Month: November 2021

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.

Choosing to ignore negativity is extremely difficult in the sense that, on occasion, you must become deaf and blind to the people around you who choose to promote negativity as a bi-product of breathing. This is made more difficult when the people in question are your family and thus largely inescapable… and lazy. Yet I persevere. I believe in hope. For example, I hope I can figure out the deeper WHY in this current novel I am writing and get back to the page with a sense of purpose. Honestly, the Arbery and Rittenhouse cases have highlighted the absolute sadness and shape of the law in a way that permeates my purpose for the latest work. In truth, it is even more sad to note that I am calling these cases by the names I am calling them. Arbery was the victim. I don’t know the names of the defendants and the truth of that is their names are not being treated as the focus. In fact, most articles fail to name the defendants in the first paragraph. You gotta read a bit to hear who they are. The focus is that an unarmed black man was chased and killed in pursuit of what these vigilantes are calling self-defense in the process of a citizens arrest. For what? Because he was running and may have looked to them like someone who illegally entered a building worksite? The Rittenhouse case often fails to name the victims in the first paragraph of reports. Why? No clue other than the thought of who the focus is on–the shooter in this case. The focus is always on the person we are meant to be polarized by. The Arbery case is about a dead black man. The Rittenhouse case is about a young vigilante.

I’m wandering. That means I might as well lead into…

Some Thoughts:

1. The print in this default mode is so bloody small that I have no choice but to increase screen size to see most days. I hate that. I hate it being a part of getting old.
2. Going to start the Turkey process tomorrow. I’m excited.

It feels good to hit the blog early in the dy. So long as I am writing and starting writing before noon it feels like I have had some productivity in my life. Anything starting later than that is usually the result of a lost day. I have been having a lot of lost days–over a month of them at last count. I need to get back on the horse and turn towards the words on abandon them entirely. Given that I no longer have the spectre of coaching to steal attention, I really just have words and games and audiobooks in my clip of me time. So, I need to decide how to spend that time outside of paid work time.

Some Thoughts:

1. Back into the minecrafting again. I’m designing a city at the base of a cliff face that I hope to develop (the cliff face I mean) into some major architectural wonder. The city is going to be built in a different fashion as well. I’ve always built villages into cities based on what the villages already had going on in terms of layout. This time I feel like ‘the look’ ought to be built around bisected circles with different types of professions, housing units, etc. within the main ring of the circle and agriculture on the edges of the city towards the walls.
2. I also want to invest in figuring out some duplication glitches so I can fully load up on gear.
3. That being said, there is nothing wrong with going back into the realms world and taking a shot at furthering that specific reality. I have invested a ton of time and energy in it–especially at 0, 0, 0 where the Dark Tower creeps towards the roof of the sky.

I went into Foundation with high expectations. Apple TV has patterned itself as the anti-netflix. instead of throwing a ton of content against a wall and seeing what sticks (old school pasta joke) they chose specific properties to create at high dollar value with big names attached either in the acting or the directing or both. Foundation is a David S. Goyer production which stars a lot of actors you’ve probably never seen and a level of special effects and set design that raises the bar for anything so brazen enough to follow. It is beautifully shot and the acting is as solid as the Asimov inspired world building. I say inspired because Foundation is not fully faithful to the text. Like most adaptations it remains faithful to the idea of the show while allowing the creators liberties. This one in particular is produced by Asimov’s family, so there is a strong belief that the interpretation is not way off. I don’t know what I am basing that off of beyond faith in family. I do know that I enjoyed the show and it did not meet expectations.

Like I said, my expectations were high. I expected to know more in this first season. I expect to find characters I would want to follow to the ends of the show. I ended feeling that this is a very small beginning to an immense story arc. This is Game of Thrones season 1 — first half. Imagine ending there. We did. Foundation is a promise written across ten beautiful episodes that argues that this show is worth the time it will take to imbibe it all. I’m willing to trust the promise and trust the process that has defined it thus far.

Some Thoughts:

1. Babylon 5 is rebooting. That makes me wonder if it is going to take the long view that Battlestar Gallactica and, ultimately, Foundation is taking.
2. Given that Star Trek Discovery is the only other sweeping space show around, I expect more shows to populate the channels before long. Space exploration is becoming the new cop show. Every station will want to have one.