is not to quibble over details."
Kevin Costner, in Field of Dreams (1989)
I really wanted to write about The Expendables 2. I have not been this excited about a movie in a very long time. However, today is, once again, not that day to discuss it. It will be soon...trust me. But I think there's some unfinished business to attend to. And I know that I said I wouldn't talk about personal growth and all that nancy stuff, but this is my blog so ya'll can just bear with me. Thanks. Anyway, last night I wrote about being confused. It's true. Life is confusing. There are so many choices to make on any given day, and we don't always know the ramifications of those choices until much later. When we make decisions, oftentimes it seems that consequences are the last thing on our mind. It is so difficult to make a fully informed decision, understanding all plausible outcomes and being cognizant of everybody that could possibly be affected. Society has become so focused on quick decision-making and, to an extent, selfish desires. I am certainly not above this, as much as I wish I could say that I were. I am neither a product of my environment, nor am I renaissance man. I am, like so many other people out there, merely trying to figure out the most confusing things in life and, beyond that, life in general.
It would be pretty easy, in theory, to just whip out the utility calculus worksheet and analyze every decision in terms of the amount of happiness gained or lost. Jeremy Bentham would be happy at least. But sometimes that is just not an option. It's so crazy to consider how quickly we (and I'm definitely using "we" to include myself) make decisions. These choices carry a ton of weight, and yet we are expected to make them at the snap of a finger. And once they've been made, we're to embrace them completely. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that there's no going back. But I, at least, have made quite a habit of going back. That's what makes life so confusing. I think there are re-dos on decisions, but only certain ones. Johnny over there may say that all choices are final, as if he's a sales clerk at Sears. Sally may say that all decisions are refundable. David may defer on his decision-making to Sara. Nick makes his choices based on something else entirely. The point is we are not alike. I wish that we were. Okay, maybe I take that back...it would be not be very fun if everybody was exactly the same. But in this instance? Or other confusing times? Sign me up.
How do I relate this back to Field of Dreams? Sometimes things come up in life that don't have a clearly defined outcome. I hope that this much has been made clear. It's our nature (just my nature?) to think about the details...most of the time. And the other times? I live the devil-may-care, consequences be damned lifestyle. I guess it comes down to consistency. Humans are not machines. We don't have that switch that tells us how to react to every different possibility. With machines, the choices are finite in number and there's always a clearly defined input/output. But when it comes to humans, our choices are infinite, as are our ways to approach them. So when I make a choice one way, and my buddy makes a choice the other way, it ends up confusing me. That's what I'm trying to get at...life is confusing. I can only control one brain, in a world made up of 7 billion of them. That's a lot of different decision making coming into play.
And that's when we return to "primal forces of nature." I can only think on a personal level right here. Sometimes I am faced with those decisions that seem so right to me, and yet so messed up to someone around the corner. I think that these are primal forces telling me to do something, but the thing is I am the only one who feels that way about a particular force! Nobody is going to fully understand the reason I do certain things, or the reasons I refrain from others. No amount of explanations will ever do them justice. And that leads us back to our discussion of a few days ago about perception. When it comes to my decision making process, I am the only one who can totally grasp my personal pulls and sways. But unfortunately I'm not the only one who is affected by them. That's where the confusion sets in. I can control my choices, but I cannot control the reactions to them. Confusing...
Kevin Costner, in Field of Dreams (1989)
I really wanted to write about The Expendables 2. I have not been this excited about a movie in a very long time. However, today is, once again, not that day to discuss it. It will be soon...trust me. But I think there's some unfinished business to attend to. And I know that I said I wouldn't talk about personal growth and all that nancy stuff, but this is my blog so ya'll can just bear with me. Thanks. Anyway, last night I wrote about being confused. It's true. Life is confusing. There are so many choices to make on any given day, and we don't always know the ramifications of those choices until much later. When we make decisions, oftentimes it seems that consequences are the last thing on our mind. It is so difficult to make a fully informed decision, understanding all plausible outcomes and being cognizant of everybody that could possibly be affected. Society has become so focused on quick decision-making and, to an extent, selfish desires. I am certainly not above this, as much as I wish I could say that I were. I am neither a product of my environment, nor am I renaissance man. I am, like so many other people out there, merely trying to figure out the most confusing things in life and, beyond that, life in general.
It would be pretty easy, in theory, to just whip out the utility calculus worksheet and analyze every decision in terms of the amount of happiness gained or lost. Jeremy Bentham would be happy at least. But sometimes that is just not an option. It's so crazy to consider how quickly we (and I'm definitely using "we" to include myself) make decisions. These choices carry a ton of weight, and yet we are expected to make them at the snap of a finger. And once they've been made, we're to embrace them completely. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that there's no going back. But I, at least, have made quite a habit of going back. That's what makes life so confusing. I think there are re-dos on decisions, but only certain ones. Johnny over there may say that all choices are final, as if he's a sales clerk at Sears. Sally may say that all decisions are refundable. David may defer on his decision-making to Sara. Nick makes his choices based on something else entirely. The point is we are not alike. I wish that we were. Okay, maybe I take that back...it would be not be very fun if everybody was exactly the same. But in this instance? Or other confusing times? Sign me up.
How do I relate this back to Field of Dreams? Sometimes things come up in life that don't have a clearly defined outcome. I hope that this much has been made clear. It's our nature (just my nature?) to think about the details...most of the time. And the other times? I live the devil-may-care, consequences be damned lifestyle. I guess it comes down to consistency. Humans are not machines. We don't have that switch that tells us how to react to every different possibility. With machines, the choices are finite in number and there's always a clearly defined input/output. But when it comes to humans, our choices are infinite, as are our ways to approach them. So when I make a choice one way, and my buddy makes a choice the other way, it ends up confusing me. That's what I'm trying to get at...life is confusing. I can only control one brain, in a world made up of 7 billion of them. That's a lot of different decision making coming into play.
And that's when we return to "primal forces of nature." I can only think on a personal level right here. Sometimes I am faced with those decisions that seem so right to me, and yet so messed up to someone around the corner. I think that these are primal forces telling me to do something, but the thing is I am the only one who feels that way about a particular force! Nobody is going to fully understand the reason I do certain things, or the reasons I refrain from others. No amount of explanations will ever do them justice. And that leads us back to our discussion of a few days ago about perception. When it comes to my decision making process, I am the only one who can totally grasp my personal pulls and sways. But unfortunately I'm not the only one who is affected by them. That's where the confusion sets in. I can control my choices, but I cannot control the reactions to them. Confusing...
Confusion
I was going to write a post about movies - namely The Expendables 2! Man am I excited for that movie! But I think that can wait for a little bit longer. Right now, I'm confused. I don't know how I feel, and I'm not sure if I have any idea about life. What's the purpose?
I bet that intro will get everyone excited for what's to come tomorrow!
I bet that intro will get everyone excited for what's to come tomorrow!
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Perfection
There was another perfect game in baseball last night. It was the 23rd perfect game in Major League Baseball history, a pretty incredible feat considering baseball's illustrious history. As a matter of fact, the first perfect game was pitched in 1880, meaning that, on average, there is one about every six seasons. Of course it's not all mathematically accurate, but the point is that it's not something that comes along every day. In fact, there was a gap of 33 seasons between perfect games hurled between 1922 and 1956. All that is to say that throwing a perfect game is quite a difficult task to accomplish...at least it used to be. Felix Hernandez's perfecto last night was the third of the season, an unprecedented number of perfect games in one year. Just two years ago, in 2010, there were two more perfect games (and Armando Galarraga's "perfect" game, which is not counted in the record books but remembered in my heart and immortalized on my t-shirt). There was another one in 2009, which makes for six official perfect games in four seasons! For some reason there has been a run on perfect games, which caused me to raise that age-old question: "Why?"
My first inclination as to the reason for the recent increase in pitching perfection is the crackdown on performance enhancing drugs. In the period from the mid-1990's to the mid-2000's, home runs were being hit at a prodigious rate, batting records were being tossed asunder, and scoring was up throughout the major leagues. Steroid use was running rampant among ballplayers and the game was in danger of making a mockery of itself if steroids were not abolished and drug testing introduced. After drug reform measures were passed, baseball started a slow return to its pre-bulked-up days. That is not to say that all cheating has been eliminated. A lesser known story from yesterday was that Melky Cabrera, this year's All-Star Game MVP and current MLB hits leader, was suspended for 50 games for an elevated level of testosterone, forming a perfectly juxtaposed image of the current state of baseball affairs. But anyway, why has there been such a proliferation of perfect games? Batters are no longer using performance enhancers, thereby returning the advantage to pitchers. This, on the surface, would seem to be a return to the natural order of things, but perhaps the line has gone too far to the other side.
There has not been such a run of pitching dominance since the 1960's, also known as the Golden Age for pitchers. In the original year of the pitcher (1968), pitching got so insanely good that the mound had to be lowered to return some semblance of equality between pitcher and batter. This was a change that seemed to work out, as offense and pitching seemed to be in concert with each other until the 'roid days began. When hitting and pitching once again got out of sync, drugs were rightly banned from the sport and testing implemented. This much we can, hopefully, agree upon, especially since I've spent a while trying to make the same claim over and over again. But the point is that I think it's gone too far. Pitching is dominant. While the powers that be were trying to once again equalize the sport, they went too far to the other side. Doesn't this seem to be a common theme when it comes to America?
I want to keep this within the realm of sports, but this may be akin to America's hypersensitivity and proclivity to political correctness. With Title IX, for example, the U.S. Government was addressing a dearth of female athletics participants and trying to equalize the number of men and women in collegiate sports. Forty years later, the program, while it was definitely necessary at the time, seems to have gone too far. Men's sports are being cut at a rapid rate, to the point that there are only five men's Track & Field programs in the MAC, a once prestigious running conference, while there are 12 women's teams. It looks like the inequality that was originally present has led to a different sort of inequality. The same can be said for affirmative action in college admissions. What started off as a noble and necessary exercise for more opportunities for underprivileged and underrepresented students has perhaps tilted a bit too much to the other side, ostracizing well-performing students in favor of those who score lower but come from disadvantaged backgrounds. I'm not trying to be glib or undermine and devalue the importance of Title IX and affirmative action policies. In fact, I totally understand that's it's a complete stretch to tie them together in the same conversation as perfection in baseball games. And I also don't want to open a can of worms here, starting into a deep political debate. These are topics that I would like to give full attention to at another time, but for the sake of my baseball argument, I believe that they fit. I hope I'm not off on that.
Anyway, it seems to happen that trying to fix things to create more equality, in sports and anything else, oftentimes has unintended consequences. It is so hard to actually create that level playing field, especially because there are so many unaccounted for factors that permeate every part of the decision-making process. This is not a blog to decry the people who make decisions, to chastise them for not thinking about how their actions might, indirectly, create more levels of unfairness. Rather, it is to address the concept of true perfection. Baseball wanted their sport to be perfect, so they lowered the pitcher's mound and banned performance-enhancing drugs and made the divisions equal in number and brought the fences in and a whole slew of things. What has resulted is more of the same. Perfection is a hard act to live up to. There's a reason there have only been 23 instances of true perfection, in the thousands of baseball games that have been played through the centuries.
You know what? So it goes with life. Just as humans find it increasingly difficult (nay impossible) to create a set of rules or regulations that are perfect, so too do we find it hard to make our lives perfect. So what do we do? I might touch on this more sometime in the future, but it's something that I wanted to at least address right now. It's one of those cheesy motivational quotes you see superimposed over an image of a picturesque mountaintop covered in snow and bathed sunshine: "Perfection is the goal. Excellence will be tolerated." It's all about trying, and never giving up. Sure, it might not work how we wanted it to, but that's the time to try again. Work toward that perfection. Baseball is not done tweaking its rules in the hopes of finally perfecting America's pastime. The government will, I trust, continue working toward making more effective laws and perfecting the ones on the books. And as for us? We can only keep working on ourselves, in the hopes that we can be perfect. And if not? Excellent is all right with me. But we'd be remiss if we didn't strive for that lofty standard, every day.
My first inclination as to the reason for the recent increase in pitching perfection is the crackdown on performance enhancing drugs. In the period from the mid-1990's to the mid-2000's, home runs were being hit at a prodigious rate, batting records were being tossed asunder, and scoring was up throughout the major leagues. Steroid use was running rampant among ballplayers and the game was in danger of making a mockery of itself if steroids were not abolished and drug testing introduced. After drug reform measures were passed, baseball started a slow return to its pre-bulked-up days. That is not to say that all cheating has been eliminated. A lesser known story from yesterday was that Melky Cabrera, this year's All-Star Game MVP and current MLB hits leader, was suspended for 50 games for an elevated level of testosterone, forming a perfectly juxtaposed image of the current state of baseball affairs. But anyway, why has there been such a proliferation of perfect games? Batters are no longer using performance enhancers, thereby returning the advantage to pitchers. This, on the surface, would seem to be a return to the natural order of things, but perhaps the line has gone too far to the other side.
There has not been such a run of pitching dominance since the 1960's, also known as the Golden Age for pitchers. In the original year of the pitcher (1968), pitching got so insanely good that the mound had to be lowered to return some semblance of equality between pitcher and batter. This was a change that seemed to work out, as offense and pitching seemed to be in concert with each other until the 'roid days began. When hitting and pitching once again got out of sync, drugs were rightly banned from the sport and testing implemented. This much we can, hopefully, agree upon, especially since I've spent a while trying to make the same claim over and over again. But the point is that I think it's gone too far. Pitching is dominant. While the powers that be were trying to once again equalize the sport, they went too far to the other side. Doesn't this seem to be a common theme when it comes to America?
I want to keep this within the realm of sports, but this may be akin to America's hypersensitivity and proclivity to political correctness. With Title IX, for example, the U.S. Government was addressing a dearth of female athletics participants and trying to equalize the number of men and women in collegiate sports. Forty years later, the program, while it was definitely necessary at the time, seems to have gone too far. Men's sports are being cut at a rapid rate, to the point that there are only five men's Track & Field programs in the MAC, a once prestigious running conference, while there are 12 women's teams. It looks like the inequality that was originally present has led to a different sort of inequality. The same can be said for affirmative action in college admissions. What started off as a noble and necessary exercise for more opportunities for underprivileged and underrepresented students has perhaps tilted a bit too much to the other side, ostracizing well-performing students in favor of those who score lower but come from disadvantaged backgrounds. I'm not trying to be glib or undermine and devalue the importance of Title IX and affirmative action policies. In fact, I totally understand that's it's a complete stretch to tie them together in the same conversation as perfection in baseball games. And I also don't want to open a can of worms here, starting into a deep political debate. These are topics that I would like to give full attention to at another time, but for the sake of my baseball argument, I believe that they fit. I hope I'm not off on that.
Anyway, it seems to happen that trying to fix things to create more equality, in sports and anything else, oftentimes has unintended consequences. It is so hard to actually create that level playing field, especially because there are so many unaccounted for factors that permeate every part of the decision-making process. This is not a blog to decry the people who make decisions, to chastise them for not thinking about how their actions might, indirectly, create more levels of unfairness. Rather, it is to address the concept of true perfection. Baseball wanted their sport to be perfect, so they lowered the pitcher's mound and banned performance-enhancing drugs and made the divisions equal in number and brought the fences in and a whole slew of things. What has resulted is more of the same. Perfection is a hard act to live up to. There's a reason there have only been 23 instances of true perfection, in the thousands of baseball games that have been played through the centuries.
You know what? So it goes with life. Just as humans find it increasingly difficult (nay impossible) to create a set of rules or regulations that are perfect, so too do we find it hard to make our lives perfect. So what do we do? I might touch on this more sometime in the future, but it's something that I wanted to at least address right now. It's one of those cheesy motivational quotes you see superimposed over an image of a picturesque mountaintop covered in snow and bathed sunshine: "Perfection is the goal. Excellence will be tolerated." It's all about trying, and never giving up. Sure, it might not work how we wanted it to, but that's the time to try again. Work toward that perfection. Baseball is not done tweaking its rules in the hopes of finally perfecting America's pastime. The government will, I trust, continue working toward making more effective laws and perfecting the ones on the books. And as for us? We can only keep working on ourselves, in the hopes that we can be perfect. And if not? Excellent is all right with me. But we'd be remiss if we didn't strive for that lofty standard, every day.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Part II - A Brief Back to the Future Corollary...and More!
I am sure that everyone has been eagerly awaiting the conclusion to my thoughts yesterday. Well, you will not be disappointed!
I was talking about morality and whether it's biological or learned, and I was going to somehow weave that back into our perceptions of self and others. I'm not sure if there's a way for us to know how morality works, but speculating anyway is an exciting exercise! If we are given a sense of morality intuitively, is that sense the same for every person? Even if it were, it would be hard for any person to maintain their moral compass at the same level for their entire lives. Humans are social creatures. Unless a person is permanently sequestered, they will have some sort of influence in terms of morality...or anything else for that matter.
Let's use Back to the Future Part II as an example here. Marty and Doc travel to 2015 to try and keep the McFly family from falling apart. If you recall, Marty goes to the Cafe '80's disguised as his look-alike son to stop Marty, Jr. from going on a fool's errand with Griff and his gang. Marty, thanks to the time machine, already knows the ramifications of Marty, Jr.'s terrible decision and tells Griff that he will not be joining in on any criminal activity. Looking beyond the obvious morality issues present in time-traveling in the first place, Marty is meddling in Marty, Jr.'s perception of right and wrong. Marty wants to do the best for his son and protect him as much as he can. But who is Marty to interfere like that? Marty, Jr. should have his own unique sense of morality, removed from that of his father. How do we know that Marty's version of "protection" is considered right? We are conditioned, I believe, to think that way. Marty, as a parent, is supposed to know (or give off the illusion of knowledge) what is best for a child. It's something about past experiences giving way to informed decisions. But...that causes another issue to arise. If a parent made a poor decision, and wanted to teach his/her child to not make a similar choice, wouldn't it be for the best to allow the child to go through the pain? At some point, the parent will not be there, as much as he/she wishes it were so. As such, the child should be allowed to develop a personal sense of morality, rather than following along on ideals of a parent. However, it seems we may be getting a little off base here...this sounds like a blog for another time - perhaps entitled "Do We Have Free Will?" or something a little snappier. At any rate, that would be the topic for the day.
Let's get back to the task at hand here. Which perception is more "right," or to be better used as an identifier? We've already discussed the issues that come to light when we think about our personal perception as being the most important, so what about in terms of others' perceptions of us? Again, we are social creatures. We strive for interaction, approval, love, and care. We cannot get those things solely from ourselves. If I go to the store and buy a new shirt because it looks darn good on me, do I do it to feel better about myself, or so that others can have a better view of me? If we say that it's to look and feel good about ourselves, where did that negative image of ourselves come from in the first place? We wouldn't need to buy a shirt to make ourselves feel better if we already felt better, correct? So at some point, the perceptions of others played a large part in the formation of ourselves. Is this a bad thing? Are we to be held at the mercy of everyone else's opinions, attempting to fit into that box that they've created for us? Hard to say. It would seem, however, that no person is immune to ingestion of others' perceptions. So if everyone is privy to it (and I mean everyone, in the most literal sense of the word), how could it be wrong? Is there really someone out there who really does not care, and never did care, about other people's perceptions? That would mean, I would imagine, zero human interaction. Every time we interact with a person, whatever the reason may be, we pick up on their perceptions. At least I do. I hope I'm not the only one in this!
So what's the conclusion here? Did I delve into the topic enough? I'm sure there're many salient points that I'm leaving out here. My mind works in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way, and that's how I prefer writing. I hope ya'll remember that for the ensuing 360 blogs that are going to be coming your way. But anyhow, did we come up with a definitive answer? I think most people would like to be comfortable with their own skin and not worry about what other people may think. It certainly seems like a noble goal. But the reality, unfortunately, appears to be a bit different. We are part of a society - a society of many different thoughts, feelings, ideals, and moralities. With every interaction, we take a bit of the other person(s) we are interacting with, and vice versa. We are no longer filled with our own "pure" thoughts. We are made up of thoughts and perceptions from all over the societal spectrum. Those perceptions, I believe, continue to meld us on a daily basis. The only thing we can do is to maintain some modicum of personal identification.
Reading through this once more, it seems like I'm advocating some form of Orwellian-style dystopia that delineates the area between freedom of thought and implanted ideas. That topic, as discussed above, is going to be another day. What I'm simply trying to say tonight (and yesterday) is that it's okay to try and live up to other people's perceptions of us...the most crucial part is choosing whose perceptual opinions matter in the first place.
I was talking about morality and whether it's biological or learned, and I was going to somehow weave that back into our perceptions of self and others. I'm not sure if there's a way for us to know how morality works, but speculating anyway is an exciting exercise! If we are given a sense of morality intuitively, is that sense the same for every person? Even if it were, it would be hard for any person to maintain their moral compass at the same level for their entire lives. Humans are social creatures. Unless a person is permanently sequestered, they will have some sort of influence in terms of morality...or anything else for that matter.
Let's use Back to the Future Part II as an example here. Marty and Doc travel to 2015 to try and keep the McFly family from falling apart. If you recall, Marty goes to the Cafe '80's disguised as his look-alike son to stop Marty, Jr. from going on a fool's errand with Griff and his gang. Marty, thanks to the time machine, already knows the ramifications of Marty, Jr.'s terrible decision and tells Griff that he will not be joining in on any criminal activity. Looking beyond the obvious morality issues present in time-traveling in the first place, Marty is meddling in Marty, Jr.'s perception of right and wrong. Marty wants to do the best for his son and protect him as much as he can. But who is Marty to interfere like that? Marty, Jr. should have his own unique sense of morality, removed from that of his father. How do we know that Marty's version of "protection" is considered right? We are conditioned, I believe, to think that way. Marty, as a parent, is supposed to know (or give off the illusion of knowledge) what is best for a child. It's something about past experiences giving way to informed decisions. But...that causes another issue to arise. If a parent made a poor decision, and wanted to teach his/her child to not make a similar choice, wouldn't it be for the best to allow the child to go through the pain? At some point, the parent will not be there, as much as he/she wishes it were so. As such, the child should be allowed to develop a personal sense of morality, rather than following along on ideals of a parent. However, it seems we may be getting a little off base here...this sounds like a blog for another time - perhaps entitled "Do We Have Free Will?" or something a little snappier. At any rate, that would be the topic for the day.
Let's get back to the task at hand here. Which perception is more "right," or to be better used as an identifier? We've already discussed the issues that come to light when we think about our personal perception as being the most important, so what about in terms of others' perceptions of us? Again, we are social creatures. We strive for interaction, approval, love, and care. We cannot get those things solely from ourselves. If I go to the store and buy a new shirt because it looks darn good on me, do I do it to feel better about myself, or so that others can have a better view of me? If we say that it's to look and feel good about ourselves, where did that negative image of ourselves come from in the first place? We wouldn't need to buy a shirt to make ourselves feel better if we already felt better, correct? So at some point, the perceptions of others played a large part in the formation of ourselves. Is this a bad thing? Are we to be held at the mercy of everyone else's opinions, attempting to fit into that box that they've created for us? Hard to say. It would seem, however, that no person is immune to ingestion of others' perceptions. So if everyone is privy to it (and I mean everyone, in the most literal sense of the word), how could it be wrong? Is there really someone out there who really does not care, and never did care, about other people's perceptions? That would mean, I would imagine, zero human interaction. Every time we interact with a person, whatever the reason may be, we pick up on their perceptions. At least I do. I hope I'm not the only one in this!
So what's the conclusion here? Did I delve into the topic enough? I'm sure there're many salient points that I'm leaving out here. My mind works in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way, and that's how I prefer writing. I hope ya'll remember that for the ensuing 360 blogs that are going to be coming your way. But anyhow, did we come up with a definitive answer? I think most people would like to be comfortable with their own skin and not worry about what other people may think. It certainly seems like a noble goal. But the reality, unfortunately, appears to be a bit different. We are part of a society - a society of many different thoughts, feelings, ideals, and moralities. With every interaction, we take a bit of the other person(s) we are interacting with, and vice versa. We are no longer filled with our own "pure" thoughts. We are made up of thoughts and perceptions from all over the societal spectrum. Those perceptions, I believe, continue to meld us on a daily basis. The only thing we can do is to maintain some modicum of personal identification.
Reading through this once more, it seems like I'm advocating some form of Orwellian-style dystopia that delineates the area between freedom of thought and implanted ideas. That topic, as discussed above, is going to be another day. What I'm simply trying to say tonight (and yesterday) is that it's okay to try and live up to other people's perceptions of us...the most crucial part is choosing whose perceptual opinions matter in the first place.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Chapstick, Chapped Lips, and Things Like Chemistry
"I don't want to be perceived the way I am. I just want to be perceived the way I am."
Relient K
Sometimes the way that we see ourselves and the way that others see us are not congruent. For example, I could be out driving on the roadways and be fully convinced that I'm the best driver out there. Nobody else but me deserves a driver's license. But I bet that the person that I just passed as I was cruising along 20 miles per hour above the speed limit would disagree. So it goes with many facets of our lives. I could think that I'm a dashing and debonair gentleman, that women want me and men want to be me, but my perception of myself does not have any bearing on the perceptions of others. Of course, I could hold my head high and exude confidence and actually be that charming gent, but, again, that perception would only be confirmed by a handful of people. There could be a number of people (a very large number, in fact) who think that I'm all talk, or all image, or all together something else entirely. So I guess this is where we run into an issue: whose perception is more important - our own, or others'?
I think the prevailing thought on this topic would be that we need to be true to ourselves. We are the only ones who come in contact with ourselves on a daily basis. In fact, we're with ourselves every moment of every single day. Since we have to spend eternity with ourselves as we are, wouldn't it make sense to become comfortable? Shouldn't we love ourselves for what we've become and what we're still to do? Aren't we to justify every action and decision we make as being the most important thing for us, as individuals? If I perceive myself as a wonderful human being, isn't that the most crucial thing to a healthy life? Perhaps, but what happens when my perception of a wonderful person is one that steals for personal benefit, or is mean, or is physically abusive? Let's say that I'm a ne'er do well who gets in fights and robs banks and is callous and biting to friends and foes alike...but I'm comfortable with myself. Would I have friends? And if I did have friends, would I have the type of friends who would want to curtail my behavior, or encourage it? And if I did have friends who wanted the "best" for me and wanted me to change my ways, would I listen to them? It's all very difficult to speculate upon. If I did listen to my friends and tried to change, wouldn't I then be caving into the perceptions of other people, rather than being comfortable and confident in my own? I mean, whose right is it in the first place to let me know what is a right way and a wrong way to carry on? Shouldn't I be the judge and jury of my own actions? Even if I don't know the full weight of any potential consequences, if I'm happy with myself why should anyone have the audacity to try and stop me?
Morality is a tricky thing. Every person thinks that their version of right and wrong is the correct one...hopefully. But are humans inherently wired this way, to try and do "right" and stray away from "wrong," or has it just been passed down from generation to generation? If it's passed down as tradition, then we didn't have any bearing on our own perception in the first place, right? And if it's given to us intuitively from birth, then no one can tell us that we're wrong...right?
I wish I had more time to explore this topic at the present time. We will pick up where we left off tomorrow.
Relient K
Sometimes the way that we see ourselves and the way that others see us are not congruent. For example, I could be out driving on the roadways and be fully convinced that I'm the best driver out there. Nobody else but me deserves a driver's license. But I bet that the person that I just passed as I was cruising along 20 miles per hour above the speed limit would disagree. So it goes with many facets of our lives. I could think that I'm a dashing and debonair gentleman, that women want me and men want to be me, but my perception of myself does not have any bearing on the perceptions of others. Of course, I could hold my head high and exude confidence and actually be that charming gent, but, again, that perception would only be confirmed by a handful of people. There could be a number of people (a very large number, in fact) who think that I'm all talk, or all image, or all together something else entirely. So I guess this is where we run into an issue: whose perception is more important - our own, or others'?
I think the prevailing thought on this topic would be that we need to be true to ourselves. We are the only ones who come in contact with ourselves on a daily basis. In fact, we're with ourselves every moment of every single day. Since we have to spend eternity with ourselves as we are, wouldn't it make sense to become comfortable? Shouldn't we love ourselves for what we've become and what we're still to do? Aren't we to justify every action and decision we make as being the most important thing for us, as individuals? If I perceive myself as a wonderful human being, isn't that the most crucial thing to a healthy life? Perhaps, but what happens when my perception of a wonderful person is one that steals for personal benefit, or is mean, or is physically abusive? Let's say that I'm a ne'er do well who gets in fights and robs banks and is callous and biting to friends and foes alike...but I'm comfortable with myself. Would I have friends? And if I did have friends, would I have the type of friends who would want to curtail my behavior, or encourage it? And if I did have friends who wanted the "best" for me and wanted me to change my ways, would I listen to them? It's all very difficult to speculate upon. If I did listen to my friends and tried to change, wouldn't I then be caving into the perceptions of other people, rather than being comfortable and confident in my own? I mean, whose right is it in the first place to let me know what is a right way and a wrong way to carry on? Shouldn't I be the judge and jury of my own actions? Even if I don't know the full weight of any potential consequences, if I'm happy with myself why should anyone have the audacity to try and stop me?
Morality is a tricky thing. Every person thinks that their version of right and wrong is the correct one...hopefully. But are humans inherently wired this way, to try and do "right" and stray away from "wrong," or has it just been passed down from generation to generation? If it's passed down as tradition, then we didn't have any bearing on our own perception in the first place, right? And if it's given to us intuitively from birth, then no one can tell us that we're wrong...right?
I wish I had more time to explore this topic at the present time. We will pick up where we left off tomorrow.
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