10 Minute Rule

Numbers are powerful. Pi, for example, is the numeric cipher for every thought mankind has ever had. 1776 is often called the birth of America. Post 40 is often called your second life. The coincidence of numbers isn’t lost on me. Other numbers have a symbolic meaning. Turning 40 is the official signifier of ‘damn that guy is old’. Of course, if you ask my students that number is a lot closer to 26. I thought I’d feel a lot older than I do feel. In truth I feel no different, and the symbol has begin to slide off me like rain off a slicker. I care about being forty in a more reflective sense. I haven’t experienced many people who are fully physically capable post 80, so I can submit that I’m about halfway done with this mortal coil. That leaves me forty or so years of life to love, and live, and explore inside and out. Today I explored something completely new.

I had a chance to experience Himalayan singing bowls today. Not the tiny (fake) amazon.com offerings but the real deal bowls worked by a trained performer. The sounds were deep and resonant and reverberated through me with such a force that I felt my body shiver. This was among the most relaxing and focusing activities I have had a chance to experience and on a day where I needed to find my center.

Forty feels great. It feels like work is yet to be done on all aspects of me. It feels like I’m ready.

I’m going to go ahead and dash any hopes of this being a big, long, thoughtful post. Sometimes it is nice to sit in silence and reflect on reality. Here’s a taste of reality: I’ll be 40 yrs old (young?) tomorrow. I am not afraid of it, or really excited by it, or dreading it at all. 40 is extremely symbolic and mathematically represents the peak of physical possibility before the next seven year cycle kicks in and starts to squeeze you towards a life unwanted.

I want to take this moment to reflect, and rest, and be ready for the next phase.

At some point I forgot the teachings of the great Robert Downey Jr. who said, “You never go full retard.” At times I think I do. It starts with good intentions and a plan for betterment–either of myself or the boys (usually the boys)–and it ends with me going completely overboard while those involved become disengaged or disillusioned. I.e. the story of my life. As a result I get upset and develop truly unwieldy expectations for all manner of reality. This time my plans focused on the act of being a single dad, and yeah, I went full.

Buddha taught of balance in all things. I tend to eschew balance in exchange for the purity and drive of a single thing. For example, when I first became a single dad it was all about how much time I could spend with the boys on the days I had them. I’d abandon all else in terms of responsibility in hopes of finding moments of joy and connectedness with them franchise boys. This was not the greatest idea of my life. As a result I tried to do all sorts of fun stuff and quickly found myself broke with a trio of bored boys who wondered aloud, “What are we doing next time?” As if daddy time was a vacation from reality. It isn’t–It should and can not be that, because it is their reality 50% of the time. Not to mention the fact that I cannot keep up with the expectations of three boys below the age of eleven. I don’t have the wallet for that.

Full retard here meant not striking a balance and allowing them time to enjoy simple things and to work here with me in the house and on the house. It meant that making every moment as fun as possible was a mistake and one that I need to swiftly correct, because their expectations are out of whack. They took the fun at face value, wanting to jump from game to game instead of taking the necessary moment to clean up after themselves. In the moments I allowed it I helped them develop bad habits and made things harder on myself. I’ve spent a busy spring break week now correcting the behavior and righting that ship, but it led to another revelation: Focusing on fun has allowed them to slack on the outside work that made them into strong academics. Even the eldest (who is far from a fan of reading) quipped, “How come you don’t make us read anymore?”

Boys need balance. They realize the world has changed and they’ve rolled with it to a point. My point is that I have to be better in grounding them and making sure all the bases are covered here for learning. The school system remains a supplementary academic force in their lives for the most part. Learning once started at home, and if they are going to be successful beyond K-5, it has to start in the home yet again.

There will always be time for video games.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. As I move further away from birth I find myself embracing the concept of Anicca, or impermanence. I’ve started to view things as the way they are in this moment and how best to deal with that as opposed to things as the way they are and will be. Inwardly I view my own self as transitional, which is an important mindset to be in. It allows me to view tomorrow as opportunity instead of lasting curse.

 

It is different being a kid now. I cannot honestly remember a day of my childhood where I was so bored that I moped around the house all day complaining about how little there was to do. My childhood was defined and managed by my imagination, a force that compelled me to turn ordinary days into adventures. I could sit in my room for hours with a couple of G.I. Joe figures and spin a story that shook the pillars of the earth. When I finally scored an Atari I didn’t put that thing down for months. When the Commodore 64 came into my life I quickly progressed from playing to coding, never without something to occupy my brain space. Today I watched as a kid came over to our house and proceeded to behave like this was in fact the most boring location on the planet. My boys did little to dissuade him from this belief. Most agreed.

“There’s nothing to do here!” became a gathering cry and behaviors devolved into that of infants. They were bored. The thing that sunk my heart was there was a lot to do while they were busy being bored. We have bikes and skateboards and balls and a block teeming with kids. At home they have dozens of video games and three different consoles–not to mention the computers. Boredom should never happen, but it happens all the time.

I’ve tried diagnosing it. I’ve given them the rundown of everything in the house there is to do (in list form) and they constantly fire back with a chorus of no’s. These are not boring things in our house. I designed the place with kids in mind. We have different consoles and toys and a bounce house. There is all manner of things to do, but nothing they particularly want to do. I’m trying to imagine what it is like inside the mind of a modern kid, where imagination is a thing of the past and all there is to look forward to is what pretty colors and other distractions can be flashed in front of them. Kids are jaded and spoiled as of late–mine seem to be especially so.

 

I don’t want a repeat of last night. There’s no gain in that situation. Tired, cranky, and run down isn’t the way to good writing, but it has been a way of life as I adjust to a new life that I’m still very much catching up to. TodayI got to spend all day with my boys. We wound up playing video games, talking, bowling, and watching Cinderella. Things didn’t go very well after that, but a brief recap of the early part of the day serves as a reminder of why I love being a dad.

My kids are horrible ungrateful little creatures who fight and argue and complain about everything that doesn’t go exactly the way they want. In other words, they are young boys–pretty standard boys at that. I love every minute of the interactions. I even enjoy the challenge of reminding them to be better men; of reminding them what it feels like to be a friend, a brother, to love, to be part of something larger, to define yourself. Today we talked about togetherness and getting along with each other. We played games together and then we went bowling. At some point the mid-kid decided that I wasn’t playing the game the way I could and decided to run his mouth about my lack of skill. Of course I had to take that bait and teach a lesson. After that lesson was dutifully learned we headed into the theater area to see Cinderella.

I’m going to pause to reflect on some reactions to my boys seeing this film. They aren’t those kind of boys–you know, the kind who believe watching Cinderella is only for girls and have to act super masculine when anyone talks about girl stuff. I have the other boys. I have the boys who really don’t give a damn. The movie  was wonderful and surprisingly Buddhist in its philosophical slant. I suppose it always has been, but I never paid much attention. We all reflected on her actions after and the boys were cool with Ella’s choices and ability to ‘shake it off’. I’m not quite convinced they’d do the same.

In the end we had a good day and I got to spend time with my boys. Not much in life is better than that.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. NBC’s new sitcom One Big Happy is basically an episode of Chicago Fire done in comedic series form.  I’m not exaggerating. A specific episode of Chicago Fire focused on Severide impregnating his Lesbian best friend and roommate and then getting a girlfriend who it seemed could become a serious lover. This is the entire premise of One Big Happy.

The cyclical nature of writing has again forced a certain level of understanding–as did the drool pooling around me. I started and stopped this post three times before recognizing that I’d passed out three times in a row. I don’t know for sure then how long its taken me to write this. I know its been at least ten minutes.

That kind of night indeed.

Revis!

I could really end the post there, perhaps tossing in a ‘thank you’ for John Idzik who cleared out the cap space to make this possible (it was possible last year). Revis signed a 70 million dollar contract with 39 of that number guaranteed. Way to go, Island. That is how you grab the league by the horns. Still, Revis wasn’t the only one wheeling and dealing on Day 1.

The Chip Kelly experiment continues to set the league ablaze. He traded the highly touted (and not great) Nick Foles to the Rams for Sam Bradford, a player who it is rumored Kelly really wants to run his offense. I’m more of the cynical sort as I assume it is difficult to run any offense from the IR. That’s exactly where ‘glass body’ Bradford will be after taking a few of those NFC East hits. The more I monitor that situation the more I recognize that this is about ego. Now we know that NFL players have ego. You have to have a great deal of self-confidence, bordering on the super hero level, in order to play tackle football at that level. Chop’em Chip has ego too. Unfortunately, he expects theirs to be the smallest in the room, so he plays moneyball of a sort and releases all of his big name talent near the end of their (oft-realistic) contracts in order to avoid them resigning bloated deals with the Eagles. He’s recruiting B-listers because he thinks that in a room full of betas everyone will buy in to the philosophy of the Alpha Dog. If you don’t, he boots you out in a public fashion. Ask McCoy, Maclin, Cole, et al who didn’t get to stay or didn’t get to come back.

I’ll end this by talking about the Seahawks. They added Jimmy Graham in exchange for Center Max Unger and a first-round pick in this year’s draft. Now on the surface this is an incredible deal for the Seahawks. They get one of the three most prolific TEs in the game and one of the two who isn’t a ‘system guy’. I believe Graham will be able to line up anywhere on that Seahawks offense and continue to be prolific. On the other side I believe the Saints were looking to run the ball a lot more and felt that the interior line position and the pick were enough to push them even more in the direction of that inside-outside game they’ve been looking for. Honestly, there are too many quality receivers on the team to have gotten the rock and grown with Graham still there.

More football is coming down the pipeline. The Giants made a subtle move that is sure to matter greatly and many more discussions to follow. For now, my ten minutes is up.

This is another one of those posts where I lament my red eyes and weary soul wondering when a break will be close enough to feel relevant. Of course a break–well needed–is coming soon, so I cannot really complain about that. Instead i’ll turn my tiny resevoir of mental energy to a strange coincidence:

On the day AZ Governor Ducey decided to defund my entire 10 community college system (one of the largest and most successful in the nation) he also passed legislation to create an office of the lieutenant governor. I cannot say how much the new position will cost AZ on a yearly basis, but I can say the 8.8 million dollar cut that basically results in no funding from the state for state-run MCCCD colleges is equally symbolic. This is another sign of where the ruling party wants the mone to go and that is not towards schools or learning of any sort.

Too bad, really. A higher educated workforce usually brings more jobs and prestige to a state. We just aren’t that state.

She asked, “Do you have to go to Walmart every day?” A more clever person would have responded with something witty; perhaps even something along the lines of “Sometimes I go to Target.” Instead I stood there dumfounded, wondering how accurate the comment/question was. The next day, in Walmart, I thought about more and I got a little upset. The comment scored bone deep. It made me consider my own consumption.

This isn’t really about Walmart. I cannot recall a day in recent history when I didn’t purchase something. Gas, food, something always seems to require me to break out my wallet. This is a reflection on the way I live—day to day with little foresight about my distant needs. I buy food for the next few days, gas when the little orange light flicks to life, snacks (desserts mostly) or coffee when the need strikes. Regardless of the dealer, I’m hooked on that consumption.

I cannot say where it all started. Maybe not having much as a kid led to me having little control as an adult. It’s an easy answer and a 100% cop out. I recognize that I can have self-control and largely don’t. I also recognize that there is some social programming at play here. I fall into the cycle of basic needs (bread, water, gas, milk, etc.) but beyond that a lot of the spending is about that feeling I get from bringing home the taste of new or the comfort of being able to apply money to a task like making dinner as opposed to the work of cooking it.

 

Back when I taught rehab I always said the first step is admitting you have a problem. This is me admitting I have a problem. Correcting it will go a long way to helping me find the balance in my life I’ve long sought.

Today I had the opportunity to watch two people I love very dearly become one team. I’m not talking Quidditch here. I’m talking about two people become lifelong partners in marriage. The wedding was a refreshing blast of love and happiness in a time that has been clouded by sadness and death. It was necessary and powerful and perfect in so many ways. The moment that held my heart most of all were the vows. The groom read a set of promises that were eloquent and deep and romantic. And then the bride said this wonderful man was the first person to ever love her for who she was at that moment and not who she was going to be or had the potential to be. In that moment my eyes grew wet and I remembered what it feels like to love yourself for who you are and not the person you have the potential to be.

In the space between those words I flashed between all her loves I’ve known and the people who’ve loved me and who I’ve loved and came back with an extremely short list of people who’ve ever loved me regardless—who’ve loved me without context, or pre-approval, or thought of who I can be or do for them, or what I can become. I don’t know that I can put myself on that list, and I’m the most important person on that list. I believe that if you can’t love yourself for who you are it is impossible to become who you intend to be.