A Trench at the Ocean's Bottom, and the Sky's Not Even in Sight... (Part One)

Welcome Back, Mr. Kotter.

It seems I've been away for some time now. In the interim since ye've seen me last, I've more or less had two kids and as many career changes. It hasn't left me much time to think coherently, much less write it down. Uh, sorry. But I'm back now.

One of the frustrating things about this blog the first time around was I had envisioned it as a dialogue but never got any real discussion of anything I wrote here. That was probably a failing of mine, not being able to inspire and intrigue the dozens, much less the masses, and I know I shouldn't go around blaming that crap on you. After all, I'm a big boy these days, and a lot of times, fact is, as much as you want a community of friends to banter with, if you want to get out of the house you have to be willing to make the first steps, at least, on your own.

So I'd like to revisit an earlier topic I had started with this sort of dialogue in mind before it fell flat:

"I was curious to figure out which pop culture genres were sustainable--that is, which pop culture genres and forms can legitimately offer you something insightful and nourishing throughout all of the stages of your life. And which don't. And why. (And why not.)"

Being a dad and now well into middle age, but nowheres near death nor impotence (heh heh), this is of great interest to me, because I have reached the point, if I still intend on reclaiming myself as a creative person after taking a few years off from all that as more or less a domestic and "an earner," where I need to be surrounded by and spend time on things that keep the fires of wonder, curiosity, and inspiration stoked and burning at a hot steady level. Not to drop some blues on you like "because in just a few short years I'll be dead" (let's face it, I'll outlive all of you and remember you fondly), but instead because my life is quite full with respect to family, marriage, and work, and I have neither the time nor inclination to waste my free moments on people and things that don't bring it.

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved...the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."

     --Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957)--

Granted, I'm long past the days where I want to live it up in the style that Kerouac and his cohorts did. It was good in its time, but that type of hedonism holds no charms for me anymore. What I do like about that statement is its imperative to bring passion and conviction to everything you do, everyday. I'm like you in that I don't just want to go through the motions.

The Criteria.

The things that I look at these days, they must have something to say to me about one or more of these fundamental idea/l s:

Authenticity and Truth: I'm as fascinated by strategy and artifice as much as the next guy but ultimately it's a dead end. You can't fool all the people all of the time and you can't in the long run be happy pretending to be something you're not, or aspiring to values, principles, and goals you do not believe in, but if you try and live that way what you can do is outsmart yourself and be perpetually unhappy. May as well be honest and be your real self, which is NOT some classical hero and in a lot of cases is flawed and unappealing.

One of the most generous gifts my father ever gave me, and this is a man who's always shown his unlimited love and support, came at a time when I was really down. After being in the Army, I had busted my hump and graduated college in three years, with honors, and had expected to be onto really big things; yet a year out, I had bombed at my first job so badly I had to resign in anticipation of being fired. It's a long story, but the honest bottom line was I had given it my best shot but had come up light. Worse, I was operating on some ill-conceived self-concocted "ten year plan" and felt I was at age when I should be getting ready for marriage and children, but wasn't even dating--no one was really interested. I took a couple of weeks moping around, and had some friends and family expressing open disappointment and scorn at my failure and rudderlessness, which didn't much help. Truth be told, I kind of thought they had a point and really didn't see a way out of the hole I was in.

Then my dad came to visit for a weekend. Instead of judging me and "calling the shot" of my failure like everyone else seemed to be doing, he took the time to share with me the several instances over the years when things didn't go as he had planned, and how he was down about it but in each case he picked himself back up and kept moving forward. Even now this brings me to tears...he could have told some self-serving narrative where he was a great hero and I should just be more like him, some trite advice like "buck up and pull yourself up by the bootstraps," but he didn't go there. Instead, he gave me something honest and true, and probably a little embarrassing, and let me know it was ok to fail, that I was still "me" and had great value and was worthwhile whether things were going great, or whether things had gone a bit off of the rails. If he hadn't been "real," I don't know if I would have pulled out of it. There are just some things, as much as you want, you can never repay.

Anyhow, aside from keeping you in touch with yourself and what you really want, and being able to have relationships with people based on reality as opposed to deception or wishful thinking, authenticity, as exercised in the example above, is a truly brave and revolutionary act that can bring out the best in people and is worth the risk. As with everything real, there's a price for this but even so I am deeply interested in learning about things that help me live up to this ideal.

So far as truth goes, the appeal should be self-explanatory, but perhaps it's not. With the barrage of bullshit we may experience, day-in, day-out, we may prefer narratives and takes that justify what we already think, how we already feel, and make us feel good/smart/whatever. But we may be doing, or co-signing, something that hurts others without even knowing it. There might be something small that if we know about and get off our tails and deal with , that we can prevent from becoming a big problem. Truth is, we will never be even a slice of what we want to be if we don't value a view of how things are instead of what feels good. If you don't have that thirst for truth even when it hurts you or shows you ugly things about yourself, or perhaps requires you to do something you'd rather not, you are taking yourself out of the game as a potential force for good in the world and as someone upon whom others can depend. When you give up on demanding "the real" and the Truth, your entire being is compromised. An old friend told me long ago that lots of people will flatter and placate you with what you want to hear, but your friends tell you the truth, all else be damned; it's one of the deepest acts of respect that can be shown to you.

Emotional Range: Perhaps you can tell, I am settling into the stage of my life where I really do enjoy being a human, warts and all.  I don't know that I've ever been a human before, and don't know when I'll get the chance to do it again.

Think about it, folks: getting to be a human is a pretty good gig that we take for granted all the time.
Even if we may not be some word-shattering influencer of history, you get a chance to make an impact every day. Some examples:

• Did you kill or spare anything today?
• Did you fix/break anything today?
• Did you avert catastrophe (be it on a small or large scale) for someone/thing?
• Did you provide physical or emotional shelter for someone/thing?
• Did you come up with some idea about something you're anticipating doing in the future?
• Were you able to express what you feel without any dire consequences?
• Did you experience any beauty or empathy?
• Did you try something and not get it right, leaving the chance to nail it at a later date?

These are all great honors that we could choose to do or not do every day. Folks will tell you they know what happens or doesn't happen after you die, but (as handled exhaustively in other JM columns), they're full of it, because there's no way they know for sure. For all you know, this is your one shot at being human and whether you think much of your life or no, you have a tremendous amount of agency to affect reality on various scales of action.

Whatever state or guise the next stage of being finds you in, it could be your experience is different in that you cannot relate to reality emotively. I get that emotions can be a blessing or a curse, and are often the source of great struggle. Many turn to shrinks and self-help books, even medication as a means to control them, and I am not one to offer an educated opinion about any of that. What I can tell you that if this very day, someone came to you and made it so you could never feel joy, pain, sorrow, jealously, pride, hysterical laughter, emotional numbness, wonder/amazement, closeness, or any of the emotive states that are endemic to the human experience, you would certainly be a lot more stable and predictable but you would have lost something profound.

The expectations of others may discourage us from feeling or expressing the full range of human emotions.  You see, Sally should smile more, and Billy shouldn't cry. What does that guy have to be angry about anyway? Ooof, she really shouldn't laugh in front of people.

But fuck it.

I want to experience it all, every day. I want things in my life that make me cry. Something that will show me how it feels so I can stop being a dick and judging that person I was just ragging on and maybe instead step up and be of some use to them. I want to be filled with triumph and elation at things small and great. And I'm not interested in who objects to that, or why. I know stoicism, but I do not always exercise its tenets. I know the right thing to do, but I reserve the right to not always do it.

Although I will never stop being aspirational in every cell of my being, I patently reject the call to be perfect, the compulsion to do the right thing at the right time, yes, unfortunately in many cases, the imperative to carry myself with the dignity others may think I ought. I'm going to be sweet and maudlin. I'm going to be petty and fly off the handle sometimes. I'm going to be a real jerk, and a pushover, and give the cold shoulder when it's a damned cruel thing to do.

And so are you.

Some of that, I'd rather not do. But I believe (though do not know) this is my last shot at being human, and I want to embrace, and not deny that, because I think it's a fine and beautiful thing. And I want to surround myself with and explore things that help me be the best human I can be (which is not the same as being perfect or good) and have little interest in anything that bars my way.


Ways of thinking and acting that encourage resilience, adaptability, and point toward "The Good Life":

Confucius: Do you think I have come to know many things by studying them?

Pupil: Yes. Isn’t it so?

Confucius: No. I penetrate them by their underlying unity.

As a child one of my favorite aunts was quite amused the amount of things I collected and/or had an interest in. Indeed, I have many times heard the point of view that a man with many hobbies is a dilettante,  a sophist, an unserious person with too much spare time, a "jack of all trades/master of none," but I take great issue with it. (And of course I would, eh?) Much like the Sage in the quote above, when I learn one thing I try to extrapolate it to many other areas in my life. True knowledge is universal and applies across topics and disciplines.

 So much as I always have, I need to cast my net wide, learn from accomplished people (with a broad definition of "accomplished") who have withstood adversity, and also to interact with what I learn to discover the extent to which the knowledge is true and wise, and where I may apply it. To not get discouraged when learning becomes tough and the gains are small and hard-fought, and to not give up on becoming better even when obligations and time constraints seems to crowd out my ability to move forward with what I need to do on the long road.

The "end" of all this, of course, is that quest so many others have pursued with mixed success over millennia, that of "The Good Life," the life, to the extent it can be, on your own terms--one you can enjoy as it passes, look back upon with solace and contentment that you were you, and leave as a path for those of similar principles and aspirations who would dare follow it and append to it across the fullness of eternity.

But enough about me.

Now: I'd sincerely like to know what would be the criterion, or the values you would seek, in the various and sundry items that you will find your inspiration in for the next 25 years?

 Please do share and talk with me about these things, as friends do, below.

Or you will disappoint me.