Author: admin

Is it possible to fall out of love with a person, even though you’ve known them and grown with them for years? I am deeply worried that I’ve fallen out of love with myself. I was reading a quote about self-love from a motivational app I’ve been using over the past week. The quote hit me funny. It argued that you need to love yourself first and my gut reaction was, do I? I am not entirely sure, and I think that not being sure is just as good as saying no. I can honestly argue that I love my partner more than I love myself. I can also argue that I am a slave to my habits and I hate that about myself. I feel like an automaton, ceaselessly moving through the motions and not feeling much for many of them. This is not to say I don’t find joy in moments, but as my partner is quick to point out, ‘moments aren’t a life.’ So, what then?

I think the question of self-love starts with why. Why do we love ourselves? Are we simply supposed to? What do we love about ourselves? For me I find that everything that brings me joy about myself is fading. More specifically, my ability to do these things and feel these things within my own body is fading and I am doing next to nothing to fix the problem. There is another quote that popped up on the app, courtesy of Wayne Dyer (I don’t know who he is), “With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.”

It occurs to me that time and again I’ve chosen obstacle over opportunity in a way that is greater than a mindset but more of an excuse making–a way of letting things happen over and again. I’ve decided that growing old means fading and weakening and I haven’t allowed my self to experience the ‘growing’ in growing old. This too is a mindset. I think this is part of why I’ve fallen out of love with myself. I used to appreciate challenge and change. Now I’m just a scared old man hiding from it as I fade into nothingness.

This is not the way.

I know I should be blogging about football today, but I find myself back in the chair for the first time in weeks and it is worth a ten minute conversation. It is a bat-chair specifically. It is one of a number of fine crafted items of the bat variety gifted to me by my partner. I love the feel of it and the idea of what that symbol represents. I’ve always seen myself as a Robin, but nearing 50, I ought to be considering the fact of growing old with at least a modicum of grace. In other words, I should be assuming that mantle of adulthood with my own take and flavor.

It is interesting to think about how fast the years fly by until one day you wake up old and wondering what happened to all of that time. What did you do? What were your experiences? How will you share that with the world? Is anything in your own life story-worthy? I suppose there are experiences at every stage of life that have been story-worthy, and I know most of the feelings behind them will make their way into story in some fashion. That is, after all, why I am back in this chair and in this cold office space wearing my Robben Island pullover and thinking about history and how to intertwine that with fiction and ideals and ideas.

I’m working on two things: I’m working on building a fantasy world and the stories that shaped that world until it’s “starting point” of fiction. I am also working on the collection of short stories that are actually telling one larger story or novel from different perspectives that build to a conclusion that forces the reader to face their own biases and feelings. It is a whodunnit that isn’t really about who done it. I’ve promised myself 3 hours to build one or both of these ideas a little more fully today and hopefully the next day. The idea of when I write is becoming as important as how much I write and where. Call it the trinity of possible success.

All success starts with trying. It starts with putting one foot down and the other in front of it. You press one key and then another and then another and eventually it shapes a word that shapes a world that shapes an idea that has been living inside of you yearning to be set free.

Spent the evening wandering through a Christmas light display. I still cannot get over the fact that Christmas arrives so soon. Thanksgiving leftovers are still in the fridge. Still, the lights are up and the neighborhood is buzzing with the energy of the coming holiday. We have two houses and we’ve decorated one. The other remains untouched on the outside and in. We’ll get to the inside tomorrow, but beyond that there are mostly questions. I don’t really like the two house system. I don’t enjoy feeling like that second house is secondary and largely belongs to the five boys and their endless hours of gaming. Yet this is the way. I need to sit with my partner and together discover how to forge a new and integrated way. Maybe we sell the second space. Maybe we blend them together more fully. Who knows?

What I do know is that I need to get back to writing more. I’ve noticed that as I write less and less outside of the blog the blog becomes one giant stretched out thought scattered of periods of ten minutes and few words. It is hard to get a lot down in ten minutes when your word stamina is so low already. I’m tired of needing to tug at my thoughts in order to crank out another blog. It ought to be coming naturally. Sure, some of it is age and diet and lack of sleep. I can control two of those variables. The third and most important variable of the four is the butt in chair variable. I’ll get back to it tomorrow.

I’ve realized that 3-5 hours is a solid writing window. Anything outside of that range is either too little or overly draining to the point where it impacts me the next day. This top end may be mitigated by breaks, but the floor is lava. Nothing below that time frame of three hours is worthwhile creatively for me anymore. I need to sink in and connect with the reality I’m trying to shape through words and that stuff takes solid time. Next week I’m going to devote a chink of my vacation time to writing. 3hrs a day is too much to ask for the whole week, but I’ll get a few days in. Moving forward I am going to put the focus back on the words and on a schedule that allows for that 5 days out of the week.

The gaming? It’s going to happen, of course. However, it has to be reduced. 1 hour? 2 max? that’s 5-7 hours a day that I would be spending doing me. That is a lot. I don’t know that this sort of thing is fair to my partner. So, I have some real choices to make about how to spend time. I’ve spent ten minutes just getting to this point right here…

My kids are listless. While there are one or two exceptions to this general condition, I find that they don’t actually care about much or have any real ambition in their lives. This bugs me. It occurred to me yesterday when I was blogging about ambition, but today it feels so much more apparent. Maybe its because i slept on it. Maybe its because of the level of privilege they exhibit. I mean, why should they have to wash dishes or even care about rinsing them or putting away food or lifting a finger to prevent things being destroyed–especially if doing so interferes with watching their video or playing a game (nothing interrupts a game, because a game actually matters). Instead they let the conditions deteriorate and complain about the conditions after the fact.

They complain a lot, in fact.

Again, this is not all of them, but it is all of them at some point. I don’t know if I was this bad between the range of 12-20 but I want to think that I would be aware of ti had I been that bad. I was self-focused to be sure, but I did more chores and respected my space more than most of these kids. I cared about my future and I invested in my future in the present. They largely don’t and that is going to end badly for them. Take it from someone who eventually stopped investing in his future in the present and stopped moving forward.

This is not the way.

Some Thoughts:

1. Russia is apparently about to invade parts of the Ukraine and, well, the majority of my country couldn’t care less. We haven’t been given a reason to care. If I’ve learned anything about being an American its being selfish.

If who we are is a result of our experiences, then there are certainly things to be thankful for about my childhood. It was imperfect. More doors were closed for me than were opened, but the education and independence I received helped me become who I am today, as did all the bad experiences and good. I remain thankful for the life I had as a child. I always think, “It could have been worse.” When I see children today I encounter such high levels of privilege that I often wonder if they or their parents are aware of what they are doing to these kids. They are limiting them in so many ways. Most students I encounter seem unable to process life outside of the small box of reality from whence they came. They will stay here their entire lives and live simply and without ambition. Perhaps that is a good thing. Ambition has slowly died in my soul over the past decade and I often fear that it was all that kept me moving forward for the first 30 yrs of life. I learned from a very young age to want more from myself and to want more out of the people around me. I did lose that somewhere along the way. I started accepting mediocrity before I plunged myself into it and now it seems useless to try to get out of it in many areas of life. Often, a good day and a thrill of happiness with the people I love is all I long for.

Again, is that so wrong?

This is the first year I have not spoken to my mother on Thanksgiving. I do not know if I will ever speak to her again. At this point it will be someone other than me initiating that conversation. I’m done. Yet, I haven’t ascended to the patriarch of family role either. I haven’t started carving out what it means to sustain a family long term and down through the branches of time. I haven’t begun to think beyond the traditions that the great grand children will carry–only that they will likely carry what we forge here in these next few years and the nearly a decade before that which my partner and I have formed together. These are big conversations. Time is long and life is short. These are conversations that define a future.

Most of my six kids are still experiencing some version of childhood and I need to be better. I need to step up and show them what life can offer less they fear it offers little more than they have right now. Still, is what they have right now so bad? Maybe it is enough.

So I went a little crazy recently in playing Minecraft. I found myself in a situation where I lost all the gear I’d worked so hard for and all the resources I was working to get and my one good map. The items were irretrievable. So, after long pondering, I opted to cheat. I didn’t just stop at gear replacement. I loaded up on stuff so that I could create a city the way I wanted. It felt dirty but I did it. Then remorse climbed into my heart. Not remorse exactly but the idea that this was a tainted game—by slipping into creative I can no longer get achievements in that world. I’m not exactly in it for the achievements but I still feel the heat of the cheat.

I was in it to build this town on my own and I didn’t do that. As a result I am left with a town that is a lie. So I’m taking a few days off of playing in order to decide how to move forward.

I feel physically weak. I feel it in my arms. I lack the power relative to my size. This is a dark revelation. On the near side of 50 I need to get right before I cannot.

50. Jesus that’s old. I didn’t recognize how old I was until this moment. My kids talk about 30 as washed up and I left that behind two decades ago. Last nights turkey bowl found me out of gas incredibly fast and that too is a sign that this old heart doesn’t work so good under duress. I need to stop thinking like a 12 year old and start preparing for the next half of my life by getting my health right. While my eating habits have improved, my physical stamina and physical training regimens is non existent. I need to do more than walk at this point. I need to hit that 50 before it hits me.

tough task to be sure, but the first step is acceptance. I accept that I am old. Now, what the hell do we do about it?

I have a great deal to be thankful for in my life. This existence is imperfect. I don’t expect perfection but I expect to find things worth living for and I am thankful that I have found that in the people I love and fill my life with. Old friends have drifted back into my life’s path and I will do what is in my power to maintain those friendships. I am thankful for what they have meant to me. I am thankful for having had a childhood that wasn’t worse than what it was. I could’ve had things much worse. I may have never escaped Harlem under different circumstances. I am thankful for the man I was fortunate enough to call father for 12 years before he passed on. I still remember how I thought he just went away and if I was lucky I’d see him again one day. Maybe that is true in some sense.

I am thankful for the love I share with the beautiful woman I hold in my arms each night. I was fortunate enough to find lasting love twice in my life. The first one failed and I take responsibility for that. I played a large part in that failure. I gave up. I don’t regret that. I am thankful that the marriage brought me three wonderful kids as this new partnership has brought me three more. I’m lucky in so many ways in my life and I need to do more to show the people closest to me that I recognize that luck and see them as a benefit and not a burden.

I am thankful I’ve been able to keep this blog going so long. One true failed day in several thousand means I’ve done pretty good so far. I’ve been at this for a decade and I think it is natural to continue and thus unnatural to stop–even when the words don’t want to come. Once upon a time I used to tell stories in bed. I would dream up characters and talk about their lives. These stories came from that place of stories I was once linked to. Lately I’ve begun to feel that the connection to that place is possible to restore. I am thankful for belief, for without it I would not know how to proceed.

I am thankful for my health and my mind. I don’t remember as many things as I should, and I am sloth for the most part, but I still have the ability to change that. Not everyone does. I’m lucky for that ability as well. I lack motivation on a molecular scale, but I am working to change that. I’m thankful this too is possible.

The Giants fired the OC! There is hope in

The Giants fired the OC! There is hope in Gotham because Stefanski has to be at least more creative than Garrett. I’m being serious here. The G-men are predictable and do best when players make extraordinary plays, The handful of creative plays Garrett sprinkles in are the ones that have proven the most effective and that is largely in the screen and short game and using that to set up big pass plays or trick plays. The run game is quite ordinary and the playcall sequence is, well, junk. I’m not a super seasoned OC. I have no real room to talk here, but as I watch I recognize that the defense knows what is coming and that is never good. What I’m excited to see is what comes next week.

Perhaps what is coming are more firings… Rumblings suggest that Gettleman could be out, and the scouting staff probably should be out after such clear misses in the past few years. Giants have 11 draft picks this year including 2 presently in the top 10. This could be a big year for the rebuild and there is a chance to get top talent–depending on what is out there. The free agency pool is also fairly deep at some positions. I am not saying this season is over but I am prepared to see it as prequel to next season. Let’s see who shows up to play and who needs to go away.

Some Thoughts:

1. Night before Thanksgiving. I’m worried about the Turkey going right.
2. Internet continues to be a nightmare here. Of course, I’m becoming accustomed to college speed net, so any pause makes me shake.

I’m not feeling the full force of a ten minute one thought blog. I think I’ll just roll into…

Some Thoughts:

1. Priyanka Chopra is in Matrix 4 and her character pic makes me think she has some sort of control over aspects of the matrix. I’m getting excited about this one…
2. Spent a decent amount of time thinking about death today–my death in particular. The cessation of new memory is in essence the definition of death. Once we lose a sense of self and the ability to propel self forward we are dead. However, I still question the idea of time as an arrow. I suspect we perceive time as such in our lifetime as it unfolds, but I also wonder if the end of that string allows us to loop–essentially living these lives in a loop continuously as we move through the timeframe of our personal existence.
3. I wonder if I think about this so much because I am somehow closer to being dead than I think or suspect or just that I’ve peaked in years and I have less years left than I’ve already lived? Perhaps there is another reason all together.
4. Minecraft news: Really enjoying work on the new world–by which I mean city, actually. I’ve constructed a living space for the people of the city consisting of 36 beds at current with a main work hall that presently holds space for 22 work stations. That leaves 14 workstations to be built somewhere in the city. I already seated two in the church and I expect I’ll start on a library or something of the sort next. I need a smithy as well. There is a ton to build out in this city. There is plenty of space to get that happening, but I need to get the resources to do so. That will take time.
5. Dang, time flies… About done here. Not much time left.
6. I wanted to say something about the film I watched tonight–He won’t get very far on foot. It was a solid piece from Gus Van Zant with a good cast and strong performances. What got me most about the film was the honest portrayal of addiction. So much of that film felt like the work I did as a rehab counselor all those years ago. I ended it wondering what happened to all of those kids.