Month: August 2019

The Plan for Happiness failed.

No, I’m kidding. It has been a particularly rough day, but the plan is still working. I am still finding beautiful moments. They are just harder to see when I am so tired. Why, you might ask? I’ve been on the road for nearly four hours today and I didn’t even do more than drop my kids off and pick them up from school. Traffic can be a nightmarish scenario. It can be so difficult that it eats away at the day. This is what happened to me for sure.

The day started with a 4:30 wake up, which is typical for a Friday or Saturday. I managed to crawl back into the bed a get some shut eye into the 6 AM hour. Fast forwarding from there the day was mostly a wash. I listened to a Margaret Atwood audio book, dealt with the horror of an auto recall (for another blog, trust me) and did some work. That was the entire day. Following that was the nightmarish 3 hr run of picking up the kids. I was in the car from 3 until nearly 6:15. Traffic was so bad that I had to find not one but two different ways home after the first alternate route fell apart.

There’s this quote by Vita Sackville-West that I enjoy: “It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.  How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?  For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone.  That is where the writer scores over his fellows:  he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.” 

Every time I read it I find myself thinking about clapping the net over the butterfly of the moment. But here is the thing. Some moments, like today, are not worth the capture. Some moments are better left to the oblivion of the past. I think that is what is best to do with today. I abandon it to the oblivion of the past and hope to start fresh in the morning.

Some Thoughts:

1. Been playing way too much Clash Royale. The argument can be successfully made that the addiction has returned in spades. So much so that I thought about quitting today. The thought was fleeting, but returns on the wind.
2. There is the drama of football returning. quite soon. It makes me happy to know that it is returning in professional, collegiate, and youth form.

To sum it up in a catchy phrase: Enjoy what I can and endure what I must.

Over and again I’ve changed my outlook on life, twice deciding that people at the end of life decide to die because they’ve put up with ‘enough of this shit’ that oblivion feels welcoming. My thoughts as of late are a version of that, though less bleak. I’ve been blogging about my downward trend towards unhappiness, the needle of my decline flinching with every shift of living conditions. At times I thought the needle set it’s gradient on wanting things–fame, fortune, etc. At other times I thought it was more about how other people were feeling. Both are true, and basic, and resoundingly human feelings.

Here is what I’ve come to realize: I have to be able to be strong and centered within myself in order to be of service to anyone else. In order to do that I have to go back to the old school Buddhist philosophy of embracing suffering. I have to be able to endure the stuff I don’t like, but I don’t have to endure everything in the world. It is, after all, my life and I can cut from it what I find to be the most toxic. In other words, I only must endure what I must.

This does not mean there is no joy in my life. In truth I find beautiful moments every day. I wake up most mornings curled up with the most beautiful soul I’ve ever felt. Already there is joy. Greed demands I carry that joy throughout the day, but reality says, ‘Not so fast, my friend. There is stuff to do that is going to pull you from that embrace.’ A lot of that stuff I’d rather not do. However, some of it brings me joy too. There is joy in watching my boys play sports and providing input and growth to their teams as a coach. There are moments of joy in the classroom when I connect with a student and I see, for a moment, that light of love of communication flicker on.

There is joy in the moments that I am typing out a story and I feel it thunder through my heart and into my fingers and I know that this is exactly what I am meant to do. There is a lot of endurance wrapped in that joy. There is a lot of endurance coating the brief yet powerful joy I feel when my body really feels good and alive the morning after a workout. There is no joy in the workout itself. This must be endured. Many things in my life must be endured. Still, I will love many many moments in between.

My fantasy draft for my ‘grown ass man’ league takes place this Saturday. I am letting the boys control the device in order to give them a chance to learn and enjoy the draft process before they themselves are called upon to draft for the first time. Fantasy Football is a strangely addictive and fun way to interact with football. It makes all the games have value–especially in a PPR league where it is a high point game regardless of if the games being played on grass and turf are high point. This is a new frontier for me; a sign the boys are aging up and their interests are maturing. That being said, it also offers up another avenue of competition that is less likely to end in a fist fight–also a side effect of maturation.

So, who am I drafting? In PPR format you want Saqoun. That is a no-brainer. You also want a guy like Fitzgerald or any of the running backs from the Cards. I say that because the Air raid offense is a major opportunity for points per reception.

Here is a moment of growth on my part: I may need to swallow my self assuredness and grab the Jets QB. Honestly, I think he is junk. I think he has no place being an NFL QB and I felt like last year’s numbers showed that–especially in the second game he played against teams once they had a feel for his style. However, I am apparently absolutely alone in that assessment. People still say the Giants screwed up and that this guy is the truth while those same people hand Barkley his HOF jacket as a second year player! So, yeah. I’ll listen and if they’re wrong I am 100% back to trusting my instincts.

Some Thoughts:

1. Ad Astra looks like a fun ride, but the science looks very very bunk. Neil D. Tyson, I am patiently awaiting your takedown.

Great football practice tonight. I learned a lot about how this team does things and the highly professional way they put the team together. Funny, when we were on the other side of the field we wondered how we could score. Being on the same side as them I realize we never had a chance. Never. Now we are developing a team identity and bringing in a ton of new talent to replace some of the kids who went to other all star squads to pursue the visibility. Those teams clearly do not have the coaching that is happening here. Like I said, I’m learning a bunch.

Learning in the classroom as well. I am learning how to understand and work with a new crop of students who are very different from what I was around last year. This is not the same kind of kids we had in prior years. There are going to have to be some adjustments–especially in regards to how hard I grade them. They aren’t used to it and need to get it up front.

Some Thoughts:

1. What is tomorrow? Waiver Wednesday! Last one before the ‘Beach Blanket Football League’ gets underway. I call it that because we are drafting on the beach. I don’t exactly know how it is going down, but it is going down for real.
2. First presentations tomorrow morning and I am looking forward to tearing into some students. It is a great opportunity to show them that, hey, this is college.

Seriously?

That is really all I have left to say on the matter. Sort of. Donald Trump, most recently, decided he would host the next G7 summit at one of his properties. In other words, the man is straight cashing in on the office of the President. His argument is that there is no place else in America equipped for such a thing. Well, we hosted in Georgia back in 2004. I’m pretty sure the location was good enough back then. I’m pretty sure Martha’s Vineyard is good enough or a thousand other areas around the country equipped for the event. If he was in fact the ‘Make America Great’ guy he would host it in some other place. He could host the summit in the Rust Belt. He could host the summit in the heartland of America, bringing new income to the hardest hit in the face of the trade war.

So, yeah. Seriously?

I mean here we are in modern day America with a man at the helm who is so enamored by his own greatness and rightness as to not be able to exhibit any form of self sacrifice for the betterment of this nation. He isn’t our employee like many other leaders. He is our gold-crusted King. All hail the King, right? And once he’s done the expectation is for his daughter to ascend to the throne.

None of that can happen. More and more I believe people are either digging in (confirmation bias driven digging) or accepting that they elected the man out of a resounding hate for Hillary. I get that hate, but I now get the volatility he brings to the office. Sure, it is great for news-hungry networks and the propogandists at Fox News (they are really working overtime on the spin there), but is it good for the nation? The globe? I don’t know that anyone outside of Netanyahu’s circle and the silent ninja army of Putin really believes that Trump is good for the world. He is, of course, good for himself and for American exceptionalism, but neither of those things help us. Nothing there is going to make America great. He’s succeeded in making America hate at a pace that outstrips anything since Vietnam.

So, yeah. Seriously. I am not a fan.

Not a day goes by where I don’t hear some peculiar new slang fly from a boy’s mouth. “Gimmie them toes!”, “You’re a Bot!”, “It’s a Rat!” and most recently improptu jam sessions of the Neverending Story theme song have become verbal symbols of the time. I’m blessed with a trio of boys who are patient enough to explain (or repeat) phrases enough for me to come to a basic understanding of the meaning. That same blessed nature has led to me understanding that these various phrases are often all stand ins for the same set of emotions. Simultaneously they classify you as a social media user of a certain type. “It’s a rat!” conveys shock and surprise at something while also arguing that you subscribe to the same set of social media as another person (don’t know what media it came from, but somewhere on youtube). “On your head” exerts dominance over another while showing that you subscribe to yet another series of channels. Neverending Story? Well that means join me in my joy, of course. What else would it mean?

Trying to keep track of the memes is like trying to learn a handful of pidgins at once. These things move so fast and with such purpose. It feels as though the idea is to reinforce the elitism of the phraseology in the way a computer constantly updates its virus definitions in order to avoid infection.

But who is leading the way? Social Media Influencers (a new media term) battle for eyes and subscribers on the battlefields of Youtube, Mixer, Patreon, TicToc, SnapChat, Twitch, and more while the traditional media giants lumber behind swallowing up these influence engines and, eventually, influencers in an effort to regain control of the social message.

They are not winning. The nature of the system argues they cannot win against such an agile foe. Instead the ever shifting roster of influencers will maintain influence and stay on social media’s head.

Some Thoughts:

1. A good night’s sleep works wonders.

A writer I know and work with has been going through a really tough stretch of depression. Yesterday his brother killed himself, which raised that depression to another level. I know he’s a fighter and I know he is not going to end himself. Still, I feel for the intense pain he is going through. It makes me extremely grateful for the life I am blessed to live and the day to day job I get to enjoy. What he is dealing with–especially now–is difficult. I know because I live right on the edge of that depression every day. I am a very emotional person; an empathic person who is easily overwhelmed by the sadness of those closest to me. Lately it has been a lot of darkness close to me. Part of me feels that darkness is a writer’s friend and we dip our toes in to the deep waters of human pain and draw out understanding.

But occasionally we fall in.

I’ve been learning to use words to buoy myself my entire life. I’ve kept things deep down inside and drawn out the connections slowly as to not drown in myself. I’ve fought and tried and struggled and when I see that struggle mirrored in others it is a damn wonder I’ve made it this far, because I don’t think I am nearly as strong as the people I’ve been talking about or the characters I write. I think I’m lucky, which is to say I’ve steeled myself for just about everything. Which is to say there will come a time when I face something again that I am not steeled against and then I’ll be in those waters again.

And again I will need to use the words to bear me to the surface, so that I may not drown.

Not a lot to offer in terms of cohesive thoughts. There are a number of things fluttering through my mind. Here are …

Some Thoughts:

1. I’m going to call the man Machine Gun Trump. The sheer amount of nonsense he utters in a day makes it so the stuff in the morning rolls off the headline by noon. As such we are already forgetting the stock market tumbled again.
2. My eyes suffer from digital eye strain and, perhaps, glaucoma. I don’t actually know what is going on but the result has been blurry vision and a sudden onset of farsightedness. Less screens needed.
3. Struggling with writing at the moment because I am losing sight of the goal of the words. Am I writing to tell a story or pay a bill? Supposedly the story drives me.
4. Speaking of stories, I am concerned that Disney is over saturating the worlds of my youth. The MCU is basically out of control and with the new Star Wars TV show, The Mandalorian, I worry that franchise is going to get diluted quickly.
5. Like I said, not a lot. Hard to write when you cannot hardly see…

Years ago I was introduced to blogging at the beach. I found this to be incredibly uplifting and reflective of what I continue to perceive as ‘the good life’. I am closer to living a daily lifestyle of that sort. This morning I am blogging from the edge of my pool. My feet are in the water as the sun is rising. I am happy and fairly healthy and relaxed. This is the life I intended.

The very concept of personal happiness has always been at the heart of my goal structure. Last night I was reminded that this is a cultural phenomenon of democracy. I learned this too years and years ago as a young sociology student, but watching a documentary called American Factory I was reminded that other cultures are sometimes about the growth and promotion of their culture and country more than they are about personal growth and happiness. Their own happiness is oft a luxury, with half a day spent working basic labor jobs to drive the engine of corporations which drive the engine of the societies bank roll.

When attempting to bring that culture here to America, they discovered that we are quite lazy and self centered by their standards. That italicized part is the part that matters. What we define as a hard work lifestyle here is just the basics for them. Two days off a week is crazy talk for a lot of places in the world. It reminded me that we work less than many parts of the world and we have so much more. In fact we have enough that I can be writing this blog by poolside in spite of being born in the middle of Harlem New York four decades ago. That kind of upward mobility is specifically American and gives me a warm feeling about what it means to be an American.

What I also hold in hand with that feeling is a responsibility as an American to keep the doors of opportunity open to anyone who wants to have the same chances that I had growing up. That is principle to being an American in my opinion, but it is clear for so many others–so many vocal others at least–that this opportunity should not belong to everyone but belong to those who were ‘here first’ or ‘here the right way’. In other words, there is not enough to go around and many would prefer it if everything in America was reflective of how things looked and felt 20+ years ago.

That to me is the crux of the growing culture wars.

As I start today’s post by finally posting yesterday’s I am left to wonder if adding a fantasy league commissioner role to my task list is wise. It is not, but here we go anyway. I am a week away from embarking on my first ever operation as a fantasy league commish. I will be designing a league using the NFL network interface (because the league I play in is there and one stop shop is key) and running a fantasy draft from the beach.

okay, that part is cool.

The rest is a terrifying swirl of complications that I’ll use this space to get off my chest. Fantasy football requires an email and fairly constant logins, so for the kids to be able to play they will need to remember which email they use and have the wherewithal to login in at least once a week to get their team right–more if they want to deal with trades and such. I don’t mean to stay on top of them for this stuff. I want them to figure it out on their own.

I also have no sense of prizes or anything in regards to how fun this might be for any of them. I do know that i want to do it and I am excited to see what shakes out of it in the end. I also want that first pick.

Some Thoughts:

1. Just had a random thought while I was blogging my 10… what if I applied this strategy to novel writing? What if I forced myself into 10 minute bursts per chapter of a story. Write on this chapter for ten, short break, go to the next. It is, in a sense, bringing the discipline of HIIT training to the writing space. This might be a thing!