I professed my fanhood for Bear Grylls here and now I must do so for another Englishman, a knight in fact, who I've recently learned more about. His words and philosophies are inspiring; his actions, adventures, daredevilry, business successes, and humanitarian efforts are impressive (lest we forget: actions speak louder than words). I'm referring to Richard Branson, or Sir Richard Branson, although I bet he's quick to dispel or oppose any pretentiousness that comes with the title. He said this in an interview and it's great advice: "I actually think everybody should write a book about their lives. I've persuaded a number of people to do so.... You don't have to have led a very public life, I think everyone has led interesting lives. Your children and your grandchildren will be fascinated by the lives you lead." I am grateful for every word my grandparents wrote that was saved by the family. My dad's dad kept a journal during the Korean War and my mom's dad wrote several letters home from WWII. I continue to ask questions and pry stories out of my grandmas. They're awesome women; I'm so lucky, and M 'n' m are lucky to have them as great-grandmas. I spent considerable time with one of my great-grandmas when I was young – I was cared for by a person born in 1900! – and I'll never forget her motherly generosity and dependability. She had a wonderful sturdiness of character. I won't forget her house and garden, her cactuses and Siamese cats, her coin collection and the organ she played beautifully. How much I'd love a book about her life and times! She rode in a covered wagon. She lost a young son tragically (to drowning in the ocean) and was heartbroken I'm sure. She would not allow anyone to leave her house without a hug. She was a Dodger fan because of Jackie Robinson, and she smoked, drank beer, and watched baseball when she wasn't mothering and feeding everyone. And her daughter (my grandma) became the first Ph.D. in the family and one of the most all-around impressive women I've ever known, a sheer force of productivity and love. I remember my great-grandma sitting with me at a table and doing a Lego set while listening to the radio broadcast of the college football game everyone else was at. Awesome. What a woman! So just do it, someday, please, for your descendants, write down a few thoughts and stories. In a journal, on Facebook, in emails, whatever. In any form or format your loved ones can keep... or photocopy or scan or otherwise digitally archive; let them figure it out; you just record your slice of history, what you went through, what advice you'd give, your life's joys and curiosities, and so on; it's fascinating and your grandchildren will thank you.
"First of all, I'm lucky, I have a very extraordinary mother, and a lovely father, and we're a very, very close-knit family, and that's fortunately continued with myself, my wife and children, and so on ever since. So that's given us a fantastic foundation as a family.... Well, my mother, her whole approach to bringing up her children was one where she'd be arrested today but in those days she could get away with it. At age three or four she would shove me out of the car two or three
miles from grandmother's house and tell me to make my own way there. She
would put me on a bicycle at age seven or eight and tell me to ride 300
miles in the pouring rain, again to grandmother's house, and her attitude
was, you know, if we survived we'd be the stronger for it. She wouldn't allow us to watch television, for instance, we had to get out there and do things. She would push us out of the house and tell us to come back in the evening.... We lived in the countryside and it was a fun upbringing, and a very loving upbringing; it may not sound like it, but she wasn't actually trying to kill us, she did love us as well [laughter].... It's fun, my mom's 94 now and I just saw her a few minutes ago and she will never stop. I mean she's got an idea a minute, and, you know, we've always had to run to keep up with her, and put the two of us together and it's a dangerous combination!"
— Richard Branson in a phone interview with Tim Ferriss
"When things went wrong (during his various dangerous adventures)... if you're gonna survive, the only way you're gonna survive is by keeping focused, by staying positive, even if you are facing almost certain death, you're definitely going to die unless you stay focused and stay positive and fight to the bitter end, and, you know, there have been circumstances where, on paper, we were well over the 90% chance I'm not coming home, and I think by staying focused and staying positive, and with a big dose of good fortune, we made it all the way back."
— Richard Branson, interviewed by Tim Ferriss
"I think humor is important, putting on a brave face, cracking jokes, plenty of hugs; I think hugs are important [laughter]."
— Richard Branson, speaking of how he reassured others as Category 5 Hurricane Irma roared over them devastating Necker Island
"Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.... A company is people.... The way you treat your employees is the way they will treat your customers.... There's no magic formula for great company culture. The key is just to treat your staff the way you would like to be treated."
— Richard Branson
"Complexity is your enemy. Any fool can make something complicated. It is hard to make something simple."
— Richard Branson
"If your dreams don't scare you they are too small."
— Richard Branson
"I don't think of work as work and play as play. It's all living."
— Richard Branson
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Monday, October 23, 2017
#378
I wonder how much Meg is troubled by the Las Vegas rampage. So many people murdered. Megan has a keen sense of the potentially unsafe and scary. She has a kind of hair trigger on her personal fear, and it's a trait or biochemistry she gets from me, I'm afraid. Naturally, our 'hair trigger' misfires. It distorts us and intensifies our perception of things. It helps us too – not much goes over Megan's head, unless she's buried in her smartphone which is too often – but the over-anxiousness can be burdensome. Generally, our well-being and safety isn't being threatened. We're fortunate to live in a good community and country, and I believe the world, overall, is far from lawless. I suppose that's debatable. If you watch the news, you'll surely think the world's headed to hell in a handbasket.... But getting back to Megan and Las Vegas, public shootings are scary. When I was a little younger than m, I was shocked by a similar TV news report; a guy walked into a McDonald's and opened fire. The TV cameras showed police tape, flashing lights, and a terrorized McDonald's restaurant identical to the ones I'd been in many times. I was freaked. I didn't eat comfortably in fastfood joints for months, maybe years; I profiled other diners like I would, honestly, frankly, other airline passengers in the aftermath of 9/11. I sat panicky on airplanes for a few years and still don't love flying. My irrational brain can be like Mike Tyson, and logic like one of his first 37 opponents. (Tyson won his first 19 fights by knockout, 12 in the first round, and 33 of his first 37 by KO; the most dominant young fighter ever.) Anyway, I think I've evolved a little with age, and hopefully m will too.
My days of writing about Michael, directly, will end now. I can still comment on parenthood, I guess, moving forward, as I closely observe upperclassmanship in high school in a few years, and teen driving and dating and growing and maturing and teen technology use and applying for college and getting ready for launch and life. And sports, I can talk about sports, and Iowa State who just cracked the football top 25 rankings!!!!! God I love Iowa State. Almost as much as I love M 'n' m.
Writing is cathartic. Blogging and scribbling and journaling and list-making and emailing and Facebook-posting and attempting to organize thoughts during hectic, emotion-filled days and months and years. Most of my days have significant emotion in them, things above or below neutral, likely both, though some days are more turbulent than others. Maybe writing makes me feel productive, expressive, and not lazy, in addition to the catharsis part, which I seem to use as a primary excuse for writing. But why do I need an excuse to write? Why do I need permission? It's one of those paradoxes in parenting I've discovered; I don't want M 'n' m to be reckless, but I don't want them seeking permission for everything in life either, whether it be from authority figures or pop culture or me. The more I know, the more I realize I don't know. So I want M 'n' m to be confident, empowered individuals, setting their own course and habits that will lead to a long, fulfilling life. Amen.
Definition of CATHARSIS
noun, plural catharses
1: the purging of emotions (such as pity or fear) or relieving of emotional tensions, especially through art
2: a purification or purgation that brings about spiritual renewal
3: elimination of a complex by bringing it to consciousness and affording it release
"Journaling is really about priming our soul for action... activating our energy."
— Brian Johnson
My days of writing about Michael, directly, will end now. I can still comment on parenthood, I guess, moving forward, as I closely observe upperclassmanship in high school in a few years, and teen driving and dating and growing and maturing and teen technology use and applying for college and getting ready for launch and life. And sports, I can talk about sports, and Iowa State who just cracked the football top 25 rankings!!!!! God I love Iowa State. Almost as much as I love M 'n' m.
Writing is cathartic. Blogging and scribbling and journaling and list-making and emailing and Facebook-posting and attempting to organize thoughts during hectic, emotion-filled days and months and years. Most of my days have significant emotion in them, things above or below neutral, likely both, though some days are more turbulent than others. Maybe writing makes me feel productive, expressive, and not lazy, in addition to the catharsis part, which I seem to use as a primary excuse for writing. But why do I need an excuse to write? Why do I need permission? It's one of those paradoxes in parenting I've discovered; I don't want M 'n' m to be reckless, but I don't want them seeking permission for everything in life either, whether it be from authority figures or pop culture or me. The more I know, the more I realize I don't know. So I want M 'n' m to be confident, empowered individuals, setting their own course and habits that will lead to a long, fulfilling life. Amen.
Definition of CATHARSIS
noun, plural catharses
1: the purging of emotions (such as pity or fear) or relieving of emotional tensions, especially through art
2: a purification or purgation that brings about spiritual renewal
3: elimination of a complex by bringing it to consciousness and affording it release
"Journaling is really about priming our soul for action... activating our energy."
— Brian Johnson
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Stuff About Things #7
"Fathering may be good for men as well as for children."
— Ross D. Parke
"But despite these sorrows my father remained an optimist. And that optimism was the greatest gift he gave to me – a sense of excitement about life that has carried me through everything."
— Doris Kearns Goodwin, Vanity Fair magazine
"His heritage to his children wasn't words or possessions, but an unspoken treasure, the treasure of his example as a man and a father. More than anything I have, I'm trying to pass that on to my children."
— Roy Rogers
"I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all."
— E. B. White
From Men's Journal magazine: "In the sport of bull riding, grit is a prerequisite, and these guys have a lot of it.... In the locker room, the Brazilians' abundance of grit isn't immediately clear, but their camaraderie is.... The real difference between the Brazilians and the Americans goes back to fundamental toughness. The Brazilians train harder during the week. They don't whine, they don't bitch, and they come in expecting to win. If I was a young rider, I'd watch them closely and learn everything I could."
From Vanity Fair magazine: "True belief, if you think about it, is much scarier than simple greed. The greedy man can always be bought at some price, and his behavior is predictable. But the true zealot? He can't be had at any price, and there's no telling what his mad visions will have him and his followers do."
"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."
— Christopher Hitchens
"Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it."
— Christopher Hitchens
From Men's Journal magazine: "Stig Severinsen contends that optimal breathing, with its focus on physical, mental, and emotional self-awareness, can be an effective weapon in the world of corporate warfare." ... and from Men's Health magazine: "Turns out, deep breathing can stimulate the production of insulin, which lowers blood-sugar levels; with more time, it can also nix extra cortisol (a stress hormone) and harmful free radicals."
From Vanity Fair magazine: "One evening in December, young John (F. Kennedy Jr.) emerged from Jackie's room. Spotting a portrait of his father, he removed a lollipop from his mouth and kissed the image, saying, 'Good night, Daddy.' Jackie related the episode to Marg McNamara by way of explanation as to why it would be impossible to have such a picture near. She said it brought to the surface too many things."
"When I was young I spent months humping a pack and an M-16 up and down the Annamite Cordillera in Vietnam. It took me years to want to go out in the mountains again, but now nature was my friend, a consoling, calming presence I wanted to share with my son.... When I picked my pack back up, I realized I'd forgotten the bear spray. There were grizzlies up in the high country. A big male could be twice the size of a lion, weigh up to a third of a ton, and reach nine feet tall when it stood up. It could kill you and then eat you. You weren't at the top of the food chain and you could feel it.... I always took bear spray, and usually I took my pistol, too, an old Colt M1911A1 .45 like the one I carried in the war. The .45 was basically useless against a grizzly, but I like carrying it. Bear spray was better. It could make the fiercest grizzly turn and run, but only if you could get the canister out of the holster, pull back the safety, depress the trigger, and spray it in the bear's face, all in a split second. I knew how fear could paralyze a man when he wasn't hardened by daily contact with it. I hadn't been that man in a long time – the man who could respond with skill to a sudden onset of fear – so I wasn't sure that if a grizzly suddenly appeared I would be able to do any of those things."
— William Broyles
"Everything that could possibly go wrong with that game did.... I had to just breathe through it and go into that area you learn about through meditation: 'Oh yes, I recognize this, this is life, this is how life goes, there's no reason to rail against it, this is OK.'"
— Phil Jackson
"We don't have a healthcare system in the U.S. but a disease-care system. We treat diseases – we don't prevent them. Traditional doctors aren't trained in diet, supplements, exercise, meditation, and other therapies you need to stay healthy."
— Dr. Frank Lipman, preventative and holistic care advocate
"Winners know what they don't know." — Men's Health magazine
"Joe Maddon says the most important thing he has to do as a manager is listen to his players." — Men's Journal magazine
"The human brain is one of nature's most advanced systems, but it nevertheless has a hard time distinguishing the difference between real and imagined threats." — Men's Health magazine
"Advanced results required advanced measures. Does nobody understand this anymore? You have to do the work and you have to sacrifice.... The key to confidence has less to do with inborn talent than it does with ingrained practice." — Men's Fitness magazine
"The other side of it (of getting up very early, other than having private time to be productive) is just straight-up self-discipline. It's not fun to get out of bed early in the morning. When the alarm goes off, it doesn't sing you a song, it hits you in the head with a baseball bat. So, how do you respond to that? Do you crawl underneath your covers and hide, or do you get up, get aggressive, and attack the day."
— Jocko Willink
"Once, instead of paying attention to the class, I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. At the end of the hour, (the professor) asked me what was so much more interesting that his lecture. I held up the book and told him it was the greatest novel written in any language since William Faulkner died. I still think so."
— Bill Clinton
"Like a magnet, two poles lie at the ends of American success: You can succeed by empowering others or you can succeed by exploiting them." — Bloomberg Businessweek magazine
"'You can go run business development for a mobile company!' was one suggestion (from friends who assured her she could easily jump into a money job in the for-profit sector). Well, I would rather die. Seriously. I can't imagine getting up every morning and putting on a little suit and getting into my little car and driving on the highway with my Starbucks and having meetings where I do not care, nothing is at stake; it's about dollars and the bottom line, which is fine, but it's just not motivating to me at all. It's not that I think there's anything wrong with that world, obviously, but it's just not for me and it would be soul destroying."
— Sue Gardner
"Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it."
— Michel de Montaigne
"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."
— Thomas Merton
"Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm, and harmony."
— Thomas Merton
"Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real."
— Thomas Merton
"We stumble and fall constantly even when we are most enlightened. But when we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not even know that we have fallen."
— Thomas Merton
— Ross D. Parke
"But despite these sorrows my father remained an optimist. And that optimism was the greatest gift he gave to me – a sense of excitement about life that has carried me through everything."
— Doris Kearns Goodwin, Vanity Fair magazine
"His heritage to his children wasn't words or possessions, but an unspoken treasure, the treasure of his example as a man and a father. More than anything I have, I'm trying to pass that on to my children."
— Roy Rogers
"I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all."
— E. B. White
From Men's Journal magazine: "In the sport of bull riding, grit is a prerequisite, and these guys have a lot of it.... In the locker room, the Brazilians' abundance of grit isn't immediately clear, but their camaraderie is.... The real difference between the Brazilians and the Americans goes back to fundamental toughness. The Brazilians train harder during the week. They don't whine, they don't bitch, and they come in expecting to win. If I was a young rider, I'd watch them closely and learn everything I could."
From Vanity Fair magazine: "True belief, if you think about it, is much scarier than simple greed. The greedy man can always be bought at some price, and his behavior is predictable. But the true zealot? He can't be had at any price, and there's no telling what his mad visions will have him and his followers do."
"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."
— Christopher Hitchens
"Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it."
— Christopher Hitchens
From Men's Journal magazine: "Stig Severinsen contends that optimal breathing, with its focus on physical, mental, and emotional self-awareness, can be an effective weapon in the world of corporate warfare." ... and from Men's Health magazine: "Turns out, deep breathing can stimulate the production of insulin, which lowers blood-sugar levels; with more time, it can also nix extra cortisol (a stress hormone) and harmful free radicals."
From Vanity Fair magazine: "One evening in December, young John (F. Kennedy Jr.) emerged from Jackie's room. Spotting a portrait of his father, he removed a lollipop from his mouth and kissed the image, saying, 'Good night, Daddy.' Jackie related the episode to Marg McNamara by way of explanation as to why it would be impossible to have such a picture near. She said it brought to the surface too many things."
"When I was young I spent months humping a pack and an M-16 up and down the Annamite Cordillera in Vietnam. It took me years to want to go out in the mountains again, but now nature was my friend, a consoling, calming presence I wanted to share with my son.... When I picked my pack back up, I realized I'd forgotten the bear spray. There were grizzlies up in the high country. A big male could be twice the size of a lion, weigh up to a third of a ton, and reach nine feet tall when it stood up. It could kill you and then eat you. You weren't at the top of the food chain and you could feel it.... I always took bear spray, and usually I took my pistol, too, an old Colt M1911A1 .45 like the one I carried in the war. The .45 was basically useless against a grizzly, but I like carrying it. Bear spray was better. It could make the fiercest grizzly turn and run, but only if you could get the canister out of the holster, pull back the safety, depress the trigger, and spray it in the bear's face, all in a split second. I knew how fear could paralyze a man when he wasn't hardened by daily contact with it. I hadn't been that man in a long time – the man who could respond with skill to a sudden onset of fear – so I wasn't sure that if a grizzly suddenly appeared I would be able to do any of those things."
— William Broyles
"Everything that could possibly go wrong with that game did.... I had to just breathe through it and go into that area you learn about through meditation: 'Oh yes, I recognize this, this is life, this is how life goes, there's no reason to rail against it, this is OK.'"
— Phil Jackson
"We don't have a healthcare system in the U.S. but a disease-care system. We treat diseases – we don't prevent them. Traditional doctors aren't trained in diet, supplements, exercise, meditation, and other therapies you need to stay healthy."
— Dr. Frank Lipman, preventative and holistic care advocate
"Winners know what they don't know." — Men's Health magazine
"Joe Maddon says the most important thing he has to do as a manager is listen to his players." — Men's Journal magazine
"The human brain is one of nature's most advanced systems, but it nevertheless has a hard time distinguishing the difference between real and imagined threats." — Men's Health magazine
"Advanced results required advanced measures. Does nobody understand this anymore? You have to do the work and you have to sacrifice.... The key to confidence has less to do with inborn talent than it does with ingrained practice." — Men's Fitness magazine
"The other side of it (of getting up very early, other than having private time to be productive) is just straight-up self-discipline. It's not fun to get out of bed early in the morning. When the alarm goes off, it doesn't sing you a song, it hits you in the head with a baseball bat. So, how do you respond to that? Do you crawl underneath your covers and hide, or do you get up, get aggressive, and attack the day."
— Jocko Willink
"Once, instead of paying attention to the class, I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. At the end of the hour, (the professor) asked me what was so much more interesting that his lecture. I held up the book and told him it was the greatest novel written in any language since William Faulkner died. I still think so."
— Bill Clinton
"Like a magnet, two poles lie at the ends of American success: You can succeed by empowering others or you can succeed by exploiting them." — Bloomberg Businessweek magazine
"'You can go run business development for a mobile company!' was one suggestion (from friends who assured her she could easily jump into a money job in the for-profit sector). Well, I would rather die. Seriously. I can't imagine getting up every morning and putting on a little suit and getting into my little car and driving on the highway with my Starbucks and having meetings where I do not care, nothing is at stake; it's about dollars and the bottom line, which is fine, but it's just not motivating to me at all. It's not that I think there's anything wrong with that world, obviously, but it's just not for me and it would be soul destroying."
— Sue Gardner
"Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it."
— Michel de Montaigne
"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."
— Thomas Merton
"Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm, and harmony."
— Thomas Merton
"Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real."
— Thomas Merton
"We stumble and fall constantly even when we are most enlightened. But when we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not even know that we have fallen."
— Thomas Merton
Friday, October 6, 2017
#377
I still pray with Meg before bed and sometimes we chat a bit. Last night she asked, "Are you on Facebook?" I said yes. She said, "Mom's on Facebook too and I don't like it when she puts anything about me on Facebook." Oh. So maybe Dad shouldn't write about you on a blog for 15 years?
Meg just had a birthday. She's 12. People say teenage daughters are one of life's tests. I have a year to brace myself.
I'm a little worried. Her words were unmistakable: I don't like it when (Mom) puts anything about me on Facebook. And my words, tens of thousands now, are here and seemingly dismissive of this sentiment. But it's okay. I just forgot to mention: none of this is true. It's exaggeration. It's fiction. It's about as unbiased and trustworthy and prescient as modern 'news' (look no further than their presidential election coverage and prediction). Very little about the real Megan is shared. Or over-shared. Definitely not under-shared! Anyway, Megan isn't a ratings-getter. And this is happy; happy is boring; how can it be relevant and worthy if it doesn't inflame and divide?
I apologize. That was cynical. I like it when bright, productive people suggest that cynicism is lazy, unimaginative, too easy. It's definitely low-hanging fruit.
"We learned long ago in this business that dumber and more alarmist always beats complex and nuanced. Big headlines, cartoonish morality, scary criminals at home and foreign menaces abroad, they all sell. We decimated attention spans, rewarded hot-takers over thinkers, and created in audiences powerful addictions to conflict, vitriol, fear, self-righteousness, and race and gender resentment."
— Matt Taibbi, writer and journalist for Rolling Stone
"War is a monstrous failure of imagination."
— Franz Kafka
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
— Einstein
Meg just had a birthday. She's 12. People say teenage daughters are one of life's tests. I have a year to brace myself.
I'm a little worried. Her words were unmistakable: I don't like it when (Mom) puts anything about me on Facebook. And my words, tens of thousands now, are here and seemingly dismissive of this sentiment. But it's okay. I just forgot to mention: none of this is true. It's exaggeration. It's fiction. It's about as unbiased and trustworthy and prescient as modern 'news' (look no further than their presidential election coverage and prediction). Very little about the real Megan is shared. Or over-shared. Definitely not under-shared! Anyway, Megan isn't a ratings-getter. And this is happy; happy is boring; how can it be relevant and worthy if it doesn't inflame and divide?
I apologize. That was cynical. I like it when bright, productive people suggest that cynicism is lazy, unimaginative, too easy. It's definitely low-hanging fruit.
"We learned long ago in this business that dumber and more alarmist always beats complex and nuanced. Big headlines, cartoonish morality, scary criminals at home and foreign menaces abroad, they all sell. We decimated attention spans, rewarded hot-takers over thinkers, and created in audiences powerful addictions to conflict, vitriol, fear, self-righteousness, and race and gender resentment."
— Matt Taibbi, writer and journalist for Rolling Stone
"War is a monstrous failure of imagination."
— Franz Kafka
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
— Einstein
Stuff About Things #6
"Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow."
— Steve Jobs, in his final words before his death, according to his sister Mona Simpson's eulogy
"Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man."
— Tagore
"Words are events, they do things, change things. They transform both speaker and hearer; they feed energy back and forth and amplify it. They feed understanding or emotion back and forth and amplify it."
— Ursula K. Le Guin
"I don't have stage fright, I have life fright."
— comedian Ben Hoffman
From Men's Health magazine: "Practice, practice, practice. That's the message of ongoing research.... 'Students think talent is all that matters,' one study notes, 'Because they rarely see other people practice, but nearly all famous people say that practice is what led to their success.' And 'deliberate practice' is not play or performance time but rather activities designed to improve specific aspects of performance. It means working on your weaknesses, working that sweet spot at the edge of your abilities. It involves frustration, concentration, repetition, and feedback."
"Consistency on the fundamentals is the pathway to mastery."
— Robin Sharma
From Men's Health magazine: "Learn to be optimistic. Gritty people are optimistic people. When optimistic people suffer setbacks, they think of them as temporary and limited in scope. They think with just a bit more effort, they can get over the hump. Pessimists, on the other hand, attribute bad events to big, overpowering causes that have not ruined everything forever and ever. They 'catastrophize.' And whether it's entirely their fault or not, they blame themselves."
"Warning! You think about 60,000 thoughts a day. It's up to you to make sure that you don't use up 59,999 of them with negative, cynical thinking."
— internet meme
"The question is not what we can scorn, or disparage, or find fault with, but what we can love, and value, and appreciate."
— John Ruskin
"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."
— William James
"I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God."
— Abraham Lincoln
From Wikipedia: "Before he became an actor, Steve Buscemi was busy rescuing people as a New York firefighter from 1980 to 1984. The day after 9/11, he showed up at his old firehouse to volunteer, working twelve-hour shifts for a week, digging through rubble, looking for survivors, bodies, missing firefighters."
"I went to China as one of the members of the Tibetan delegation at the Congress of the People's Republic of China. The parliament in Peking was very disciplined. I noticed that all the members barely dared make a suggestion. They would make a point, but only little corrections in wording [laughs]. Nobody really discussed meaning. Then, in 1956, I had the opportunity to come to India. And here, too, I had the opportunity to visit Indian Parliament. I found big contrast. In Indian Parliament, lots of noise. No discipline. This was a clear sign of complete freedom of expression. Indian parliamentarians, they love to criticize their government. So I realized, this is the meaning of democracy - freedom of speech."
— Dalai Lama
"Whenever we face a problem, we must dialogue. That's the only way. For that, we need inner disarmament."
— Dalai Lama
From Yoga Chicago magazine: "We are called upon to cope with hiccups and hurricanes in our lives... to navigate disruptive, unwanted changes.... Occasionally we have to respond with grace under pressure to troubles and tragedies.... The way we can bounce back from everyday disappointments and extraordinary disasters is through resilience - capacities innate in the brain to respond to the inevitable twists and turns in life flexibly and adaptively. Modern neuroscience is revealing how we can harness these capacities - called neuroplasticity - to rewire our habitual patterns of response to strengthen what are called the 5 C's of coping:
1. Calm: Staying calm in a crisis
2. Clarity: Seeing clearly what's happening, your internal response to what's happening, what needs to happen next, and possibilities from different perspectives
3. Connection: Reaching out for help as needed, learning from others how to be resilient, connecting to resources that expand your options
4. Competence: Calling on skills and competencies learned from previous experiences
5. Courage: Strengthening your faith to persevere in until you come to resolution or acceptance of the difficulty
"Each departed friend is a magnet that attracts us to the next world."
— Jean Paul Richter
"As I've gotten older, I've had more of a tendency to look for people who live by kindness, tolerance, compassion, a gentler way of looking at things."
— Martin Scorsese
"If you don't get physically ill seeing your first rough cut, something's wrong."
— Martin Scorsese
From Men's Journal magazine: "Doug Peacock has barely hunted, or even fired a gun, since his days in Vietnam. He experienced enough killing there, he says, to last several lifetimes. He was 27 when he came home, racked with PTSD, back before there was a name for it. Peacock thought he was alone back then; he didn't know that every soldier experienced some version of this. Once home, he wandered the West... in solitude for weeks at a time. Now no one knows wild grizzlies better.... For nearly his entire adult life, Peacock has been out with the bears - in their country, watching and learning. "It's the one animal out there that can kill and eat you anytime it chooses to - even though it seldom does," he says. "It stands as an instant lesson in humility." Peacock's diplomatic skills are less than zero, but his feist quotient exceeds any known scale of measurement. An iconic eco-warrior and spiritual godfather of monkeywrenching, he's the author of five books.... 'Doug is a real hero to me,' says author Carl Hiaasen, a longtime fly-fishing buddy of Peacock's. "He is the complete American renegade hero — outraged, badass, and deeply, unshakably moral. I've never met anyone quite like him. We should all wage life with a purpose so pure."
"I like to be learning something... I like things that take me out of my head."
— Edward Norton, answering the question, "When are you most happy in your life?"
"Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier."
— Albert Schweitzer
"It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable."
— Moliere
"The smallest good deed is greater than the grandest intention."
— Unknown
"All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action."
— James Russell Lowell
"There's always got to be a struggle. Sure. What else is there? That's what life is made of. I don't know anything else, do you? I mean if there is, tell me about it."
— Van Morrison
— Steve Jobs, in his final words before his death, according to his sister Mona Simpson's eulogy
"Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man."
— Tagore
"Words are events, they do things, change things. They transform both speaker and hearer; they feed energy back and forth and amplify it. They feed understanding or emotion back and forth and amplify it."
— Ursula K. Le Guin
"I don't have stage fright, I have life fright."
— comedian Ben Hoffman
From Men's Health magazine: "Practice, practice, practice. That's the message of ongoing research.... 'Students think talent is all that matters,' one study notes, 'Because they rarely see other people practice, but nearly all famous people say that practice is what led to their success.' And 'deliberate practice' is not play or performance time but rather activities designed to improve specific aspects of performance. It means working on your weaknesses, working that sweet spot at the edge of your abilities. It involves frustration, concentration, repetition, and feedback."
"Consistency on the fundamentals is the pathway to mastery."
— Robin Sharma
From Men's Health magazine: "Learn to be optimistic. Gritty people are optimistic people. When optimistic people suffer setbacks, they think of them as temporary and limited in scope. They think with just a bit more effort, they can get over the hump. Pessimists, on the other hand, attribute bad events to big, overpowering causes that have not ruined everything forever and ever. They 'catastrophize.' And whether it's entirely their fault or not, they blame themselves."
"Warning! You think about 60,000 thoughts a day. It's up to you to make sure that you don't use up 59,999 of them with negative, cynical thinking."
— internet meme
"The question is not what we can scorn, or disparage, or find fault with, but what we can love, and value, and appreciate."
— John Ruskin
"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."
— William James
"I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God."
— Abraham Lincoln
From Wikipedia: "Before he became an actor, Steve Buscemi was busy rescuing people as a New York firefighter from 1980 to 1984. The day after 9/11, he showed up at his old firehouse to volunteer, working twelve-hour shifts for a week, digging through rubble, looking for survivors, bodies, missing firefighters."
"I went to China as one of the members of the Tibetan delegation at the Congress of the People's Republic of China. The parliament in Peking was very disciplined. I noticed that all the members barely dared make a suggestion. They would make a point, but only little corrections in wording [laughs]. Nobody really discussed meaning. Then, in 1956, I had the opportunity to come to India. And here, too, I had the opportunity to visit Indian Parliament. I found big contrast. In Indian Parliament, lots of noise. No discipline. This was a clear sign of complete freedom of expression. Indian parliamentarians, they love to criticize their government. So I realized, this is the meaning of democracy - freedom of speech."
— Dalai Lama
"Whenever we face a problem, we must dialogue. That's the only way. For that, we need inner disarmament."
— Dalai Lama
From Yoga Chicago magazine: "We are called upon to cope with hiccups and hurricanes in our lives... to navigate disruptive, unwanted changes.... Occasionally we have to respond with grace under pressure to troubles and tragedies.... The way we can bounce back from everyday disappointments and extraordinary disasters is through resilience - capacities innate in the brain to respond to the inevitable twists and turns in life flexibly and adaptively. Modern neuroscience is revealing how we can harness these capacities - called neuroplasticity - to rewire our habitual patterns of response to strengthen what are called the 5 C's of coping:
1. Calm: Staying calm in a crisis
2. Clarity: Seeing clearly what's happening, your internal response to what's happening, what needs to happen next, and possibilities from different perspectives
3. Connection: Reaching out for help as needed, learning from others how to be resilient, connecting to resources that expand your options
4. Competence: Calling on skills and competencies learned from previous experiences
5. Courage: Strengthening your faith to persevere in until you come to resolution or acceptance of the difficulty
"Each departed friend is a magnet that attracts us to the next world."
— Jean Paul Richter
"As I've gotten older, I've had more of a tendency to look for people who live by kindness, tolerance, compassion, a gentler way of looking at things."
— Martin Scorsese
"If you don't get physically ill seeing your first rough cut, something's wrong."
— Martin Scorsese
From Men's Journal magazine: "Doug Peacock has barely hunted, or even fired a gun, since his days in Vietnam. He experienced enough killing there, he says, to last several lifetimes. He was 27 when he came home, racked with PTSD, back before there was a name for it. Peacock thought he was alone back then; he didn't know that every soldier experienced some version of this. Once home, he wandered the West... in solitude for weeks at a time. Now no one knows wild grizzlies better.... For nearly his entire adult life, Peacock has been out with the bears - in their country, watching and learning. "It's the one animal out there that can kill and eat you anytime it chooses to - even though it seldom does," he says. "It stands as an instant lesson in humility." Peacock's diplomatic skills are less than zero, but his feist quotient exceeds any known scale of measurement. An iconic eco-warrior and spiritual godfather of monkeywrenching, he's the author of five books.... 'Doug is a real hero to me,' says author Carl Hiaasen, a longtime fly-fishing buddy of Peacock's. "He is the complete American renegade hero — outraged, badass, and deeply, unshakably moral. I've never met anyone quite like him. We should all wage life with a purpose so pure."
"I like to be learning something... I like things that take me out of my head."
— Edward Norton, answering the question, "When are you most happy in your life?"
"Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier."
— Albert Schweitzer
"It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable."
— Moliere
"The smallest good deed is greater than the grandest intention."
— Unknown
"All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action."
— James Russell Lowell
"There's always got to be a struggle. Sure. What else is there? That's what life is made of. I don't know anything else, do you? I mean if there is, tell me about it."
— Van Morrison
Thursday, October 5, 2017
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Stuff About Things #5
"One of the guards who looked after my grandfather told me how he smuggled me in when I was eight months old, so my grandfather could hug and kiss me."
— Nelson Mandela's granddaughter
"That's a big part of humor: the courage to constantly test out new material to see what works."
— Kevin Hart
There are two rules on the spiritual path:
1. Begin
2. Continue
"I don't have a life, really. I take my kids to school, and I go home, and I write. Then I go pick my kids up, make them dinner, put them to bed, and write some more.... I was reading Jack London and becoming obsessed with the idea of ancestry, thinking a lot about what I was passing on to my kids. I grew up Catholic, and I was thinking about this baby coming into the world that was going to be clean, you know, and I just wanted him to be able to make his own choices. I didn't want him to have my sins. The sins of the father, basically.... Right now, I think I have time to be three things, in no particular order: a father, a husband, and a filmmaker. That's why I don't go out – I have no space for it. I feel like one of those main things would suffer. For what? For drinking? I'm not interested."
— Derek Cianfrance, director, screenwriter, filmmaker
"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."
— Thomas Jefferson
"Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential."
— Winston Churchill
"A new generation is growing up in our midst, a generation actuated by new ideas and new principles. It is serious and enthusiastic for these new ideas and its enthusiasm, even when it is misdirected, is, I believe, in the main sincere. But we are living in a skeptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age: and sometimes I fear that this new generation, educated or hyper-educated as it is, will lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humor which belonged to the older day."
— James Joyce, The Dead, from Dubliners, his 1914 collection of short stories
"What gives light must endure burning."
— Viktor Frankl
"There is no security in life, only opportunity."
— Douglas MacArthur
"Our idea of what is indispensable to human existence and enjoyment had been wonderfully curtailed. A horse, a rifle, and a knife – together with the skill to use them – seemed to make up the whole of life's necessities.... One other lesson our short prairie experience taught us was profound contentment in the present.... Men whose home is in the wilderness, and who love the campfire better than the hearth, they are content and happy in the midst of hardship, privation, and danger. Their cheerfulness is irrepressible, and no people on earth understand better how to make sport of the world.... No one can deny the intrepid bravery of these men, their intelligence and the bold frankness of their character, free from all that is mean and sordid. Yet for the moment the extreme roughness of their manners half inclines one to forget their heroic qualities. Most of them seem without the least perception of delicacy or propriety, though among them individuals may be found in whose manners there is plain courtesy, while their features bespeak a noble spirit equal to any enterprise."
— Francis Parkman, The Oregon Trail, 1849
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
— Pablo Picasso
"I don't do drugs. I am drugs."
— Salvador Dali
"Great minds ask great questions."
— Michael Gelb
"Mountaintops inspire leaders but valleys mature them."
— Winston Churchill
"To govern is to serve, not to rule."
— Seneca
"The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one."
— Albert Einstein
"It is always your next move."
— Napoleon Hill
From Men's Journal magazine in 2012 (I am partial to Motorola): "The patent wars have ramped up with Motorola, Google, Apple, and Microsoft battling for giant patent portfolios that will allow them to compete with as little financial and technological friction as possible, virtually blotting out smaller innovators."
From Men's Journal magazine: "There's something to be said about keeping certain childhood enthusiasms alive.... Stay in touch with your younger self."
"Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans."
— John Lennon
"All we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about."
— Charles Kingsley
"Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. (Don't let either be broken.)
— Kahlil Gibran
"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
— Jesus
"The positive effect of kindness on the immune system and on the increased production of serotonin has been proven in research studies. Serotonin is a naturally occurring substance in the body that makes us feel comfortable and peaceful. In fact, the role of most anti-depressants is to stimulate the production of serotonin chemically. Research has shown that a simple act of kindness directed toward another improves the functioning of the immune system and stimulates the production of serotonin in both the recipient and the person extending the kindness. Even more amazing is that people observing the act of kindness have similar beneficial results. Imagine this! Kindness extended, received, or observed beneficially impacts the physical health and feelings of everyone involved!"
— Wayne Dyer
"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible."
— Dalai Lama
— Nelson Mandela's granddaughter
"That's a big part of humor: the courage to constantly test out new material to see what works."
— Kevin Hart
There are two rules on the spiritual path:
1. Begin
2. Continue
"I don't have a life, really. I take my kids to school, and I go home, and I write. Then I go pick my kids up, make them dinner, put them to bed, and write some more.... I was reading Jack London and becoming obsessed with the idea of ancestry, thinking a lot about what I was passing on to my kids. I grew up Catholic, and I was thinking about this baby coming into the world that was going to be clean, you know, and I just wanted him to be able to make his own choices. I didn't want him to have my sins. The sins of the father, basically.... Right now, I think I have time to be three things, in no particular order: a father, a husband, and a filmmaker. That's why I don't go out – I have no space for it. I feel like one of those main things would suffer. For what? For drinking? I'm not interested."
— Derek Cianfrance, director, screenwriter, filmmaker
"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."
— Thomas Jefferson
"Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential."
— Winston Churchill
"A new generation is growing up in our midst, a generation actuated by new ideas and new principles. It is serious and enthusiastic for these new ideas and its enthusiasm, even when it is misdirected, is, I believe, in the main sincere. But we are living in a skeptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age: and sometimes I fear that this new generation, educated or hyper-educated as it is, will lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humor which belonged to the older day."
— James Joyce, The Dead, from Dubliners, his 1914 collection of short stories
"What gives light must endure burning."
— Viktor Frankl
"There is no security in life, only opportunity."
— Douglas MacArthur
"Our idea of what is indispensable to human existence and enjoyment had been wonderfully curtailed. A horse, a rifle, and a knife – together with the skill to use them – seemed to make up the whole of life's necessities.... One other lesson our short prairie experience taught us was profound contentment in the present.... Men whose home is in the wilderness, and who love the campfire better than the hearth, they are content and happy in the midst of hardship, privation, and danger. Their cheerfulness is irrepressible, and no people on earth understand better how to make sport of the world.... No one can deny the intrepid bravery of these men, their intelligence and the bold frankness of their character, free from all that is mean and sordid. Yet for the moment the extreme roughness of their manners half inclines one to forget their heroic qualities. Most of them seem without the least perception of delicacy or propriety, though among them individuals may be found in whose manners there is plain courtesy, while their features bespeak a noble spirit equal to any enterprise."
— Francis Parkman, The Oregon Trail, 1849
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
— Pablo Picasso
"I don't do drugs. I am drugs."
— Salvador Dali
"Great minds ask great questions."
— Michael Gelb
"Mountaintops inspire leaders but valleys mature them."
— Winston Churchill
"To govern is to serve, not to rule."
— Seneca
"The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one."
— Albert Einstein
"It is always your next move."
— Napoleon Hill
From Men's Journal magazine in 2012 (I am partial to Motorola): "The patent wars have ramped up with Motorola, Google, Apple, and Microsoft battling for giant patent portfolios that will allow them to compete with as little financial and technological friction as possible, virtually blotting out smaller innovators."
From Men's Journal magazine: "There's something to be said about keeping certain childhood enthusiasms alive.... Stay in touch with your younger self."
"Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans."
— John Lennon
"All we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about."
— Charles Kingsley
"Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. (Don't let either be broken.)
— Kahlil Gibran
"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
— Jesus
"The positive effect of kindness on the immune system and on the increased production of serotonin has been proven in research studies. Serotonin is a naturally occurring substance in the body that makes us feel comfortable and peaceful. In fact, the role of most anti-depressants is to stimulate the production of serotonin chemically. Research has shown that a simple act of kindness directed toward another improves the functioning of the immune system and stimulates the production of serotonin in both the recipient and the person extending the kindness. Even more amazing is that people observing the act of kindness have similar beneficial results. Imagine this! Kindness extended, received, or observed beneficially impacts the physical health and feelings of everyone involved!"
— Wayne Dyer
"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible."
— Dalai Lama
Friday, September 29, 2017
#376
I riffled through a newspaper yesterday, an abandoned Chicago Sun-Times on my commuter train. I read about the Bears. They suck. I read about the Cubs. They don't suck. It's been ages since I read a flimsy, flappy, newsprint daily paper. I wonder if M 'n' m have ever read a newspaper. Will 'the paper' even exist when M 'n' m are my age, with a date like 2040 on the masthead? Nope. It's headed the way of cassettes, hitchhiking, dinosaurs, leather football helmets... you know, things we don't see anymore (except in movies and museums). Answering machines, film photography, pagers, payphones, phonebooks, paper maps, paper dictionaries, paper encyclopedias... things involving paper are really on the existential brink. Technology: it giveth and it taketh away. Maybe we'll get some forests back, some hunting habitat, thanks to tech. My grandma used to play with paper dolls. Now there's an app for that.
Population growth feels like a very un-PC thing to talk about, but as I consider the pros and cons of technology growth, I can't help but puzzle over a burgeoning world population. We add another billion people to the planet in ever-shrinking intervals. It used to take centuries, now it takes a decade. We've hit the knee in the curve. What does this mean for M 'n' m?
Speaking of forests and hunting habitat, I'm lucky to be a part of a group I'll call my hunting buddies. They are good husbands, fathers, men. I'm the least remarkable and experienced among them – as a human being I mean, not just a hunter – and for this I'm thrilled and grateful. Hopefully I've told M 'n' m, "If you find yourself in a group or place where you're the least incredible, this is a good thing." And apropos of what I do here is the fact I wouldn't know any of these guys without my dad ('what I do here,' by the way, I think, is scribble about fatherhood and other things I find elusive in terms of clarity, explicability, order, logic). So these dudes are impressive and so is the breadth and depth of the topics they interpret and debate. They are profound, precise, and fucking funny too, which is essential, let's face it. I toss in my two cents – generally lousy on perspective, accuracy, and real insight – because it's my nature not to be silent among friends around a pickup truck or a campfire. Politics, parenting, history, sports, relationships, guns, conservation... it's all covered (in person when we're together once a year, and over email otherwise). Recently, somebody kicked up a discussion about religious fundamentalists and the sacred texts they believe grant them authority and superiority. Of course, the Bible was mentioned, as was the Koran. I have read bits of the Dhammapada, the Bhagavad Gita, and other religious writings, also. But my position on the OT – the Old Testament – is the one, due to personal religious practice and familiarity, I find myself examining the most. To me, it's a broad set of books, espousing the whole spectrum of human and divine behavior, good and not so good. In my own heart and mind, I can't reconcile the combination of the OT and the NT (New Testament). The OT gives the NT some context, but I find few parallels in terms of direction and tone. I love the primary figure in the NT, and I feel his example and message run contrary to much of the rules, wrath, and retribution in the OT. (Have I lost ya? "Never talk religion or politics.") I only mention this as one example of the material we plow into as a group of friends and hunters; we go anywhere and everywhere in discussion and it's awesome. I learn. Our spouses, partners, families, and best friends are in our lives too, of course, to examine and dissect the world in conversation, but I think I'll tell M 'n' m: "Get some good hunting buddies while you're at it."
Population growth feels like a very un-PC thing to talk about, but as I consider the pros and cons of technology growth, I can't help but puzzle over a burgeoning world population. We add another billion people to the planet in ever-shrinking intervals. It used to take centuries, now it takes a decade. We've hit the knee in the curve. What does this mean for M 'n' m?
Speaking of forests and hunting habitat, I'm lucky to be a part of a group I'll call my hunting buddies. They are good husbands, fathers, men. I'm the least remarkable and experienced among them – as a human being I mean, not just a hunter – and for this I'm thrilled and grateful. Hopefully I've told M 'n' m, "If you find yourself in a group or place where you're the least incredible, this is a good thing." And apropos of what I do here is the fact I wouldn't know any of these guys without my dad ('what I do here,' by the way, I think, is scribble about fatherhood and other things I find elusive in terms of clarity, explicability, order, logic). So these dudes are impressive and so is the breadth and depth of the topics they interpret and debate. They are profound, precise, and fucking funny too, which is essential, let's face it. I toss in my two cents – generally lousy on perspective, accuracy, and real insight – because it's my nature not to be silent among friends around a pickup truck or a campfire. Politics, parenting, history, sports, relationships, guns, conservation... it's all covered (in person when we're together once a year, and over email otherwise). Recently, somebody kicked up a discussion about religious fundamentalists and the sacred texts they believe grant them authority and superiority. Of course, the Bible was mentioned, as was the Koran. I have read bits of the Dhammapada, the Bhagavad Gita, and other religious writings, also. But my position on the OT – the Old Testament – is the one, due to personal religious practice and familiarity, I find myself examining the most. To me, it's a broad set of books, espousing the whole spectrum of human and divine behavior, good and not so good. In my own heart and mind, I can't reconcile the combination of the OT and the NT (New Testament). The OT gives the NT some context, but I find few parallels in terms of direction and tone. I love the primary figure in the NT, and I feel his example and message run contrary to much of the rules, wrath, and retribution in the OT. (Have I lost ya? "Never talk religion or politics.") I only mention this as one example of the material we plow into as a group of friends and hunters; we go anywhere and everywhere in discussion and it's awesome. I learn. Our spouses, partners, families, and best friends are in our lives too, of course, to examine and dissect the world in conversation, but I think I'll tell M 'n' m: "Get some good hunting buddies while you're at it."
Monday, September 25, 2017
#375
I think storytelling is important. I guess I'm not the only one. We have Barnes & Noble, public libraries, movie theaters, a thousand TV channels, and much more. We have YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram. We have the Kindle app (but I still prefer books with paper pages).
Michael is over a month into high school. So far, so good. It's challenging, demanding, tiring but I haven't noticed any kind of crushing of the spirit. On the contrary; Michael seems upbeat. That was overly dramatic – the phrase 'crushing of the spirit' I mean – but peer pressure and serious mischief and bullying and bullshit like that can cause big problems. My firstborn is a full-on high-schooler now; it seems appropriate to be vigilant and observant. If I am only mildly naive and clueless, that would be swell. We'll see. Looking at my own experience isn't helpful; I was hazed more in junior high – by certain classmates – than in high school. And I was hazed again in college, but predictably so, by fraternity brothers. In all cases, thankfully, it was never anything serious; I would even call it invigorating and healthy (in my personal journey) and useful in toughening me up. In junior high there was periodic antagonism between factions we might've labeled 'preppies' and 'skaters.' I've joked here about wearing turtlenecks under sweaters and rugby shirts and spraying Polo cologne like I was putting out a forest fire. That should make it clear which army I was in. But the card-carrying, standard-bearing dudes on the other side tried just as hard as we did, to project an image, to be cool and expressive; they paid attention to detail also, rolling jeans and sculpting hair, and looking back I'd say they 'won' if victory can be measured by courageousness and originality. All of this reminds me of something I read in Esquire magazine from Lyle Lovett: "The idea that we humans are good-natured, politically correct, nonjudgmental beings is pure fantasy. We are, at the very least, judgmental. My lessons in how to dress came from classmates in parochial school. The time-honored, behavior-modifying method of ridiculing and instilling a sense of shame were not spared at Trinity Lutheran School in Klein, Texas. "A sweater?" a boy said in a loud voice in front of the whole class as I walked into my classroom on an early October day and heard everyone laughing. In my defense, my desk was by an always-open window, and it was getting cooler, and it was a new sweater I was eager to wear – an off-white cable-knit V-neck. I loved that sweater. I didn't wear it again until it was freezing, three months later. In my early 20s, Searcy Bond, who owned a hamburger joint I used to play at on Sunday nights, once asked me if I'd lost a bet. I asked him what he meant and he pointed at my shirt and suggested I'd been forced to wear it as payment for a wager gone wrong. Why would anyone wear a shirt like that if they didn't have to was his implication. But that's how you learn. Ridicule and shame don't get much of a chance in these sensitive times, which makes learning about how to dress that much more difficult. Fashion is communication, plain and simple. I don't mean to sound as though I'm telling you something you don't already know, because any self-respecting man with even a little common sense knows exactly what he's saying and to whom he's saying it as he gets dressed in the morning. We all wear uniforms of sorts that allow us to be accepted. There's no shame in that. That we have the gumption to clean up and, as we stare into our closet, care about how we'll look shows we're trying to put our best foot forward."
For the record, Michael dresses very casually (as in sweats and T-shirts mostly); I'm not sure what foot he's putting forward, or what look he's going for, or from which group he's seeking acceptance. I wouldn't consider him a sartorial standout. He's focused on other things. I know he has gumption. I know he cares about how he looks. Sometimes. But none of that matters to me as much as my sense that he's upbeat; it's hard work but my impression is he likes high school. So far.
Michael is over a month into high school. So far, so good. It's challenging, demanding, tiring but I haven't noticed any kind of crushing of the spirit. On the contrary; Michael seems upbeat. That was overly dramatic – the phrase 'crushing of the spirit' I mean – but peer pressure and serious mischief and bullying and bullshit like that can cause big problems. My firstborn is a full-on high-schooler now; it seems appropriate to be vigilant and observant. If I am only mildly naive and clueless, that would be swell. We'll see. Looking at my own experience isn't helpful; I was hazed more in junior high – by certain classmates – than in high school. And I was hazed again in college, but predictably so, by fraternity brothers. In all cases, thankfully, it was never anything serious; I would even call it invigorating and healthy (in my personal journey) and useful in toughening me up. In junior high there was periodic antagonism between factions we might've labeled 'preppies' and 'skaters.' I've joked here about wearing turtlenecks under sweaters and rugby shirts and spraying Polo cologne like I was putting out a forest fire. That should make it clear which army I was in. But the card-carrying, standard-bearing dudes on the other side tried just as hard as we did, to project an image, to be cool and expressive; they paid attention to detail also, rolling jeans and sculpting hair, and looking back I'd say they 'won' if victory can be measured by courageousness and originality. All of this reminds me of something I read in Esquire magazine from Lyle Lovett: "The idea that we humans are good-natured, politically correct, nonjudgmental beings is pure fantasy. We are, at the very least, judgmental. My lessons in how to dress came from classmates in parochial school. The time-honored, behavior-modifying method of ridiculing and instilling a sense of shame were not spared at Trinity Lutheran School in Klein, Texas. "A sweater?" a boy said in a loud voice in front of the whole class as I walked into my classroom on an early October day and heard everyone laughing. In my defense, my desk was by an always-open window, and it was getting cooler, and it was a new sweater I was eager to wear – an off-white cable-knit V-neck. I loved that sweater. I didn't wear it again until it was freezing, three months later. In my early 20s, Searcy Bond, who owned a hamburger joint I used to play at on Sunday nights, once asked me if I'd lost a bet. I asked him what he meant and he pointed at my shirt and suggested I'd been forced to wear it as payment for a wager gone wrong. Why would anyone wear a shirt like that if they didn't have to was his implication. But that's how you learn. Ridicule and shame don't get much of a chance in these sensitive times, which makes learning about how to dress that much more difficult. Fashion is communication, plain and simple. I don't mean to sound as though I'm telling you something you don't already know, because any self-respecting man with even a little common sense knows exactly what he's saying and to whom he's saying it as he gets dressed in the morning. We all wear uniforms of sorts that allow us to be accepted. There's no shame in that. That we have the gumption to clean up and, as we stare into our closet, care about how we'll look shows we're trying to put our best foot forward."
For the record, Michael dresses very casually (as in sweats and T-shirts mostly); I'm not sure what foot he's putting forward, or what look he's going for, or from which group he's seeking acceptance. I wouldn't consider him a sartorial standout. He's focused on other things. I know he has gumption. I know he cares about how he looks. Sometimes. But none of that matters to me as much as my sense that he's upbeat; it's hard work but my impression is he likes high school. So far.
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
#374
Sounds like homecoming went well. Lots of dancing. Grandpa Mike cut right to the chase, "Was there any slow dancing?" Michael said no, it was all hip-hop and jumping around, getting sweaty and thirsty. The lines to get water were really long, he said. Lines to get water? WHO CARES? I'm kidding. Sort of. At least he didn't give a one-word answer. But it seems strange; don't they promote at least some pairing-off, close-contact, partner dancing? You know, something that forces a bit of intimacy. Although, it's 2017; maybe that IS how they pair off and close-dance at high schools now? I know that's the scene at clubs in the city. Or it was. 15 years ago. Damn, I'm 15 years removed from 'clubs in the city' and 25 from 'dancing at high schools.' When did I get so out-of-touch? This calls for further investigation. Only because I'm out-of-touch.
Michael is playing soccer and getting better every game. It's fun to watch. On Sunday, he drove in the winning run in his fall baseball game. His cello concert was terrific, although he said they didn't sound good. I disagree. Although I like Grunge too. Michael has a refined ear. He likes blues, jazz (and hip-hop, apparently). I'm just happy he's involved and busy, playing, trying, competing; there's no better time in life than high school to do so many things. He has friends that play soccer and then rush to marching band practice and then, presumably, tackle their homework for an hour or two before bed. That's a long day. But they love it. And they get good grades. It's possible. It's awesome. I hope M 'n' m encourage their kids to be busy like they are. Megan has basketball tryouts this weekend. And she's rockin' the cello too. Just like her favorite person on the planet. Michael is far from lovey-dovey super-nice to his little sister. But he sets a good example and I'm grateful. My older sister Jenny set a great example for me – the best – and I'm grateful for that too. And my friends were busy with sports and activities and we pushed each other. How many times can I say I'm grateful?
The Cubs magic number is 11. I love that number. It's lucky. But I hope it goes to zero quickly.
Something I've wanted to document here for awhile: I fear I've shortchanged M 'n' m by not exposing them to a certain time-honored tradition.... I know my parents experienced it with their parents, as did Aunt Jenny and I with ours. Movies are made about it; think Chevy Chase and Wally World. I'm referring, of course, to the 'tradition' of the family driving vacation. M 'n' m have flown to Florida and Texas a few times. Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Wisconsin, Missouri, Michigan. They've been on a Caribbean cruise. But they have not – like I was as kid – been driven to Washington DC, Boston, Gettysburg, Niagara Falls, the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, and – my favorite – Deadwood. So much impressionable history. The Freedom Trail, the Salem Witch Trials, Ford's Theater, Mount Vernon, the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, you name it. We even went to the baseball, basketball, and football Halls of Fame. But back to my favorite, from Robert M. Wright's book Dodge City, The Cowboy Capital:
"I also insist that Dodge City was not the worst place on earth and at last I have heard of a town which was equal to, if not worse than Dodge City, and, by way of comparison, I here quote a graphic picture taken from the Virginia City Chronicle, published in the '70's, of another bad town: 'There are saloons all over the place, and whisky four bits a drink. They put two barrels upon end, nail a board across for a bar and deal out. A miner who wants to treat pours some gold dust on the barrel head and says, "Set 'em up!" They never weigh the dust. Sometimes a man won't put down enough dust, but they never say a word, and if he's a little drunk and puts up ten or fifteen dollars' worth they never mention it. They have three faro banks running all the time. They don't use checks, for the boys, when they won a pile of checks they threw them all over the place and some of them were too drunk to handle them. So the checks got played out. Now a man puts a little gold dust on a dollar greenback. Two dollars worth of dust on a ten-dollar greenback goes for twenty dollars, and so on – don't weigh the dust at all but guess the amount. We have a daily newspaper – that is, sometimes it's daily, and then when the compositors get drunk it doesn't come out for several days. If a man wants gun wadding he goes and pays four bits for a newspaper. Whenever they start a new city government they print a lot of city ordinances, then there's a grand rush for the paper. Sometimes it comes out twice a week and sometimes twice a day. Every man in Deadwood carries about fourteen pounds of firearms hitched to his belt, and they never pass any words. The fellow that gets his gun out first is the best man and they lug off the other fellow's body. Our graveyard is a big institution and a growing one. Sometimes, however, the place is right quiet. I've known times when a man wasn't killed for twenty-four hours. Then again they'd lay out five or six a day. When a man gets too handy with his shooting irons and kills five or six, they think he isn't safe, and somebody pops him over to rid the place of him. They don't kill him for what he has done, but for what he's liable to do. I suppose that the average deaths amount to about one hundred a month.'"
Michael is playing soccer and getting better every game. It's fun to watch. On Sunday, he drove in the winning run in his fall baseball game. His cello concert was terrific, although he said they didn't sound good. I disagree. Although I like Grunge too. Michael has a refined ear. He likes blues, jazz (and hip-hop, apparently). I'm just happy he's involved and busy, playing, trying, competing; there's no better time in life than high school to do so many things. He has friends that play soccer and then rush to marching band practice and then, presumably, tackle their homework for an hour or two before bed. That's a long day. But they love it. And they get good grades. It's possible. It's awesome. I hope M 'n' m encourage their kids to be busy like they are. Megan has basketball tryouts this weekend. And she's rockin' the cello too. Just like her favorite person on the planet. Michael is far from lovey-dovey super-nice to his little sister. But he sets a good example and I'm grateful. My older sister Jenny set a great example for me – the best – and I'm grateful for that too. And my friends were busy with sports and activities and we pushed each other. How many times can I say I'm grateful?
The Cubs magic number is 11. I love that number. It's lucky. But I hope it goes to zero quickly.
Something I've wanted to document here for awhile: I fear I've shortchanged M 'n' m by not exposing them to a certain time-honored tradition.... I know my parents experienced it with their parents, as did Aunt Jenny and I with ours. Movies are made about it; think Chevy Chase and Wally World. I'm referring, of course, to the 'tradition' of the family driving vacation. M 'n' m have flown to Florida and Texas a few times. Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Wisconsin, Missouri, Michigan. They've been on a Caribbean cruise. But they have not – like I was as kid – been driven to Washington DC, Boston, Gettysburg, Niagara Falls, the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, and – my favorite – Deadwood. So much impressionable history. The Freedom Trail, the Salem Witch Trials, Ford's Theater, Mount Vernon, the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, you name it. We even went to the baseball, basketball, and football Halls of Fame. But back to my favorite, from Robert M. Wright's book Dodge City, The Cowboy Capital:
"I also insist that Dodge City was not the worst place on earth and at last I have heard of a town which was equal to, if not worse than Dodge City, and, by way of comparison, I here quote a graphic picture taken from the Virginia City Chronicle, published in the '70's, of another bad town: 'There are saloons all over the place, and whisky four bits a drink. They put two barrels upon end, nail a board across for a bar and deal out. A miner who wants to treat pours some gold dust on the barrel head and says, "Set 'em up!" They never weigh the dust. Sometimes a man won't put down enough dust, but they never say a word, and if he's a little drunk and puts up ten or fifteen dollars' worth they never mention it. They have three faro banks running all the time. They don't use checks, for the boys, when they won a pile of checks they threw them all over the place and some of them were too drunk to handle them. So the checks got played out. Now a man puts a little gold dust on a dollar greenback. Two dollars worth of dust on a ten-dollar greenback goes for twenty dollars, and so on – don't weigh the dust at all but guess the amount. We have a daily newspaper – that is, sometimes it's daily, and then when the compositors get drunk it doesn't come out for several days. If a man wants gun wadding he goes and pays four bits for a newspaper. Whenever they start a new city government they print a lot of city ordinances, then there's a grand rush for the paper. Sometimes it comes out twice a week and sometimes twice a day. Every man in Deadwood carries about fourteen pounds of firearms hitched to his belt, and they never pass any words. The fellow that gets his gun out first is the best man and they lug off the other fellow's body. Our graveyard is a big institution and a growing one. Sometimes, however, the place is right quiet. I've known times when a man wasn't killed for twenty-four hours. Then again they'd lay out five or six a day. When a man gets too handy with his shooting irons and kills five or six, they think he isn't safe, and somebody pops him over to rid the place of him. They don't kill him for what he has done, but for what he's liable to do. I suppose that the average deaths amount to about one hundred a month.'"
Monday, September 18, 2017
Stuff About Things #4
"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone."
— Tyrion Lannister
"Children always understand. They have open minds. They have built-in shit detectors."
— Madonna
"Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them."
— James Baldwin
"If you're offended easily... you're a bad resource allocator; it's a bad use of finite resources, which include your energy and the hours you're on this planet."
— Tim Ferriss
"I came along toward the tail end of a grand old tradition of manly self-destructiveness in American writing—Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, O'Neill, Cheever, Carver, Tennessee Williams. And then of course there was Dylan Thomas, the Welshman. So when I determined at the age of 18 to become a writer, I accepted my obligation to smoke many packs of cigarettes a day and learn how to drink gin and whiskey in goodly amounts, and to shun exercise done for the sake of exercise. No running. Writers were not runners. It was too awkward to run and smoke at the same time. We sat, brooding, and lit up and refilled the glass. I was a healthy young man who enjoyed tennis and softball and basketball, but I made the leap from beer to bourbon, skipped the low-tar smokes in favor of Luckies, Camels, Pall Malls, and, when feeling flush, Gauloises. I drank a gallon of coffee a day, all because that's what writers did.... I was an English major at the University of Minnesota and I was very shy, which many people misinterpreted as intelligence. On the basis of that wrong impression I became the editor of the campus literary magazine. I hiked around campus... with a pack of smokes in my pocket. If you hadn't anything to say but wanted to appear thoughtful, you reached for the pack and shook a cigarette out.... Back then, a pack cost 35 cents and a drink was a dollar.... (Mr. Tate) chain-smoked in class, so we did too. The whole English department reeked of smoke and was proudly alcoholic—anyone who didn't do both was considered an interloper, possibly a Mormon. In Mr. Wright's humanities class, he stood at a lectern with an empty tuna fish can for an ashtray and chain-smoked through his lectures on Dickens and Whitman and Dickinson, which he delivered through a haze of hangover."
— Garrison Keillor
"You learn more from getting your butt kicked than from getting it kissed."
— Tom Hanks
"Over time, talent and hard work become indistinguishable."
— Gerard Butler
"When there's a hill to climb, waiting won't make it any smaller."
— anonymous
From Pacific Standard magazine: "As people learn to see their thoughts and symptoms as separate from themselves, there is an uncoupling of the pain stimulus from their emotional responses.... Everyone wrestles with unruly minds and emotions.... Improving impulse control contributes to an overall sense of psychological well-being.... Social psychologists have found that most people are happier and less anxious from their mid-50s onward."
"Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness."
— Edward Stanley
"Happiness, like so many things, is a choice. So many people don't choose it."
— Ryan Reynolds
"Sometimes people confuse nonaction with weakness, but letting anger hook you is true weakness."
— Alex von Bidder
From Men's Health magazine's "What Winners Know" lists: "Your retirement account isn't just in dollars and cents. It's in skills, interests, and relationships." ... "The bigger the group, the less interesting the ideas it will generate." ... "You often have to fight hardest for the ideas that make the most sense."
"My son James smiled and said, 'So they died of old age, then.' I smiled back and stared off into the woods. That had been my own prayer back in Vietnam. Dear Lord, let me die of old age. And let me die before my children do. Amen."
— Anthony Doer
"If you can't pray sincerely, offer your dry, hypocritical prayer, for God in his mercy accepts bad coin."
— Rumi
"I usually start out in a totally rote sort of way. But if I stick with it, there is a moment when I become intensely present in the prayer. It feels like plugging an electric cord into a socket. I can feel the energy change. There is total connectivity."
— Sally Kempton, Yoga Journal
"Just as smiling actually makes you more happy, doing manly things makes you more manly. And manliness is self-perpetuating, because every time you push yourself to try something difficult, you become less afraid of everything else."
— Joel Stein
From Pacific Standard magazine: "The cathartic benefits of reaching out for help are hardly a secret. As scientists have come to better understand the brain, they have documented the potentially catastrophic consequences for individuals, particularly men, who go it alone when confronted by profound emotional challenges."
"Ask the great athlete or the concert pianist of the successful actor if they arrive at the place where they need no further practice. They will tell you that the higher you climb in proficiency and public acceptance, the greater the need for practice."
— Eric Butterworth
"Let food be your medicine."
— Hippocrates
"Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity..."
— Leonardo da Vinci
"It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants."
— Henry David Thoreau
"The constant question you should be asking yourself is, 'Will this make me stronger?'"
— Steven Lamm, MD
"I have always loved the quote from John F. Kennedy: 'When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.' Looking back on my life, I can see that I have never had a crisis that didn't make me stronger. And here was all that I loved before me (on Everest): great risk, but also great opportunity."
— Bear Grylls, Mud, Sweat, and Tears
"While it is hard enough to inoculate the integrity of the word 'friend' against today's epidemic of misuse and overuse, it can be even harder to calibrate our expectations of those who have earned the benediction of the title - the chosen few we have admitted into the innermost chambers of the heart and entrusted with going that hard way with us. 'Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship,' Seneca counseled in contemplating true and false friendship, 'but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul.' Two millennia later, the question of whom to welcome and to what extent remains one of the most delicate discernments with which life tasks us."
— Maria Popova, brainpickings.org, I really hope M 'n' m have great friends, now and always; it enriches life and we're learning it also lengthens life (see all the studies linking longevity not with exercise or diet or bad-habit-cessation, but with an active, healthy social life)
— Tyrion Lannister
"Children always understand. They have open minds. They have built-in shit detectors."
— Madonna
"Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them."
— James Baldwin
"If you're offended easily... you're a bad resource allocator; it's a bad use of finite resources, which include your energy and the hours you're on this planet."
— Tim Ferriss
"I came along toward the tail end of a grand old tradition of manly self-destructiveness in American writing—Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, O'Neill, Cheever, Carver, Tennessee Williams. And then of course there was Dylan Thomas, the Welshman. So when I determined at the age of 18 to become a writer, I accepted my obligation to smoke many packs of cigarettes a day and learn how to drink gin and whiskey in goodly amounts, and to shun exercise done for the sake of exercise. No running. Writers were not runners. It was too awkward to run and smoke at the same time. We sat, brooding, and lit up and refilled the glass. I was a healthy young man who enjoyed tennis and softball and basketball, but I made the leap from beer to bourbon, skipped the low-tar smokes in favor of Luckies, Camels, Pall Malls, and, when feeling flush, Gauloises. I drank a gallon of coffee a day, all because that's what writers did.... I was an English major at the University of Minnesota and I was very shy, which many people misinterpreted as intelligence. On the basis of that wrong impression I became the editor of the campus literary magazine. I hiked around campus... with a pack of smokes in my pocket. If you hadn't anything to say but wanted to appear thoughtful, you reached for the pack and shook a cigarette out.... Back then, a pack cost 35 cents and a drink was a dollar.... (Mr. Tate) chain-smoked in class, so we did too. The whole English department reeked of smoke and was proudly alcoholic—anyone who didn't do both was considered an interloper, possibly a Mormon. In Mr. Wright's humanities class, he stood at a lectern with an empty tuna fish can for an ashtray and chain-smoked through his lectures on Dickens and Whitman and Dickinson, which he delivered through a haze of hangover."
— Garrison Keillor
"You learn more from getting your butt kicked than from getting it kissed."
— Tom Hanks
"Over time, talent and hard work become indistinguishable."
— Gerard Butler
"When there's a hill to climb, waiting won't make it any smaller."
— anonymous
From Pacific Standard magazine: "As people learn to see their thoughts and symptoms as separate from themselves, there is an uncoupling of the pain stimulus from their emotional responses.... Everyone wrestles with unruly minds and emotions.... Improving impulse control contributes to an overall sense of psychological well-being.... Social psychologists have found that most people are happier and less anxious from their mid-50s onward."
"Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness."
— Edward Stanley
"Happiness, like so many things, is a choice. So many people don't choose it."
— Ryan Reynolds
"Sometimes people confuse nonaction with weakness, but letting anger hook you is true weakness."
— Alex von Bidder
From Men's Health magazine's "What Winners Know" lists: "Your retirement account isn't just in dollars and cents. It's in skills, interests, and relationships." ... "The bigger the group, the less interesting the ideas it will generate." ... "You often have to fight hardest for the ideas that make the most sense."
"My son James smiled and said, 'So they died of old age, then.' I smiled back and stared off into the woods. That had been my own prayer back in Vietnam. Dear Lord, let me die of old age. And let me die before my children do. Amen."
— Anthony Doer
"If you can't pray sincerely, offer your dry, hypocritical prayer, for God in his mercy accepts bad coin."
— Rumi
"I usually start out in a totally rote sort of way. But if I stick with it, there is a moment when I become intensely present in the prayer. It feels like plugging an electric cord into a socket. I can feel the energy change. There is total connectivity."
— Sally Kempton, Yoga Journal
"Just as smiling actually makes you more happy, doing manly things makes you more manly. And manliness is self-perpetuating, because every time you push yourself to try something difficult, you become less afraid of everything else."
— Joel Stein
From Pacific Standard magazine: "The cathartic benefits of reaching out for help are hardly a secret. As scientists have come to better understand the brain, they have documented the potentially catastrophic consequences for individuals, particularly men, who go it alone when confronted by profound emotional challenges."
"Ask the great athlete or the concert pianist of the successful actor if they arrive at the place where they need no further practice. They will tell you that the higher you climb in proficiency and public acceptance, the greater the need for practice."
— Eric Butterworth
"Let food be your medicine."
— Hippocrates
"Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity..."
— Leonardo da Vinci
"It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants."
— Henry David Thoreau
"The constant question you should be asking yourself is, 'Will this make me stronger?'"
— Steven Lamm, MD
"I have always loved the quote from John F. Kennedy: 'When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.' Looking back on my life, I can see that I have never had a crisis that didn't make me stronger. And here was all that I loved before me (on Everest): great risk, but also great opportunity."
— Bear Grylls, Mud, Sweat, and Tears
"While it is hard enough to inoculate the integrity of the word 'friend' against today's epidemic of misuse and overuse, it can be even harder to calibrate our expectations of those who have earned the benediction of the title - the chosen few we have admitted into the innermost chambers of the heart and entrusted with going that hard way with us. 'Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship,' Seneca counseled in contemplating true and false friendship, 'but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul.' Two millennia later, the question of whom to welcome and to what extent remains one of the most delicate discernments with which life tasks us."
— Maria Popova, brainpickings.org, I really hope M 'n' m have great friends, now and always; it enriches life and we're learning it also lengthens life (see all the studies linking longevity not with exercise or diet or bad-habit-cessation, but with an active, healthy social life)
Saturday, September 16, 2017
#373
Occasionally, when Jenny and I were kids, and Dad would say or buy or do something silly, something a little crazy, and we would laugh and stare and be interested and excited and give exactly the response fathers love, Mom would tell us, "Don't encourage him." She would say it semi-seriously, because she loved his ideas and humor and enthusiasm also. But, indeed, fathers do goofy, funny, unusual things sometimes to entertain and energize their families, and if you are one, a father, and it's been awhile since you earned yourself a "Don't encourage him," then maybe it's time to stir things up. I sometimes insist on word games, or question games, at the dinner table. Or I randomly bust out a dance move (that I butcher) and block the TV. Or I impersonate someone or sing very badly or make wild suggestions about things we should do, try, learn, whatever. In these moments, I hear groans and see eyes rolling and feel scorn, but the trick is to win a supporter or two also and then, if you're lucky, you hear it: "Don't encourage him." Bingo. You know you're not a boring dad.
Friday, September 15, 2017
#372
I let Megan have ice cream for breakfast. I am a shitty father. But it's Saturday, and she's helping me paint. Although that feels like another favor and acquiescence; she was begging for a brush. I decided she would be helpful and committed and not too messy. And she has been. She didn't quit the minute it became more work than novel fun. We're a good team. Of course, we aren't on scaffolds doing the Sistine Chapel; we're doing the crappy, '70s-style-wood-paneled stairwell down to our basement. We're dripping onto the stairs, but we'll paint those too. The blunder to avoid is stepping on the drops and tracking them onto carpet. So far, we haven't ruined anything. Life is good. Though I wonder: Should I hold myself to a higher standard – in painting, parenting, and everything else – than 'just don't ruin anything?' That's a low bar. But not always an easy one.
I am halfway through a book called The Glass Castle. Speaking of fathering and ruining kids – or sadly, painfully strengthening them – it's quite a story. So far. I'm inclined to say I have some of the good qualities of the dad in the book (creativity, enthusiasm, and – like us all I assume – a powerful love for his children) without suffering his extreme flaws (alcoholism, 'visits to the Green Lantern,' and a powerful restlessness that precludes any familial stability). And yet, how can I compare one father to another? I would say less, and not more, is agreed upon and cut-and-dried when it comes to best practices for fathers. And I'd say it's too complex for clear, indisputable conclusions when comparing this father to that one, or this culture to that one, or this philosophy to that one. And certainly we can't give all the credit (for the development of remarkable people) to the parents of those people, and none to the individuals themselves... just as we can't give anyone all of the blame. How's that for a parental disclaimer? Ha! When I think of incredible people, I certainly think their upbringing plays a part, but so does their very own heart and soul and energy and resilience and work ethic and intellect and convictions and love and optimism and relationships and kindness and so on and so forth.
Michael is off to homecoming this weekend. The game, the dance, the pre- and post-parties, the fun, the drama, etcetera etcetera. Any questions I ask about any of it will get a one-word answer. 'Good.' 'Alright.' 'Okay.' 'Fine.' Then based on his tone and body language (also, if needed, hearsay, comments from other parents, and whatever his talkative friends let slip) I'll learn a little more and decide how much to pry. I just hope he has a blast. A safe and healthy one. That's all. These should be good times, even if imperfect.
My days of writing about my son should probably end. But that's sad and I don't want it to end, and I'm selfish when it comes to my cathartic habit here, so maybe I'll keep at it, confusingly, vaguely, lovingly, with a kind of false distance to allow for awkward deflection or disavowal if necessary.
"My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness."
— Dalai Lama
I am halfway through a book called The Glass Castle. Speaking of fathering and ruining kids – or sadly, painfully strengthening them – it's quite a story. So far. I'm inclined to say I have some of the good qualities of the dad in the book (creativity, enthusiasm, and – like us all I assume – a powerful love for his children) without suffering his extreme flaws (alcoholism, 'visits to the Green Lantern,' and a powerful restlessness that precludes any familial stability). And yet, how can I compare one father to another? I would say less, and not more, is agreed upon and cut-and-dried when it comes to best practices for fathers. And I'd say it's too complex for clear, indisputable conclusions when comparing this father to that one, or this culture to that one, or this philosophy to that one. And certainly we can't give all the credit (for the development of remarkable people) to the parents of those people, and none to the individuals themselves... just as we can't give anyone all of the blame. How's that for a parental disclaimer? Ha! When I think of incredible people, I certainly think their upbringing plays a part, but so does their very own heart and soul and energy and resilience and work ethic and intellect and convictions and love and optimism and relationships and kindness and so on and so forth.
Michael is off to homecoming this weekend. The game, the dance, the pre- and post-parties, the fun, the drama, etcetera etcetera. Any questions I ask about any of it will get a one-word answer. 'Good.' 'Alright.' 'Okay.' 'Fine.' Then based on his tone and body language (also, if needed, hearsay, comments from other parents, and whatever his talkative friends let slip) I'll learn a little more and decide how much to pry. I just hope he has a blast. A safe and healthy one. That's all. These should be good times, even if imperfect.
My days of writing about my son should probably end. But that's sad and I don't want it to end, and I'm selfish when it comes to my cathartic habit here, so maybe I'll keep at it, confusingly, vaguely, lovingly, with a kind of false distance to allow for awkward deflection or disavowal if necessary.
"My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness."
— Dalai Lama
My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.
Dalai Lama
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/d/dalailama108820.html
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/d/dalailama108820.html
My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.
Dalai Lama
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/d/dalailama108820.htm
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/d/dalailama108820.htm
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
#371
I can sympathize – or empathize; maybe it's not something to pity – with people who feel like they've never 'grown up.' Or entirely grown up, at least; we're somewhere in the process. We're just in need of more growth, confidence, courage. But we retain some good qualities perhaps, in this place, if you will. Larry King talks about this – his youthful enthusiasm and curiosity is un-dampened by age; at 84 he's still a teenager – as do people like Joe Maddon, actor Kyle Chandler, and many others. It takes some humility and self-awareness to admit this, also possibly frustration with the pretenders or try-too-hard-ers among us. Too often we see the awkward or unbridled adolescent in the VIPs of the world. But God bless 'em, because people DO have to step up with leadership and authority sometimes, when others won't, and it's not easy; it takes courage, will, strength. Of course, when bluster and bullshit reach a kind of critical mass, I remind myself I'm not the only one with immature fears, insecurities, submissive tendencies, averseness to conflict, times when I freeze when I should do something (behaviors and feelings I equate – perhaps erroneously! – with the young and inexperienced). We know posturing and chest-thumping sometimes is nothing but insecurity. I'm terrified of giving that impression, but that's no excuse to shrink, either. For many reasons I guess, I don't pretend to know what the hell I'm doing, I only profess to do 'my best' or whatever, and this can seem and sound very weak! There's a balance. I'm searching for it every day. We all have a lot to learn, witness, endure, enjoy – right? – if we're to get some sort of TOTAL human experience? Several great thinkers, philosophers, important and accomplished people have stated in one form or another: the beginning of knowledge is to realize how little you know.... In the grand scheme, we have a ways to go. Or something like that. Look at the wars. Look at the stars. (We can't get to any but a few.) Look at loved ones with illnesses we can't cure. Lots to learn. But we've done pretty well to this point in history; 'the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice' ... I truly believe that humanity trends the right way, and I'll stand up for that view, that statement like an adult!
I love this from Dickens who speaks of not losing good qualities from childhood, such as 'a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased.' I think these are essential, and I pray we all retain them. It's like we need a mix of childlike and adult qualities both – is that too obvious of a statement?! Yes, apologies – because, well, Lord of the Flies and the fact children can be very cruel, also. Whatever the case, from Charles Dickens's novel David Copperfield:
"This may be a fancy, though I think the memory of most of us can go farther back into such times than many of us suppose; just as I believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most grown men who are remarkable in this respect, may with greater propriety be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired it; the rather, as I generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an inheritance they have preserved from their childhood."
I hope M 'n' m 'preserve' some good qualities from their childhood, and I hope they have an accurate awareness of who they are, and how they are, and how they fit into the world, from this perspective or spectrum of human growth and experience. Although I'm not even sure if there is such a thing as 'accurate' when talking about how we are perceived by ourselves and others. Are perceptions reality? Uh, I'm going to swim back to shore now...
I love this from Dickens who speaks of not losing good qualities from childhood, such as 'a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased.' I think these are essential, and I pray we all retain them. It's like we need a mix of childlike and adult qualities both – is that too obvious of a statement?! Yes, apologies – because, well, Lord of the Flies and the fact children can be very cruel, also. Whatever the case, from Charles Dickens's novel David Copperfield:
"This may be a fancy, though I think the memory of most of us can go farther back into such times than many of us suppose; just as I believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most grown men who are remarkable in this respect, may with greater propriety be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired it; the rather, as I generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an inheritance they have preserved from their childhood."
I hope M 'n' m 'preserve' some good qualities from their childhood, and I hope they have an accurate awareness of who they are, and how they are, and how they fit into the world, from this perspective or spectrum of human growth and experience. Although I'm not even sure if there is such a thing as 'accurate' when talking about how we are perceived by ourselves and others. Are perceptions reality? Uh, I'm going to swim back to shore now...
Friday, August 25, 2017
#370
And they're off! Michael to 9th, Megan to 6th. Michael is pretty slammed: school, soccer, orchestra, fall baseball... I will get to know him again this weekend. It's Megan's last year at a grade school I love. I was there last night giving hugs and meeting Megan's teacher who, incidentally, had Michael a few years ago. Awesome.
Michael seems... searching for a good word here... he seems very 'level' lately; it's maybe a good place to be, not manic, not passive (although he's a tad lethargic at times – but I know he's very busy and tired when the day ends at home) and overall I'd say he's been cool, calm, collected, easy-going this year... and yet I know that can't exactly be true. Because he's a high-schooler now! It's an intense time. Emotions run high, don't they? I remember that being so. Emotions and experiences that are newish and concentrated present themselves; seemingly more impactful relative to earlier, younger moments involving challenges, crushes, craziness, adventures, adrenaline, insecurities, love, loss, mystery, novelty, danger, fear, etcetera etcetera!!
As a soon-to-be father of two teenagers – m will join M in teenagerhood next year – I have reflected a lot lately on the speed of life. My conclusion? Uh, it's fast. Or, better said, by none other than Chicagoan Ferris Bueller: "Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Jeanette, who was raised in the city and took the Blue Line ("L" train) to Whitney Young High School everyday, thinks Ferris is fun and all, but he's a sheltered suburbanite at best. She's right. I was a suburbanite also; there is in fact a difference, but only a big one (as I like say). "Chicago-suburbanite Ferris Bueller" doesn't sound as slick. I recall Ferris's street smarts were a bit lacking also; think of the Ferrari flying out of the garage as soon as Ferris cheerfully handed it over, after telling Cameron, "Will you calm down please, I'm gonna give the guy a fiver to watch it." M 'n' m love the city and get down here regularly; joining me at work on occasion is one way. Here's my view from work today, from the rooftop, not my desk, but still:
Michael seems... searching for a good word here... he seems very 'level' lately; it's maybe a good place to be, not manic, not passive (although he's a tad lethargic at times – but I know he's very busy and tired when the day ends at home) and overall I'd say he's been cool, calm, collected, easy-going this year... and yet I know that can't exactly be true. Because he's a high-schooler now! It's an intense time. Emotions run high, don't they? I remember that being so. Emotions and experiences that are newish and concentrated present themselves; seemingly more impactful relative to earlier, younger moments involving challenges, crushes, craziness, adventures, adrenaline, insecurities, love, loss, mystery, novelty, danger, fear, etcetera etcetera!!
As a soon-to-be father of two teenagers – m will join M in teenagerhood next year – I have reflected a lot lately on the speed of life. My conclusion? Uh, it's fast. Or, better said, by none other than Chicagoan Ferris Bueller: "Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Jeanette, who was raised in the city and took the Blue Line ("L" train) to Whitney Young High School everyday, thinks Ferris is fun and all, but he's a sheltered suburbanite at best. She's right. I was a suburbanite also; there is in fact a difference, but only a big one (as I like say). "Chicago-suburbanite Ferris Bueller" doesn't sound as slick. I recall Ferris's street smarts were a bit lacking also; think of the Ferrari flying out of the garage as soon as Ferris cheerfully handed it over, after telling Cameron, "Will you calm down please, I'm gonna give the guy a fiver to watch it." M 'n' m love the city and get down here regularly; joining me at work on occasion is one way. Here's my view from work today, from the rooftop, not my desk, but still:
Friday, August 18, 2017
Stuff About Things #3
"In the mystifying world that was Victorian parenthood, obedience took precedence over all considerations of affection and happiness, and that odd, painful conviction remained the case in most well-heeled homes up until at least the time of the First World War.... By withholding affection to children when they were young, but also then endeavoring to control their behavior well into adulthood, Victorians were in the very odd position of simultaneously trying to suppress childhood and make it last forever. It is perhaps little wonder that the end of Victorianism almost exactly coincided with the invention of psychoanalysis.
— Bill Bryson, At Home
"I was born in the United States, first-generation Cuban American. My family would always tell me the opportunity I had, to be part of a country that gives you freedom, give you the opportunity to control your own destiny, and, more than anything, allows you to be whatever you want to be."
— Pitbull
When Pitbull was five years old, his father took him to bars and had him recite poems by the 19th-century Cuban revolutionary philosopher, journalist, and poet Jose Marti. "That was the first time I saw how powerful words were," Pitbull says. "We're a culture that likes to talk a lot. We have a lot of sayings. Words mean a lot."
"A grain of poetry suffices to season a century."
— Jose Marti
"It is necessary to make virtue fashionable."
— Jose Marti
"I always say it takes a little bit of crazy to keep the big crazy away."
— Mike Edison
Jason Kidd, always a student of the game, dissected film for hours, carefully watching the style and technique of players like Gary Payton and Chris Mullin. Chris was notorious for not being the fastest guy on the court, but he spotted opponents' tendencies, understood angles, and learned the tricks of the trade. Kidd learned all those tricks and wrote a few of his own. You nudge an opponent - soft enough not to foul him, but strong enough to throw off his shot. As players take a shot, they almost always bring the ball back to the same spot - where Kidd, anticipating this, can slap it away. Some opponents don't like to be touched. Others don't like space. With this knowledge, and his positioning on the floor, Kidd can frustrate, disrupt, and solidly defend, even as he ages and loses a bit of the speed and explosiveness he once had. (from Men's Fitness magazine)
"Don't give in to the immediate gratification that is whispering in your ear. SHUT THAT DOWN.... Stay on the warpath. Rest tomorrow. And when you get knocked down, get up, dust off, reload, recalibrate, re-engage.... The reality is: Discipline is your best friend."
— Jocko Willink
Self-talk and visualization are key.
"Inversions, like headstands, have always been really hard for me. It's weird having my feet over my head - it's a trust thing. My yoga teacher said, "Don't be afraid to teeter; you'll find your balance," and that really resonated with me. That's how life is: I'm going to go back and forth, I'll have good times and bad times, but I will find my balance."
— Demi Runas, LPGA golfer
"It is always a privilege to be in a deer camp and to witness the old rituals that never get old: a boy too excited to sleep the night before opening day; a father who remembers that feeling and so loves his son that he'd forgo a pay raise to help him succeed."
— Bill Heavey
"You think the backstage was crazy 12 years ago? You should see it now, man. Our kids can tear up a backstage faster than AC/DC ever could.... I just wanna get home safe now; I just wanna play my music and go home.... I don't know what I'm gonna say when that first tattoo walks in the house, or I find that pack of cigarettes, or whatever it is; I'll cross that bridge when I get to it."
— Dave Grohl, "the nicest guy in rock 'n' roll" in a 60 Minutes interview, smiling, talking about his three young daughters; all the guys in Foo Fighters have kids now
Don't try to be interesting; be interested.
"I decided to stop thinking ahead.... I would give this mission my everything. I would commit to slogging my guts out twenty-four hours of every day until my eyes bled. I would consider anything short of this to be a bonus. At least that should manage my expectations."
— Bear Grylls, Mud, Sweat, and Tears
Expect. That will surely ruin everything.
To expect is to diminish.
"I can remain focused on, and suffer for, the big thing longer than anyone else."
— Tommy Caldwell
"History is a set of lies that people have agreed upon."
— Napoleon
Most negotiation is done in silence.
"A place of peace is a place of power."
— Joel Osteen
"I think of him as a complete person. He has his adult side and his childish side, his male and his female side. He has everything.... He has this wonderful spirit."
— Michael Crichton talking about his friend Sean Connery
"We were feeling tired and great."
— Jack Kerouac
"Grasp the subject, the words will follow."
— Kato the Elder
— Bill Bryson, At Home
"I was born in the United States, first-generation Cuban American. My family would always tell me the opportunity I had, to be part of a country that gives you freedom, give you the opportunity to control your own destiny, and, more than anything, allows you to be whatever you want to be."
— Pitbull
When Pitbull was five years old, his father took him to bars and had him recite poems by the 19th-century Cuban revolutionary philosopher, journalist, and poet Jose Marti. "That was the first time I saw how powerful words were," Pitbull says. "We're a culture that likes to talk a lot. We have a lot of sayings. Words mean a lot."
"A grain of poetry suffices to season a century."
— Jose Marti
"It is necessary to make virtue fashionable."
— Jose Marti
"I always say it takes a little bit of crazy to keep the big crazy away."
— Mike Edison
Jason Kidd, always a student of the game, dissected film for hours, carefully watching the style and technique of players like Gary Payton and Chris Mullin. Chris was notorious for not being the fastest guy on the court, but he spotted opponents' tendencies, understood angles, and learned the tricks of the trade. Kidd learned all those tricks and wrote a few of his own. You nudge an opponent - soft enough not to foul him, but strong enough to throw off his shot. As players take a shot, they almost always bring the ball back to the same spot - where Kidd, anticipating this, can slap it away. Some opponents don't like to be touched. Others don't like space. With this knowledge, and his positioning on the floor, Kidd can frustrate, disrupt, and solidly defend, even as he ages and loses a bit of the speed and explosiveness he once had. (from Men's Fitness magazine)
"Don't give in to the immediate gratification that is whispering in your ear. SHUT THAT DOWN.... Stay on the warpath. Rest tomorrow. And when you get knocked down, get up, dust off, reload, recalibrate, re-engage.... The reality is: Discipline is your best friend."
— Jocko Willink
Self-talk and visualization are key.
"Inversions, like headstands, have always been really hard for me. It's weird having my feet over my head - it's a trust thing. My yoga teacher said, "Don't be afraid to teeter; you'll find your balance," and that really resonated with me. That's how life is: I'm going to go back and forth, I'll have good times and bad times, but I will find my balance."
— Demi Runas, LPGA golfer
"It is always a privilege to be in a deer camp and to witness the old rituals that never get old: a boy too excited to sleep the night before opening day; a father who remembers that feeling and so loves his son that he'd forgo a pay raise to help him succeed."
— Bill Heavey
"You think the backstage was crazy 12 years ago? You should see it now, man. Our kids can tear up a backstage faster than AC/DC ever could.... I just wanna get home safe now; I just wanna play my music and go home.... I don't know what I'm gonna say when that first tattoo walks in the house, or I find that pack of cigarettes, or whatever it is; I'll cross that bridge when I get to it."
— Dave Grohl, "the nicest guy in rock 'n' roll" in a 60 Minutes interview, smiling, talking about his three young daughters; all the guys in Foo Fighters have kids now
Don't try to be interesting; be interested.
"I decided to stop thinking ahead.... I would give this mission my everything. I would commit to slogging my guts out twenty-four hours of every day until my eyes bled. I would consider anything short of this to be a bonus. At least that should manage my expectations."
— Bear Grylls, Mud, Sweat, and Tears
Expect. That will surely ruin everything.
To expect is to diminish.
"I can remain focused on, and suffer for, the big thing longer than anyone else."
— Tommy Caldwell
"History is a set of lies that people have agreed upon."
— Napoleon
Most negotiation is done in silence.
"A place of peace is a place of power."
— Joel Osteen
"I think of him as a complete person. He has his adult side and his childish side, his male and his female side. He has everything.... He has this wonderful spirit."
— Michael Crichton talking about his friend Sean Connery
"We were feeling tired and great."
— Jack Kerouac
"Grasp the subject, the words will follow."
— Kato the Elder
Monday, August 14, 2017
What just happened?! I'm confused. High School?
First day of high school. Wow, high school. Wait, high school?! Holy shit, he was just a baby, like yesterday. A big baby, thick chested, puffy-faced from a long labor – god it was a rough one, I barely got through it :) – but he was definitely a baby, in a hospital bassinet, kind of prune-skinned and purple, breathing fine but not crying (because I was crying enough for both of us). When they rolled him from the delivery room to the nursery, he twisted and gripped the side of the bassinet like Hercules, and I was impressed, only 15 minutes old and doing cool shit! I was so happy. Anyway, then I blinked and now he's in high school. For the record, I'm still happy, so happy, and very grateful.
Stuff About Things #2
"I only really care about what my kids think of me. The other things I'm not in control of, so it doesn't interest me much."
— Sting, musician and frontman for the Police (the band, for you unfortunate, unfamiliar youngsters), when asked what he wanted his legacy to be
Muhammad Ali often showed amazing recuperative ability late in a fight. And he said this: "Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even."
"I'm really a shy, library person. I'm an introvert, a writer – just trying to translate what's in my chest.... I'm a writer first, and writers are some of the most introverted kooks there are. It definitely makes no sense, but I have to bridge the gap and do what needs to be done for the work. I'm painfully shy, and I have horrific stage fright. It doesn't come naturally to me at all.... Still, you have to draw yourself out.... I have a robust prescription of beta-blockers."
— Lorde, musician
"Be good, just be good.... And when you're good, the universe brings you stuff.... When was your last 'oh shit' moment? Like 'Oh shit! I'm exposed, I'm vulnerable here! When is your next one? Because that's when the magic happens."
— John Herdman
"I've studied anxiety all my career, but maybe what I've really been studying is not anxiety per se, but neuroticism, which is the tendency to view the world in a threatening, unpleasant kind of way. Learning to withstand the feelings that make us antsy may be the X factor that separates people who excel in life from those who don't."
— David Barlow, Ph.D.
"The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe."
— Albert Einstein
"Your ability to tolerate uncomfortable emotions is probably the broadest single psychological concept we know how to change, and with the biggest impact that I know of."
— Steven Hayes, Ph.D.
"My family was artistic and encouraged me to express myself.... (Dancing professionally) taught me discipline.... Acting has been a strong force in my life, but it was hard to change direction. I didn't make a paycheck for two years.... Tom Cruise loves moviemaking, so it was a pure joy to be on set with him (in The Mummy).... Storytelling is important, so I keep exploring and reading."
— Sofia Boutella
The shark is the one predator that has survived from the days when dinosaurs ruled the earth. That's because no matter what, it always, always keeps moving, and only moving forward, eating as it goes. Sharks cannot swim backwards.
Prince Charles was subjected to a fairly rigorous morning routine at boarding school, comprised of a run before breakfast and a frigid shower. The prince became so accustomed to the routine – or maybe he just enjoyed it and its benefits? – that as an adult he continued to take a cold shower each day.
"I'm the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was."
— Muhammad Ali
"If you even dream of beating me, you better wake up and apologize"
— Muhammad Ali
"A man who has no imagination has no wings."
— Muhammad Ali
Man, that is a good one. I'm going to repeat it! A MAN WHO HAS NO IMAGINATION HAS NO WINGS!
"At home, I'm a nice guy, but I don't want the world to know that...."
— Muhammad Ali
I'm so mean, I make medicine sick.... I'm young; I'm handsome; I'm fast. I can't possibly be beat."
— Muhammad Ali
Sidney Poitier spent the first 10 years of his life in the Caribbean, on Cat Island in the Bahamas. It was a sun-drenched paradise without glass windows, doors, or storefronts and thus free of man-made reflections. "I never got a fix on my color," Poitier would write of those years. "No reason to." He didn't see himself in a mirror until the family moved to Nassau, when he was 10. And it wasn't until he was 15, when his aging parents sent him to live with an older brother in Florida, that he met institutional racism, which baffled him. Poitier went north within a year, uneducated, broke, and alone, but with a wealth of wisdom from parents he revered. "Charm them, son, into neutral," his mother once told him. And that's what he did, in New York City. Poitier, who turned 90 in 2017, has written eloquently about his coming-of-age and magisterial career - more than 40 films - in three books." (from Vanity Fair magazine)
When asked to comment on acting as 'her calling,' actress Suki Waterhouse made this modest statement: "All anyone does is act, starting as a baby playing peekaboo for applause. Then, when you get into the business side, 90 percent is dealing with rejection."
Doctors and scientists are more and more investigating an interesting – and to me, ironic – idea or hypothesis, which is basically: A lot of problems today come from living in too sterile an environment.
Here's a useful exercise: Name some successful cynics. You can't. Look at some of the most successful people in the past 10 years: Steve Jobs, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, George Clooney, the Google guys, Bono. They're not too cynical. (from Men's Health magazine)
Acts of giving stimulate the production of dopamine.
Exercise is medicine. Take care of your teeth. Lower inflammation. Avoid processed carbs and sugar as much as possible. Higher HDL cuts cancer risk. Get enough rest. Breathe.
"For Ahmet and for me, on of the great joys of life has been the study of history, music, languages, literature, art, and archeology.... I believe it is tremendously important to support those things that endure across time... and make the world a more humane place."
— Mica Ertugen
"I have never feared the unknown; rather, I fear the known." (The interviewer suggests she seems hardwired for contendedness.) "I tend to love everything, actually." (Her father gave her the best advice she was ever given.) "'Never, never give up.' That used to ring in my head. 'When times get tough, stay in the boat.'"
— Joanna Lumley
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
— Thomas Edison
"I believe everyone should take at least four supplements: a multivitamin, vitamin D, omega-3s, and a probiotic. It's almost impossible to get all the nutrients you need in food today – and our needs are higher because there are so many toxins in the environment.... Exercise is a wonderful tool (but don't let it stress you out, or you're defeating the purpose).... The ultimate answer to stress is meditation (to stimulate the body's parasympathetic response).... The four keys to living a long, healthy life are exercise, diet, supplements, and stress reduction. There are also the intangibles: meaning in your life, love in your life. These are touchy-feely subjects that men don't seem to get, but when people feel passionate about what they do, they're healthier. When they're part of a community or go home to a loving family, they're healthier. You can't give a prescription for love or meaning, but they're crucial to good health."
— Frank Lipman
Everyone assumes, 'Oh, he's from the '40s and he's so idealistic.' But for him three weeks ago it was World War II. That's one of the most appalling things men have ever been through."
— Joss Whedon, writer and director of The Avengers, talking about Captain America.... This spoke to me because M 'n' m's great-grandfather was in WWII. He was in combat; his unit liberated a concentration camp; he suffered the whole brutal experience. And M 'n' m's other great-grandfather was in the Korean War. It puzzles me.... I never heard them curse or be indecorous or disrespectful; of course, they might've picked other audiences for that, but I think it would've leaked here or there, and on a certain level they really did seem to possess a kind of properness, idealism, or expectation of behavior you don't see today. And yet, imagine the things they saw.... It leaves me to wonder: were they more cynical than people today, or less? Would they agree with the great quote from MLK, repeated by President Obama: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." And this, it seems comes from a longer piece by a minister and abolitionist named Theodore Parker: "Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of (doing) the right (thing). I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice."
— Sting, musician and frontman for the Police (the band, for you unfortunate, unfamiliar youngsters), when asked what he wanted his legacy to be
Muhammad Ali often showed amazing recuperative ability late in a fight. And he said this: "Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even."
"I'm really a shy, library person. I'm an introvert, a writer – just trying to translate what's in my chest.... I'm a writer first, and writers are some of the most introverted kooks there are. It definitely makes no sense, but I have to bridge the gap and do what needs to be done for the work. I'm painfully shy, and I have horrific stage fright. It doesn't come naturally to me at all.... Still, you have to draw yourself out.... I have a robust prescription of beta-blockers."
— Lorde, musician
"Be good, just be good.... And when you're good, the universe brings you stuff.... When was your last 'oh shit' moment? Like 'Oh shit! I'm exposed, I'm vulnerable here! When is your next one? Because that's when the magic happens."
— John Herdman
"I've studied anxiety all my career, but maybe what I've really been studying is not anxiety per se, but neuroticism, which is the tendency to view the world in a threatening, unpleasant kind of way. Learning to withstand the feelings that make us antsy may be the X factor that separates people who excel in life from those who don't."
— David Barlow, Ph.D.
"The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe."
— Albert Einstein
"Your ability to tolerate uncomfortable emotions is probably the broadest single psychological concept we know how to change, and with the biggest impact that I know of."
— Steven Hayes, Ph.D.
"My family was artistic and encouraged me to express myself.... (Dancing professionally) taught me discipline.... Acting has been a strong force in my life, but it was hard to change direction. I didn't make a paycheck for two years.... Tom Cruise loves moviemaking, so it was a pure joy to be on set with him (in The Mummy).... Storytelling is important, so I keep exploring and reading."
— Sofia Boutella
The shark is the one predator that has survived from the days when dinosaurs ruled the earth. That's because no matter what, it always, always keeps moving, and only moving forward, eating as it goes. Sharks cannot swim backwards.
Prince Charles was subjected to a fairly rigorous morning routine at boarding school, comprised of a run before breakfast and a frigid shower. The prince became so accustomed to the routine – or maybe he just enjoyed it and its benefits? – that as an adult he continued to take a cold shower each day.
"I'm the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was."
— Muhammad Ali
"If you even dream of beating me, you better wake up and apologize"
— Muhammad Ali
"A man who has no imagination has no wings."
— Muhammad Ali
Man, that is a good one. I'm going to repeat it! A MAN WHO HAS NO IMAGINATION HAS NO WINGS!
"At home, I'm a nice guy, but I don't want the world to know that...."
— Muhammad Ali
I'm so mean, I make medicine sick.... I'm young; I'm handsome; I'm fast. I can't possibly be beat."
— Muhammad Ali
Sidney Poitier spent the first 10 years of his life in the Caribbean, on Cat Island in the Bahamas. It was a sun-drenched paradise without glass windows, doors, or storefronts and thus free of man-made reflections. "I never got a fix on my color," Poitier would write of those years. "No reason to." He didn't see himself in a mirror until the family moved to Nassau, when he was 10. And it wasn't until he was 15, when his aging parents sent him to live with an older brother in Florida, that he met institutional racism, which baffled him. Poitier went north within a year, uneducated, broke, and alone, but with a wealth of wisdom from parents he revered. "Charm them, son, into neutral," his mother once told him. And that's what he did, in New York City. Poitier, who turned 90 in 2017, has written eloquently about his coming-of-age and magisterial career - more than 40 films - in three books." (from Vanity Fair magazine)
When asked to comment on acting as 'her calling,' actress Suki Waterhouse made this modest statement: "All anyone does is act, starting as a baby playing peekaboo for applause. Then, when you get into the business side, 90 percent is dealing with rejection."
Doctors and scientists are more and more investigating an interesting – and to me, ironic – idea or hypothesis, which is basically: A lot of problems today come from living in too sterile an environment.
Here's a useful exercise: Name some successful cynics. You can't. Look at some of the most successful people in the past 10 years: Steve Jobs, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, George Clooney, the Google guys, Bono. They're not too cynical. (from Men's Health magazine)
Acts of giving stimulate the production of dopamine.
Exercise is medicine. Take care of your teeth. Lower inflammation. Avoid processed carbs and sugar as much as possible. Higher HDL cuts cancer risk. Get enough rest. Breathe.
"For Ahmet and for me, on of the great joys of life has been the study of history, music, languages, literature, art, and archeology.... I believe it is tremendously important to support those things that endure across time... and make the world a more humane place."
— Mica Ertugen
"I have never feared the unknown; rather, I fear the known." (The interviewer suggests she seems hardwired for contendedness.) "I tend to love everything, actually." (Her father gave her the best advice she was ever given.) "'Never, never give up.' That used to ring in my head. 'When times get tough, stay in the boat.'"
— Joanna Lumley
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
— Thomas Edison
"I believe everyone should take at least four supplements: a multivitamin, vitamin D, omega-3s, and a probiotic. It's almost impossible to get all the nutrients you need in food today – and our needs are higher because there are so many toxins in the environment.... Exercise is a wonderful tool (but don't let it stress you out, or you're defeating the purpose).... The ultimate answer to stress is meditation (to stimulate the body's parasympathetic response).... The four keys to living a long, healthy life are exercise, diet, supplements, and stress reduction. There are also the intangibles: meaning in your life, love in your life. These are touchy-feely subjects that men don't seem to get, but when people feel passionate about what they do, they're healthier. When they're part of a community or go home to a loving family, they're healthier. You can't give a prescription for love or meaning, but they're crucial to good health."
— Frank Lipman
Everyone assumes, 'Oh, he's from the '40s and he's so idealistic.' But for him three weeks ago it was World War II. That's one of the most appalling things men have ever been through."
— Joss Whedon, writer and director of The Avengers, talking about Captain America.... This spoke to me because M 'n' m's great-grandfather was in WWII. He was in combat; his unit liberated a concentration camp; he suffered the whole brutal experience. And M 'n' m's other great-grandfather was in the Korean War. It puzzles me.... I never heard them curse or be indecorous or disrespectful; of course, they might've picked other audiences for that, but I think it would've leaked here or there, and on a certain level they really did seem to possess a kind of properness, idealism, or expectation of behavior you don't see today. And yet, imagine the things they saw.... It leaves me to wonder: were they more cynical than people today, or less? Would they agree with the great quote from MLK, repeated by President Obama: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." And this, it seems comes from a longer piece by a minister and abolitionist named Theodore Parker: "Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of (doing) the right (thing). I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice."
Friday, August 11, 2017
Wednesday, August 9, 2017
The only one who seemed unconcerned was Ali
"Before the much anticipated fight (dubbed by Ali as the "Rumble in the Jungle"), in Ali's dressing room, Ferdie Pacheco remembered a mood of palpable dread prevailed. 'The question,' he said, 'was how much damage would Foreman do.' The only one who seemed unconcerned was Ali.... Meanwhile, in Foreman's dressing room, former lightweight champion Archie Moore also felt dread. 'I was praying,' said Moore, 'and in great sincerity, that George wouldn't kill Ali. I really felt that was a possibility.'"
— from Men's Journal magazine
I love that so much. I effing love it! Gives me goosebumps every time I read it, remember it, say it: The only one who seemed unconcerned was Ali.
Ali, of course, won the fight, surprising everyone except himself. And everyone was surprised years earlier when he knocked out Sonny Liston... everyone except Ali himself.
Love it.
And years later, Foreman even added this about the Rumble in the Jungle, "Probably the best punch of the night was never landed. Muhammad Ali, as I was going down, stumbling, trying to hold myself, he saw me stumbling.... Ordinarily you finish a fighter off; I would have. He got ready to throw the right hand, and he didn't do it. That's what made him, in my mind, the greatest fighter I ever fought."
— from the movie Facing Ali
"I'm so quick, I flip the switch and I'm in bed before the lights go out."
— Muhammad Ali
— from Men's Journal magazine
I love that so much. I effing love it! Gives me goosebumps every time I read it, remember it, say it: The only one who seemed unconcerned was Ali.
Ali, of course, won the fight, surprising everyone except himself. And everyone was surprised years earlier when he knocked out Sonny Liston... everyone except Ali himself.
Love it.
And years later, Foreman even added this about the Rumble in the Jungle, "Probably the best punch of the night was never landed. Muhammad Ali, as I was going down, stumbling, trying to hold myself, he saw me stumbling.... Ordinarily you finish a fighter off; I would have. He got ready to throw the right hand, and he didn't do it. That's what made him, in my mind, the greatest fighter I ever fought."
— from the movie Facing Ali
"I'm so quick, I flip the switch and I'm in bed before the lights go out."
— Muhammad Ali
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
Stuff About Things #1
Sorry, but I probably won't quit before I arrive at 400 'regular' posts, maybe 500. Oh God, make it stop. No. Not yet. I enjoy it too much, scribbling about M 'n' m and so on and so forth. But a tender shoot of an idea sprung recently, as I looked at my files and piles of papers and pages, sparkling like diamonds to me, loaded with quotes, wisdom, inspiration I desperately need – to remain mediocre, apparently, but oh well – and so my tender idea unfurled and bloomed and today I boldly give you something new! (Humor me and allow this pretension, as if this is a commercially and socially relevant, important blog.) Yes, a new segment on M 'n' m, for M 'n' m (to ignore) and a place for the various and sundry snippets of media, magazines, books, history, lyrics, and interviews I have heretofore intended, without follow-through, to share. Because I think it's cool shit. It's random. It's awesome. It's Stuff About Things (a phrase stolen from an old friend, initials MD, when I was the 'Cruise Director' during our work trips to China)....
George Washington had red hair. (Just like M 'n' m's Aunt Jenny, Megan's Godfather Josiah, my friend Jim... all awesome people.) Thomas Jefferson had red hair too. So did Andrew Jackson.
Jack London disciplined himself to write a thousand words a day.
"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."
— Jack London
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working."
— Picasso
"Words and people were his things."
— spoken of John Hughes, filmmaker, creator of Ferris Bueller, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, and other unforgettable movies
"There's something soft about him, deferential, childlike. He told me once, "I never considered myself an adult. When I enter a room, I always look for the old guy."
— Pat Jordan writing about Joe Maddon
The Rays won 90 games or more in five of six consecutive years under Maddon.
"A mind once stretched has a difficult time going back to its original form."
— Joe Maddon paraphrasing Oliver Wendell Holmes ("One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.")
"Our own laziness taxes us more than kings and parliaments."
— Ben Franklin
Stephen Curry makes 500 three pointers a day in the offseason. Makes, not shoots. So the player who is already the best shooter in the NBA shoots until he makes 500 shots a day, every day. He sets and achieves his goal every day and will not leave his workplace until he does. Imagine the focus that must create in him as he practices the same, mind-numbingly boring motion over and over and over. Imagine the habits that creates in him. Do you think that might possibly serve him well on game day? Can you say that you do anything 500 times a day? What about 100? What about 10?
"Every trip I go on, I am riddled with anxiety and paranoia. Overconfidence is not a problem."
— Sebastian Junger
"Love can mend your life but love can break your heart."
— The Police, Message in a Bottle
"Big problems will never be solved with comfortable conversations."
— Tim Ferriss
"Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life."
— Jerzy Gregorek
"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality."
— Seneca
"I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened."
— Mark Twain
The parents of James Butler 'Wild Bill' Hickok were deeply involved in the anti-slavery movement and their farm was a stop on the Underground Railroad (escape route for slaves). Legend says young Hickock picked up his phenomenal shooting skills helping his parents defend their property from slave catchers. His father was killed in a gun battle with slavers when he was 14.
"We all try hard to live our lives in harmony.... But life is both a major and minor key, just open up the chord."
— Travis, Side
"The world is blowing up. The world is caving in. The world has lost her way again. But you are here with me. Makes it okay.... I love you oh so well. Like a kid loves candy and fresh snow. I love you oh so well. Enough to fill up heaven, overflow, and fill hell."
— Dave Matthews, Oh
"A pencil. That's all I need is a pencil, and a piece of paper would come in handy.... Throw away all the distractions and write something.... I'm not any less confused than you are, I just got in the habit of doing it. We all have ideas all the time. Our mind is a raging fire. At some point, you're gonna say, "Okay, it's gonna be bad." You gotta stand being bad if you wanna be a writer, cause if you don't, you're never gonna write anything good."
— David Mamet
"Just being alive is so psychedelic."
— Jim James, My Morning Jacket
"There are always lessons in failures."
— Jaime Lannister, Game of Thrones
"If it matters to me, I'll do whatever it takes."
— Michael Gervais
"Confidence comes from preparation."
— Kobe Bryant
Kobe Bryant regularly practiced as early as 4:00 AM. Alone.
George Washington had red hair. (Just like M 'n' m's Aunt Jenny, Megan's Godfather Josiah, my friend Jim... all awesome people.) Thomas Jefferson had red hair too. So did Andrew Jackson.
Jack London disciplined himself to write a thousand words a day.
"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."
— Jack London
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working."
— Picasso
"Words and people were his things."
— spoken of John Hughes, filmmaker, creator of Ferris Bueller, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, and other unforgettable movies
"There's something soft about him, deferential, childlike. He told me once, "I never considered myself an adult. When I enter a room, I always look for the old guy."
— Pat Jordan writing about Joe Maddon
The Rays won 90 games or more in five of six consecutive years under Maddon.
"A mind once stretched has a difficult time going back to its original form."
— Joe Maddon paraphrasing Oliver Wendell Holmes ("One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.")
"Our own laziness taxes us more than kings and parliaments."
— Ben Franklin
Stephen Curry makes 500 three pointers a day in the offseason. Makes, not shoots. So the player who is already the best shooter in the NBA shoots until he makes 500 shots a day, every day. He sets and achieves his goal every day and will not leave his workplace until he does. Imagine the focus that must create in him as he practices the same, mind-numbingly boring motion over and over and over. Imagine the habits that creates in him. Do you think that might possibly serve him well on game day? Can you say that you do anything 500 times a day? What about 100? What about 10?
"Every trip I go on, I am riddled with anxiety and paranoia. Overconfidence is not a problem."
— Sebastian Junger
"Love can mend your life but love can break your heart."
— The Police, Message in a Bottle
"Big problems will never be solved with comfortable conversations."
— Tim Ferriss
"Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life."
— Jerzy Gregorek
"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality."
— Seneca
"I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened."
— Mark Twain
The parents of James Butler 'Wild Bill' Hickok were deeply involved in the anti-slavery movement and their farm was a stop on the Underground Railroad (escape route for slaves). Legend says young Hickock picked up his phenomenal shooting skills helping his parents defend their property from slave catchers. His father was killed in a gun battle with slavers when he was 14.
"We all try hard to live our lives in harmony.... But life is both a major and minor key, just open up the chord."
— Travis, Side
"The world is blowing up. The world is caving in. The world has lost her way again. But you are here with me. Makes it okay.... I love you oh so well. Like a kid loves candy and fresh snow. I love you oh so well. Enough to fill up heaven, overflow, and fill hell."
— Dave Matthews, Oh
"A pencil. That's all I need is a pencil, and a piece of paper would come in handy.... Throw away all the distractions and write something.... I'm not any less confused than you are, I just got in the habit of doing it. We all have ideas all the time. Our mind is a raging fire. At some point, you're gonna say, "Okay, it's gonna be bad." You gotta stand being bad if you wanna be a writer, cause if you don't, you're never gonna write anything good."
— David Mamet
"Just being alive is so psychedelic."
— Jim James, My Morning Jacket
"There are always lessons in failures."
— Jaime Lannister, Game of Thrones
"If it matters to me, I'll do whatever it takes."
— Michael Gervais
"Confidence comes from preparation."
— Kobe Bryant
Kobe Bryant regularly practiced as early as 4:00 AM. Alone.
Friday, August 4, 2017
#369
There are apps now that can study a photo of a dog and tell you what breed it is. (Remember when 'app' meant appetizer?) IoT and A.I. systems, sensors, and algorithms will manage our home security, climate, lights, lawncare, laundry, groceries, music, and moods (via ambient lighting, sounds, and smells). They'll drive our cars, monitor our health, take care of our pets (and maybe our children). Siri, Alexa, and Google anticipate our actions, make recommendations, remember our preferences, learn our tendencies, know if we're in a restaurant and ask us to rate it. It's beginning slowly; it's creeping and creepy; impersonal, flat, unnecessary, even if helpful and novel. I wonder when I'll receive my first Amazon package delivered by drone. Every year technology feels a little more invasive and oppressive. The human touch is irreplaceable. Right? We'll see. There are benefits to having a Jarvis, a handy voice and 'mind' that knows everything ever historically, factually (although what is 'fact' these days except mathematical absolutes or scientific certainties, i.e. the world is not flat... after all). The world is big and diverse though, so rollout and saturation of these futuristic techno-crazes will vary by region, I assume, and M 'n' m can always escape to Alaska and leave it all behind for a few days. If they want to. I hope they want to. But satellites will find and harass them with commercial badgering in some form. West World was an interesting show. And The Martian an interesting movie. As was Arrival. I don't see those things happening in their lifetimes, but I might be surprised. I won't be surprised if I'm surprised.
"We're already cyborgs. Your phone and your computer are extensions of you, but the interface is through finger movements or speech, which are very slow." (With a neural lace inside your skull you would flash data from your brain, wirelessly, to your digital devices or to virtually unlimited computing power in the cloud.) "For a meaningful partial-brain interface, I think we're roughly four or five years away."
— Elon Musk, Vanity Fair magazine, April 2017
"We're already cyborgs. Your phone and your computer are extensions of you, but the interface is through finger movements or speech, which are very slow." (With a neural lace inside your skull you would flash data from your brain, wirelessly, to your digital devices or to virtually unlimited computing power in the cloud.) "For a meaningful partial-brain interface, I think we're roughly four or five years away."
— Elon Musk, Vanity Fair magazine, April 2017
Thursday, August 3, 2017
#368
When Megan came to work with me recently, she said, "I can't wait until you get upgraded. Then you'll have an office." Awkward silence. Actually, it wasn't awkward at all; I explained that I hadn't earned an office yet – either by recognized achievement and commitment or boldness, or whatever it takes. And at my work, most of us are in – what I'll call – a wide-open, common workspace, Google-style, so to speak, as they implemented the layout when they briefly owned us and moved us to downtown Chicago. I'm very grateful; we have an awesome space. It's true that directors and VPs have doors and offices. My daughter knows I work hard. She knows I was laid-off and rehired. And maybe that kind of corporate ascension skips a generation? Papa Mike did his part, ending in CEO-ships of roughly billion dollar companies (we'll see if he asks me to strike that; I'll assure him my readership is small; no need for undue modesty). Meg's grasping for the word – upgraded? – for, presumably, 'promoted,' was cute. Meg is a smart little thing, and wonderfully – and sometimes unwonderfully – lacking any kind a confusing or punch-pulling filter. I always know her mood, what she's thinking. Not so with Michael, he of the one word answers. Especially when texting. Me: "How was your game?" (He is playing in a season-ending tournament today.) Michael's return text: "Good." What is implied by my question: Did you win? Did you pitch or play third? Did you get any hits? Any extra base hits? Was it a close game? Did Paulie or Joe or Andrew pitch? What the hell happened? Details! What is implied by Michael's answer: Good. And so it goes. But I think it's lethargy, and nothing like detachment, angst, or attitude. I could be naive, and wrong, but when I pry for those details he seems magnanimous in giving them. For example, upon clarification, he didn't pitch, he singled a few times, and they won the first game 7 - 0 and the second 4 - 2. Next game starts in 25 minutes. Go Michael!
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
Michael is my height now...
... and Meg isn't small anymore, and this is surely mama bear, not papa. Dad is probably napping or fishing or gorging on a whale carcass, chasing a dog musher, mauling a reindeer or a fat seal or a Californian from an Alaskan cruise looking for a polar bear selfie. Anyway, I like this pic.
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