Follow / listen to your heart

I recently read a friends autobiography. It was about time he/she had spent traveling  the country after their world came crashing down. It's the story of their personal "walk about" and the over arching theme I took away from it is that there is often a dialogue between the voice of our minds and the voice of our hearts. The heart and mind are often in conflict and "we" too often build a prison in the eight inches between our ears, we let our mind win, and that's the wrong choice. Inside my own prison I have come to realize that hell is my favorite place to go through, but too often I stay and visit. 

I believe my friend Napoleon had it right; there is a war that is constantly being waged between my heart and my mind. The irresistible force against the immovable object. I recognize this but there are moments I feel powerless to stop it. Upon finishing his book, which I am thankful to have been given such a personal look in to their journey, troubles and redemption,  I did a lot of thinking. To this day, I would say reflecting on my entire life the thing I am most proud of isnt any PR from the gym, it isn't some of the obvious and difficult obstacles I've overcome, it isn't even the incredible friendships I've been blessed to have formed, it's that, in the end, I always follow my heart...even if it frequently may  bring pain. I think, actually I know, that's the right thing to do. I would never want to look back at any period in my life and say I let my the voice of my mind overcome that of my heart. That I "reasoned" my way out of, or away from, what I was truly feeling. 

I'm proud of the fact I've let my heart navigate my journey. I came here to get hurt. We all did, (or at least we all should) whether we can admit it or not. It’s an unavoidable, shitty part of the human experience. To be free, we must be vulnerable. Otherwise we act based on fear, and by definition that is not being free.  This is my life and all these feelings I’ve shared have come at a cost.  It’s the price of admission on this ride. Or as more eloquently put “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

For some that feeling can bring anxiety and fear. That fear causes us to build that prison in the eight inches between our ears. There is no penance there, but much to be learned. In that prison, fear, anxiety and self doubt often dominate. They weigh us down like chains, but your chains will never fall until you do. Everything that holds us down , these "chains", this yoke of grief, anxiety, fear and self doubt ... we cannot shake them until we fall.....and then leave them "on the floor"(read in Sharps South Agrican accent) when we get back up. When we rise again, we are free....and that's what love is.

I don't think it's accurate to say we fall in love,  we rise  in it.  We become better. We become stronger. It may be something as simple as a smile that going a day without seeing isn't something we are willing to bare.  In pursuit of that smile we do things like chase down delivery vehicles, make cheesy videos, leave notes in unsuspecting places, send flowers (or cookies) just to see it, because to us that person’s smile is the closest evidence we’ve ever seen that God may exist and in that smile we find peace, happiness and even redemption. That smile can make you feel like your whole life isn’t nearly enough time to spend with someone. We don't fall in love, we rise in it. It makes us better. It makes us stronger. I've been there when the mind says, don't do it, it's too risky, walk/run away....but I didn't listen, I never listen, bc my heart said you're here to love, to feel emotions, a robotic existence is contrary to everything you truly believe in, besides Craig you HATE RUNNING! 

While discussing this with my friend Angela, who has known me for two decades and has a unique perspective into who I am, having been there for me from college through adult hood, we came to the realization that we are both a rare combination of intense and quixotic. The realization hit home. It's a beautiful but dangerous thing. I've spent a lot of time lately thinking about her point, even discussing it with another friend who has only known me a short time, but in that time has become like family.  He pointed out to me that in many ways too often my life has reflected the Dickens narrative of Great Expectations on a number of levels. I was surprised he had even read a book (then found out he saw the movie, which makes way more sense) but his insight was powerful....and surprising...it had to be the "medicine" talking bc minutes after, when we went inside, he walked through the kitchen and in to the bathroom looking for something to drink; the best part of the weekend was the look of utter confusion on his face upon not finding something to drink in the bathroom as if that was where it should have been ....and no there's nothing wrong w a brotalk under the stars, it's not gay unless there's eye contact haha (not that there's anything wrong w that!!!!). 

Tangential side note:it's no secret that Gaslight Anthem is my favorite band ever, and for a long time my favorite song by them was Great Expectations, and not for the happiest of reasons. It's a brilliant but powerfully sad song, especially the chorus. Download it, if you don't like it I'll buy you a drink. 

Angela was right. That was one of the most difficult sentences I have ever typed. I am, admittedly, an intense and quixotic person.  It's just who I am. I couldn't control it even if I tried. Everything I do, I do at full speed. Careful is not a pace at which i travel.  I remember an exact moment in time when I told someone that I was completely defenseless against their smile. That there was nothing I wouldn't do to see it; and once seeing it I could never be mad. I remember being asked "doesn't that scare you?"  (Napoleon's lesson manifesting itself perfectly). 

I said “I don’t know that it scares me. I gotta trust that you’d use those powers for good, not evil, and besides self preservation was never my strong suit (just ask anyone about golf carts I've crashed or stairs I've traversed in a shopping cart). I’d gladly do anything for those I care about no matter the cost”. And I meant it. Self preservation is not my strong suit. 

I suppose it has its drawbacks in the eyes of some, but not to me.  It beats the hell out of the alternative.  The way things are approached now is so ephemeral. For all the amazing advances technology has brought us to better our lives it has effectively ruined dating or dare I even say love. 

 

People meet someone, go out with them, maybe even “fall for them” but it’s not real, because nothing fucking is. People are disposable. We treat each other like a pair of sunglasses (oh bro don’t forget your shades).  We love them at first, even take endless selfies in or with them but no matter how good they look on us, no matter how much we like them, no matter how good they fit….. people feel the need to look at a different pair, simply to see how we look in something else. It’s tragic, and reckless. I want no part of it. 

It seems people try something else on because we can, ordering another person is easier than ordering new sunglasses, no credit card required! But we also do this because we are afraid. Afraid someone may see our imperfections and not accept them, or maybe we noticed something imperfect in them and felt we had to try something else on. The irony being everyone says they want to be known but we do not let ourselves be known. However, we need to let someone see our imperfections, our cracks, to know if they will ever truly accept us. And while we may not need someone to make us complete, let's be honest having someone who sees the cracks in your soul as a place to pour their love in to is the most calming thing in this world. This can only happen if we follow the voice of our heart.

 

And "that person" that so many claim to be looking for , our "soulmate", isn't this perfect person everyone has idealized in their head. It is a person who is just as flawed, just as cracked (maybe even more so) as the rest of us, ....it's just that their cracks are different and if we learn to accept them, and them us, they can alter our reality; challenge us in ways no one ever has before, thereby making us better. It is someone who marks a before and after in your life. They say things like "no more facts today Craig" or "you have three sentences to sum it up for me" full well knowing they are the only person on Earth that could get away with saying that, and saying it with a smile that consumed my soul. And that smile becomes more intoxicating than any drug could ever be.....so much so that everyday is approached with only one question: how can I make her smile today? Bc she said more with her smile and her eyes than I ever could with all the words in all the world; and you find that in their smile and joy, your own becomes immeasurable. 

But we will never know that feeling,  the beautiful reality altering high, if we are always looking at a different pair of sunglasses, or seeing cracks in someone as imperfections instead of a place to pour our love, or listening to the voice of our mind over the voice of heart. And we cannot wait until we are "ready"; there is only now......or as Hugh Laurie said it's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that no one is ever ready for anything. There is almost no such thing as ready so you may as well do it now. Generally speaking now is as good a time as any. 

There is only now. Follow your heart. 

(Special thanks to Napoleon Zimmerman whose story made me feel not only less alone, but reinforced the critical importance of listening to the voice of our heart, in so doing, regardless of the outcome, we can be sure we made the right choice). 

 

Anything for a smile

I spend a lot of time in thought. Introspection. Deconstructing myself, perhaps more often and harsher than I should. It beats not doing it all...."well I think that's a super philosophy Sean, that way you could go your whole life without ever really getting to know anyone". I digress. 

It comes from a place of sincerity. I have a true desire to reach some level of self actualization and as such I constantly evaluate and revaluate the things that I'm doing, relationships, friendships, what makes me happy, who I am. 

The last couple of years of my life have been unsettling. Things I never thought could happen did. Again. And again. And again. We have no control over that. And it happens to everyone. I'm not saying what happened to me was any harder or worse, simply that they were things I had no control over and could not have anticipated. That's the way life goes. I met a naval aviator once named Captain Charlie Plumb. He served in Vietnam; was shot down and spent years in the same prison camp as John McCain. He always says that it's when you're flying high, feeling (over)confident and invincible that life happens. Or as he says it's then that you  "need to check your six o clock position". 

Maybe it's a midlife crisis. Although the way I lived in my 20s I'd say I've already surpassed my life expectancy. The most important thing I've discovered over the last couple of years is something I wish I could have told myself the day I graduated college. I'd tell myself to work twice as hard as improving myself internally as I did physically. That no amount of strength in the gym can overcome for lack of direction or constitution. That it's infinitely more important to find out who you are, what you value, what you cannot tolerate vs what you can, how to love, how to be a better person. That it takes a minute amount effort to make someone's day. A simple note left for them in an unsuspecting place. A surprise delivery of something they love, be it double stuff Oreos , flowers, or a set of Leggos. And not to do these things seeking credit or praise. To do them simply to make someone smile. If at the end of the day you can say you've made someone smile, it's been a good day. If it's someone you love, all the better. 

I'd say to this point in my life my biggest regret is not coming to this realization sooner. I often imagine the things I may have achieved had I focused on improving myself internally as I  did physically, total consciousness maybe? How about a little something for the effort , ya know? 

I can't change that; so I instead I simply try to be better today than yesterday. And better tomorrow than today. None of us make it out of here alive but if in what is an infinitesimally small amount of time in the grand scheme things, we choose to stand up for what we believe in, to be honest in our dealings with others, to value ourselves while also being selfless, then we have done it right.  There truly is nothing better than making someone smile; especially if , in your eyes, that smile is the closest evidence you've seen that God exists.

Surfing lessons from a four year old

Little kids never cease to amaze me. The lessons they teach are the most valuable around. I had one of the best afternoons I can remember over the weekend watching about the most precocious 4 year old I’ve ever met using her surf board. Given she is fair skinned and lives in Alaska trust me when I tell you that she was lathered up in more sun block than greased up deaf guy from the Family Guy. This made it especially difficult for her to try and stand up on her surfboard at the beach.  After she waded in, the combination of water and a generous application of SPF block out the sun, had essentially transformed her in to greased lightning. It was like trying to surf on a stick of butter. Time and again she would try to stand up and slip right off the board. Undaunted she kept climbing back up. She tackled the challenge with alacrity and a smile, a smile so intoxicating that I’ve ever only seen one like it on one other person in my life. She would get up / stand up on the board for a moment , but in that moment, time stood still. The look of accomplishment on her face and pure joy is something incomparable in the human experience. Inevitably she’d slip off the board in spectacular fashion. She fell into the ocean in positions that even trying to describe them I think I will throw out my back. Feet bouncing over her head. Hands passing between her legs, butt then crashing down with her feet still on the board until she flipped over backwards into the water. Each and every time she came up from under the water laughing, and not just laughing, laughing harder with every subsequent fall.

There really is nothing better for your soul than a child’s laugh. It’s more contagious than measles running through a kinder care of anti vaxxers. I was laughing harder than I can tell you. It was impossible to tell who was having more fun, but beyond the curative powers of the belly laughs, there were other lessons to be learned:
-Get up every time you fall down.
-The odds may seem stacked against you (in this case the stacked odds manifested themselves as excessive sun block and a slippery surf board, innocuous enough and well intentioned, but obstacles nonetheless )and you can use the obstacles as excuses or as motivation to work harder. Very often we run into walls in life; professionally or personally. We should never forget the walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people. This is true on so many levels.
-Spend less time “connected”. Except to use my camera I don’t recall using my phone very much at all. There is nothing in your email, or on FaceBook, instagram, or anywhere in the abyss of the internet as important or as beautiful as what’s right in front of you. (except maybe a random selfie someone snuck on your phone when you weren’t looking, and it’s more enjoyable when you find those later anyway).  

On the hood under the moonlight

Staring up at the moon from the soft sands of the beach I cannot help but wonder. My mind wanders , starting out peaceful and in tune with the waves blissfully washing against the shore. Soon enough it picks up speed, shifts gears and accelerates at a frightening pace. I lay there trying to make sense of it all.

Life sucks. It's complicated. And dirty. And messy. It doesn't fit in a box. No matter how hard we try. We try, so hard, to cram everything about life into some box w four perfect walls expecting it to fit in there; nice and neat and perfect. But it doesn't. It fucking doesn't. Life blows out those four walls off the box.... if you're lucky it blows them apart atomically, like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Bc life is messy and love is messier. Nothing, absolutely nothing , worth having can fit within any four walls ever constructed by man. It sucks and it's hard. So much harder than we think. But that's bc it's beautiful, and when right, infinitely beautiful. And only something so infinitely beautiful can drive you infinitely insane.

Getting to know someone on a personal & intimate level frightens most of us, especially allowing them to see our naked souls. Discovering their imperfections, and them discovering ours. I actually love that bc that's what makes a person unique. The imperfections that others hide from the rest of the world .... it's like a little window only you get to see. It's beautiful and I get that it scares people to show that part of themselves for fear of rejection and being vulnerable but the truth is if it's the right person you are anything but vulnerable bc they'd never hurt you. Those imperfections are not imperfections at all honestly , rather they are the finger prints of our soul and our hearts. Letting someone in is to give them a key to a view that is dizzyingly beautiful.

As CS Lewis said the mold in which a key is made would be a strange thing, if you had never seen a key: and the key itself a strange thing if you had never seen a lock. Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the divine substance. Love is that. Embracing another's imperfections and seeing them rather as strengths and beauty and feeling privileged to see that which others don't , is like being a key made for that lock. And that can only be achieved when we are willing to bare our souls to another. It's scary and terrifying but it is also impossibly beautiful. To find the key made for our lock in the infinite contours of the divine substance is to stand beside the ocean and not feel small. If you wanna you can find me on the hood under the moonlight bc I believe there's still some magic somewhere inside our souls.

To dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free

It's an inescapable fact that the Cosmos will die. After an unimaginable length of time, approximately 10,000 trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion years even the last black hole will evaporate and the universe will reach absolute zero. The universe will die, at which point nothing changes and time ceases to exist. As a fraction of the lifespan of the universe, measured from it's beginning to it's end, life as we know it is only possible for

one thousandth of a billion billion billionth
billion billion billionth
billion billion billionth of a percent

Read that again. That is the fraction of time that life may exist in the universe. Makes it all seem so infinitesimally small. Completely insignificant. So why are we here at all? What is the meaning of life? Why is it hard?

My friend Chris posed this question to me during a recent conversation. I gave him my answer as this:

We must move away from the decadence in which we currently live. People are not genuine. No one "shows" who they really are, or embraces all the "ugly" parts of themselves. People worry too much what others think and for the most part use each other as a means to an end. They seek validation but not genuine bonds or possibly everlasting ones; like love. It's hard because too often we allow fear to dictate the rules by which we'll play. A culture of decadence that celebrates and condones rampant consumerism and over the top idolatry of false gods that most often manifests themselves in things such as massive houses, obscene jewelry and generally flashy opulence. No one lets their heart guide the way. We don't look at each other and value the human, rather we ask what value can that person add to our lives. We ask all the wrong questions, such as am I making enough money?what will people think of me if I _________? vs asking ourselves if we are spending time on the things that matter, am i enriching the lives of those I love and care about, have I told/shown them?

We must recognize that what we can feel is all that matters because people will soon forget what you say about them but they will always remember how you made them feel. What someone does speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what they say. To be selfless, to sincerely value someone else's worth far beyond your own, that's true meaning. When we die, that inescapable end, our love is what can make us immortal. Being remembered in the hearts of those you touched, whose lives you bettered simply by being in it....."you" live on in that way. For what we have once enoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes part of us.

To hold a hand and to never really let go is the most beautifully simple act we are capable of. To look at that person, in even the darkest of times, times so dark that a thousand supernovas could not illuminate it.....to look at them and be a source of light enabling them to navigate the darkness is the single best thing you can ever be. Because, especially fucking because, we can only appreciate the miracle of a sunrise if we have waited in darkness. To be that light, that miracle, you move from insignificance to transcendence. That has to be the answer.

You may say I'm a dreamer

  

Give me mercy in a minute now

I’mma bleed a little poison out

I’’mma cry a little river down

Then I’m setting this whole thing on fire……

 

I was having a conversation with my dad this morning and he said to me “Craig, you’re a dreamer and I don’t know that that’s a bad thing. It’s pretty fucking amazing when you think about. I don’t think you could change if you wanted to. You only know how to be this way, to care not at all or with everything”. 

 

The conversation stuck with me throughout the day and kept replaying in my head over and over again. I went to the gym. Blared my favorite music, but yet those words continued to dominate my thoughts. Sweat pouring from me, lungs on fire, the concept 2 rower taunting me to pull harder, and the barbell sizing me up….I suddenly found peace. I think, at least for that moment, I realized my dad is right. One of the constant struggles I deal with is, as Brian Fallon said “I was born beside a river that flows to a raging sea, that will one day serve to quell or one day be the death of me”. That raging sea is the war that goes on between the dreamer in me and the cynic/realist. 

 

I am dreamer. I believe love is the ultimate irony of evolution. Some may argue that we are wired to love; it is part of us, to seek it out, to want or need companionship. I think there is some truth in that but for entirely different reasons. In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes wrote the natural state of man is brutish…..it is the “war of every man against every man”. We evolved, formed groups and then societies for self preservation. Our instinct is to survive. I don’t know that is our nature to love. Self preservation, kill or be killed, drove our evolution.  Love is not that. It would not have served the self preservation instinct to value someone more than yourself; therefore love is above our nature. It transcends.

 

As I get older and more honest with myself I will admit despite the outward appearance I am hopeless and cheesy. I believe in love but I think our culture doesn’t love, love…rather it loves the idea of love; we want all the pleasure with none of the pain. I believe true love is not about you, it’s selfless. I root for the happy ending for everyone even though I know the world is a cold and cruel place. I believe amor vincit omnia. I believe you should only love/care irresponsibly. There is no halfway. I believe in cannonballs. I believe even the Hulk has kryptonite. I believe hugs are more curative than modern medicine, especially a hulkhug. I believe you can want to reach for someone’s hand and not ever want to let it go.  I believe that reaching for that hand doesn’t make you weak, instead it makes you stronger. Unquantifiably so. I believe people could be so much happier and healthier if they would look at someone they love (or care about) and see all the reasons why it would work out instead of focusing on the one or two reasons it might not. I believe we let our fear get in the way. I believe sometimes even the night looks lonely next to me. I believe if you roll over at night and upon seeing that person next to you, you smile because they are there, than you’re far better richer than if you ever hit Powerball. I believe you can find bed head and morning breath cute on the right person. I believe a smile from the right person can serve as evidence that god may exist. I believe music is powerful beyond measure. I believe I met “you” between the wax and the needle in the words of my favorite song. . I believe that our minds get in the way of our hearts. I believe nothing is never as easy as we are led to believe but we quit far too often. I believe if people were led by their heart, and not their mind, the world wouldn’t be so cruel and dark. I believe that for those I love I will be with you through the dark so that you do not have to go through the dark alone, or on your own. 

 

I believe we need to give a fuck, until we are out of fucks to give, and when we think we have run out we need to dig deep and find one more to give. Because you're never out of the fight. Never. I believe as long as I have the people I do in my corner than there is no one luckier than me. I believe (and hope) they know Id quite literally do anything for them. Any-fucking-thing.  I believe I’m a dreamer. I wouldn’t want it any other way and I hope some of you are dreamers too. The world has far too few. Being a dreamer does not mean you hold people to some impossible or unrealistic vision. Instead you see an imperfect person, perfectly.  It isn't easy. The down fall being when you fall, you do so with no parachute,  accelerating at 9.8 meters per second squared (see I'm not meathead) hitting the concrete at terminal velocity and breaking ....completely. Even knowing that, I believe that being a dreamer is a tragically beautiful disaster, so dare to dream and if you come across a dreamer dare to share in the experience, embrace it. 

I have been struggling the last several weeks to write. I had so many thoughts in my head that they were tangled like a rats nest that could not be unwoven, let alone made sense of. I would put sentences down two or three at a time and completely lose my train of thought. It wasn't lack of motivation or passion, I'd like to believe I have never lacked either. It can just be incredibly difficult for me sometimes to think what I have to say is worth putting out there......but I saw jelly beans in the store a couple of weeks ago and it reminded me of my grandmother, who i love and miss so much, especially on days like today. In any event, gramma always had jelly beans or some other kind of candy lying around for us. It was impossible not to smile in her presence. She was the warmest person I ever knew and I swear she kept the candy there just to make us smile. In her dining room, on a small end table, there would routinely be a dish of jelly beans (or maybe spice drops) and I would constantly sneak in a handful when I could.....which reminds me of this beautiful / amazing person I know who once listed stealing office candy as one of her strengths but I digress.

One Easter my gramma and I were talking about jelly beans, and we both said black was our favorite (I was only 17 and had yet to puke my fucking brains out from sambuca at Providence College....it would take me years to go back to black jelly beans). It was funny because we were both saying how it was great having the black ones be our favorite because most people hated them, so we could eat all the other jelly beans (just like everyone else) and after a while there would be nothing but black ones left which would be perfect since it was our favorite. I was smiling about this memory and talking to someone who I really care about / admire when I told them i was struggling to write this post and i came across this video. It was as if gramma and this other incredible woman worked in cosmic unison and directed me to it:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BOksW_NabEk

I was overcome with emotions that ran the gamut. Love. Regret. Loss. Self loathing and doubt. How had I been spending my time? Was it doing the right things? whatever the fuck that may be because I am not so sure I even know what they are anymore. I try really hard to do them...to be a good son, brother, friend, uncle, boyfriend, date, employee. But have I been doing them? I don't know but what I came to is this :


Worry less, do more.

 It's beauty outpaces it's simplicity. In so many ways each day is a jelly bean. Eat it. Enjoy it. Don't choke on it. You can't put it back in the jar. You can't ask for a different color if you get one you don't like. Those are like bad days. Chew it up. Don't waste time wishing you had a different color jelly bean. With a little bit of luck, and a lot of hard work,  your jar will be filled with mostly your favorite color (for your sake i hope it doesn't remind you of puking till you hit bile)....but sooner than you think the jar will also be empty. Don't give up. Ever. Don't be afraid to be happy and to that end don't run from anything out of fear, ANYTHING, especially from love, people you care about and those who care about you. Like, no LOVE, the black jelly bean. See beauty where others miss it, find pleasure in things others won't try, appreciate genius in insanity, discover and celebrate a big heart where others would never think to look. We will never know what we have if we are afraid to have it and we can't spend our lives waiting to live....