Day: November 20, 2024

I get mad (like really sad and mad) about my eldest stepson because he doesn’t do anything. I make excuses (maybe he’s in the wrong city–I know I am), I hope and dream, but every day is the same. He sits on the couch or stands in front of his playstation in his room. That’s it. What I am coming to accept is twofold: first, he doesn’t have a lot of options or properly modeled behaviours, and more importantly: It is his choice, not mine.

I don’t do a lot either. I watch shows and play upwords every single day. I write. I walk a mile. Those are the things. I’m rarely out at night taking in sights or clubs or adventures. Sure, we do go on adventures–quite a few to be honest– but the day to day is sedentary. There is nothing in my daily life so wildly different from his daily life as to promote a healthier and more active lifestyle. That is what makes me the angriest. I am not doing much more than he is. The difference is he’s accepted it as a way of life and I have decided that I am being held prisoner by circumstance, weather, and weariness.

All that being said: who cares? The role of a father is to model and encourage and prepare. I am meant to get him to a point where he is self sufficient and can design for himself a life he is satisfied with. My satisfaction or dissatisfaction was never ever the point. Oddly enough, I came to this realization while listening to Numb by Linkin Park (the original recording–not the Emily Armstrong version)…

I don’t know what you’re expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes

Every step that I take is another mistake to you

~Chester Bennington

Yeah.. If I want to call myself a good father, I need to embrace and support the choices he makes–they all make–in life even while arguing that there are better choices to be made. They are not me. They aren’t supposed to be.

How quickly we forget the invention of CAP. It was nearly a decade ago that Trump became famous for lying and using all caps to claim he was not lying. Thus CAP was born. Now his stupid dance is taking over the world of sports.

Stupid. But that is kind of how memes work, y’know? It is a lot of stupidity reformatted in order to make a language of sorts for the handful of individuals who understand it and then those who think they do, but don’t. Finally it graduates to their parents and thus to the world at large as something cool. This happens cyclically with any number of incoherent moments. From Jordan in tears to Tyson in… whatever the heck Tyson was doing in the fifth round (that will make the rounds soon).

More importantly, this is not tantamount to political support for a party platform. We all need to get that clear. People can like the idea of Trump and not like the Project 2025 Agenda or the Trump Agenda or, honestly, even know anything about it. Most individuals are not political with any real depth. We vote on a handful of issues at best. So, stop using this meme as a tacit approval of whatever Trump does. It just isn’t that deep.