Here's looking at you, Kid

I have late night conversations w the moon. He tells me about the sun. I tell him about you. 

 

Last night I told him that I've run so far that I've lost myself; there are things I have seen that I never will tell. It drove me out of mind and inside myself, but I never will forget you, my American love; I'll always remember you as beautiful as they come, tho if saw you I'd pretend not to know.

 

I picture her dancing by the water beneath the Mexican sky,  listening to the mariachi play at midnight, then drinking margaritas, watching the sunrise. I'd pay any price, bear any burden, to be there too, but every ticket cost the same to where I can't go. 

 

And if I thought it would help I would carve her name into my heart, but she is now of my existence, a part of that which still remains. And she’s lingering like fingered strings, I seem to call on to feel the pain. I beg the book to turn the page bc I get suck where the villains get away. Somewhere in this wretched tale there must be a line where the victim gets his way. Just one time. I can only pray that I get mine bc one by one and day by day I become the darkness in the place we used to live.  

 

The moon just shrugged and told me to hold on bc the space between the tears we cry is the laughter that keeps us coming back for more.

 

"How can you be so sure?" I asked "I feel like kicking out all the windows and setting fire to this life.  I see her when I close my eyes. I'm just trying to understand why everything I touch surely dies. Now I only see her when I fall sleep. Never to touch, and never to keep bc she ran from me like a vampire from a 1000 burning suns. She ran away, and the things once in order now seem so strange. Once I could tell all of the hurt apart from myself, but now all I see is the hurt. 

 

"That's all you see now", the moon said, "but don't let the night become the day. Don't take the darkness to the grave. I know pain is just a place where it feels like your will has been broken, but don't let the fear become the hate, don't take the sadness to the grave.".  

 

I understand, I said, but most of this life's been a drag of a high and lows like a blow in a paid thrown title fight. My love seems to go from a dream to a crash and a roll just shaking up everyone. Then she texts me from the cold, just when I was low and feeling short of stable. All that she intends, and all she keeps inside, isn't on the label. I think she wants to take me for awhile, be my friend, forget the past, but maybe I'm not able? Will we ever be again? Problem is I never really know a killer from a savior and I wish I didn't know now, what I didn't know then bc eventually all my love turns into blood on stray paper. 

 

 "There will be time to crack another smile, maybe not today or for awhile, but we hold on to laugh again someday". The moon said.

 

“Do think I'm crazy?’ I asked rhetorically . "Sorry doc but I been crazy. There's no way that you can save me. I loved her like her fire till it drove me insane. I need an interventionist to intervene between me and this monster and save me from myself and all this conflict cause the very thing that I love's killing me and I can't conquer it. Seems we're all ok, until the day we're not. The surface shines while the inside rots. You know what?  Just let me forget about today until tomorrow” I said “because I’d trade all my tomorrows for one single yesterday. Yesterday love was such an easy game to play. Now I need a place to hide away. Oh, i believe in yesterday." I tailed off...

 

“Nine planets around the sun. Only one does the sun embrace. Upon this watered one there is so much you take for granted.” The moon said,  “so instead of taking things for granted, if given the chance what would you say”

 

Memories, like fingerprints, I felt them slowly raising. 

 

"The seas are full of water that stops by the shore. Just like the riches of love that never reach the poor. But I have no more blood to bleed, 'cause my heart has been drained into the sea" I said. 

Pausing for a moment, a deafening silence fell upon us.  Realizing I hadn't answered the question, I gathered my thoughts, looked up at the moon and continued "I guess I'd start by asking did you sleep last night? And do you remember dreams? Do I ever cross your mind; do you ever think of me? I had a dream about you last night and I could barely see your form,  but I met you bw the wax and the needle in the words of my favorite song. Your blonde hair was like threads of gold, with your tan skin on the beach, your backdrop were the auroras and my sidekick was all this grief. Come see, I swear by now I'm playing time against my troubles. I was fortunately desperate and turbulently innocent , I was living underneath my body weight. I was crazy like the moon for you. Head over my heels for you. Never would I change or compromise. But something in my mind does things I can't contain for anything. Last night I don't think sleep even touched my eyes. I feel like I've lived a lifetime without you, have you ended up somebody's angel? I'm no angel but I got nothing to hide. Can you say the same thing for yourself tonight? From the very first time I set my eyes on you girl, my heart said follow through.  

In a noisy bar in Avalon I tried to call you, but on a midnight watch I realized why twice you ran away. I think about how many times I have fallen, but mostly I remember how time stopped when I saw you standing there. I could barely breathe.  Please stay the same, don't ever change, bc I'd miss your Bette Davis eyes and the way you look in that dress. You're an essay in glamour, please pardon the grammar, but you're every school boys dream. To this day, I can still recall the hour when you first let down your walls. I thought I might have died right there floating up above it all, but it scared you love to need someone so you killed it all instead.

 

What you didn’t know is I don't wanna take what you can't give. I would rather starve than eat your bread. Maybe you needed a change. Maybe I was in the way, but there will always be a soft spot for you in my cardiac arrest. I brought down the sky for you, but all you did was shrug. You give my emptiness a name, so now I dance w your ghost, but that ain't the way, I can't move on and I can't stay the same. 

 

Still I age by years at the mention of your name. I am a lucky man to recognize your grace, but I need your grace to remind me to find my own. So with this pen, I thee wed, my heart to your distress bc you never ended up coming home, you just became something like some smoke that I tried too hard to hold. 

 

All I want is to wake up where you are bc this life is only chains; nothing like the colors of my dreams. I guess boys will be boys and girls have those eyes that'll cut you to ribbons sometimes. And all I can do is just wait by the moon and bleed if it's what she says I oughta do

 

After a long pause the moon looked at me and said “Like seed, love needs water before it grows out of the ground. But it just keeps on getting hotter and your hunger more profound. Well, I know there can come tears from your eyes. But they may as well be in vain. Even though I know these tears come with pain. Even so and just the same. Make it rain.”

To be continued....

You can be today....

A few days back I was having a talk with a close friend who is going through a tough time. So rather than try to minimize his/her pain by using platitudes such as : it will get better, or that there are worse things in the world I asked a simple question:

How can I help?

Their reply was "Do you have a time machine?"

So I said "Let's say I did. What would you do differently?"

And he/she told me "I'd make ___________ a priority instead of just thinking he/she would be there for me always."

If there is anything more painful than a broken heart, and I am not sure there is, but it may be regret.  It would have been easy to fall back and say something hackneyed like "i am sure it will work out for the best"or "if it's meant to be ....." but that would have served absolutely not one fucking purpose, and even if I believe it to be true, I don't know it to be true. I thought it would be better to be honest so I explained one thing that has helped me before is now that they had come to that conclusion, and we know the past cannot be changed, what's critically important is that you realize & recognize that today can be changed. Tomorrow can be changed. And the day after that and so on. While it sucks that we have no influence over the past, too often we fail to realize we have influence over the future and the only failure is if we do not learn from the past. 

I've thought about this conversation and my friend everyday since....so pardon the rant but ......We would all be so much better off if we would stop linking articles from the bolde #ForRealz or  thoughtcatalog #AllTheFeels. Please just fucking stop before I bludgeon you with your Iphone.  I promise you the answers to life's most difficult questions were not penned by some hipster wearing black framed glasses (which they don't even fucking need to wear) on his MacBook Air87 whilst drinking a $13 mocha-latte-hipster-douchebag with stevia. 

Stop thinking about all the things you want to do, or need to change. Just get up and fucking change.  Find a feedback loop and listen to it. A true friend, preferably someone with scars, emotional and physical, who won't pull punches but will be honest with you and help you walk on days you feel you may not be able to. There comes a time in a short life, we can turn it around,  get a rewrite...it's called today. 

The fact is the most valuable commodity in the universe is time. It's the only thing you cannot buy, you cannot create, you cannot borrow.....and your time is finite. Infinitesimally small. You will die. Very. Fucking. Soon. This can be a depressing a realization....or.....it can be a liberating one. 

It's been said that the graveyard is the richest place on earth bc it is teeming with unfulfilled dreams, gifts, ideas and potential.  Imagine if you will being on your death bed....and standing around your bed are the ghosts of the ideas, the dreams, the abilities and talents given to you by Life  ... And there they are standing around your bed looking at you with large angry eyes saying we came to you! And ONLY YOU could have given us life.

Question is: If you died today what ideas, what dreams , what talents, what gifts, or what PERSON, would die w you? For what is everyday but a choice, a series of conflicts bw the right way and the easy way; the person you are being or the person a couple of years from now you will wish you had been? Everyday that we aren't the person we wish to be, we create our own regret, and the need for that time machine my friend asked for. However, and this may be the most important realization I've come to in my life:

You can be today, and for the rest of your days, the person you wish you were yesterday.

Winston is still right

Someone once told me I have a problem letting go. I am offended by that and I strenuously object (oh is that how it works ? you strenuously object?). I don't have a problem letting go; the rest of the world has problem holding on. Besides why would I ever let go when I choose so very fucking little to ever hold close? Everything I have in my life is because I didn't let go, I didn't give up. My close friendships,  academic and physical achievements etc has all been from refusing to let go. Growing up I was always the smallest kid and was frequently told I always would be. I never let go of that, I used it to fuel a dogged determination to prove everyone wrong. I have developed and cultivated friendships that I am proud of. People from all different walks of life, but who at the end of the day have been there for me, and me for them.

But today we live in a throw away society. One defined by rampant consumerism. We replace stuff with new stuff all the time, regardless of whether the old stuff needs replacing or not. Sadly, relationships are handled the same way. When it gets hard, people quit bc thats easier. Too often you hear banalities like "if you love some thing let it go, if it comes back it was meant to be".....cue up the Iceman "bullshit" cough. That is total weaksauce.

I fear the problem will only get worse as the generation(s) that never knew a world without the Internet, Facebook, Skype, text messaging etc gets older. The art of communication and cultivating love has gone the way of the dodo. People don't know how to do it anymore. They build personas on the internet that are caricatures of who they really are.  People hook up and break up via text message, and concern themselves more with validation through social media rather than making true, possibly everlasting, connections Disgraceful. We have stopped keeping scores at kids sports, and children are told they are perfect, and that nothing is their fault. Parents side with their kids blaming teachers for their child's failure, making them ill equipped to deal with failure, and rejection. It is easier to quit & to let go,  than it is to persevere, but the thing is, nothing worth having comes easy and unfortunately bc of this attitude many will never realize that true love is inexhaustible; the more you give, the more you have. Call me cheesy, call me quixotic, call me whatever you want just don't forget to call me when it is time to press heavy weight. The thing is only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you've never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can't wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful.  They say things like "no more facts today, Craig" or "you're not that scary Craig"  full well knowing they are the only person on Earth who could get away with saying it, and in a voice that warms your soul and resuscitates your heart.

There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. The anger and the rage dissipate. Their laugh is louder than your demons. They bring you balance. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. They accept you for you in a way no one ever had before or ever will again. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, a song or a walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. They make you realize the best moments you'll ever live are ones you forgot to take pictures of; yet you can close your eyes and relive it over and over again. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it's like being young again. Colors seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn't exist at all. An entire day can be spent in a sea of blankets, or on a blanket by the sea, where seconds turn to minutes, minutes turn to hours, and though it feels like time is standing still you realize you have been there from sunrise to sunset & there is not one iota of guilt for wasting the day, bc you know it wasn't wasted, a minute by their side is more valuable than an eternity in heaven. You feel as if your whole life is not enough time to spend with them, the type of person who makes forever seem too short. A phone call or text during the day helps to get you through a long day's work and always brings a smile to your face.

You learn the that the true meaning of faith is not the absence of doubt, but making a commitment despite its existence. In their presence, there's no need for continuous conversation, but you find you're quite content in just having them nearby.  Silence is comfortable. You notice their beauty most, when they aren't trying to be, while they're tangled up in sheets or rocking out in the car. It feels as if they make your heart smile. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. They are your first phone call; in success and more importantly in failure, their voice is the one you reach for. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a cumulonimbus/storm cloud on the horizon. (And they don't mind, or even humor you when you wax poetic about types of clouds) You open your heart knowing that there's a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible or thought you deserved.

You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that's so real it scares you, yet you find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life. Each day begins with only one question, how can I make her smile today? Because that smile of hers could swallow galaxies, so what chance did I ever have?

 

You can never hold on too tight to that which you love, or as a man far wiser than I once said "never give up on something you cant go a day without thinking about". I couldn't agree more. I don't have a problem letting go, the rest of the world has a problem holding on.

If there is no enemy within....

Life is not what we do; life is who we are. This distinction is critically important and too often lost on many of us. Without going all existentialist here....

Over the course of reading a ton, introspection, writing and observation it seems to me that we far too often seek to define and pursue a goal. However, our ultimate goal should be simply to be ourselves. We should not waste our lives looking for a  goal; we should instead find, or at least look for, a way of life. Each individual, not societal programming or religion, is responsible for giving meaning to life and living it authentically as well as passionately.

We get ourselves in to trouble by living vertically; that is to say we pursue the next step in a goal, i.e. the next step up the corporate ladder, the next step in a relationship (been together a year so it's time to move in, then it's time to get married, then it's time to have a baby, and then our baby needs a sibling so it's time to have another child, and now we need a bigger house), the next step in a strength program (I've hit 225 now I want 275, then 315...). In so much that we do , or worse yet, in all that we do we live vertically.

We don't spend enough time living horizontally. By this I mean we need to not worry about defining a goal in the hopes that it will fulfill us (and in that goal the never ending vertical climb) but rather we need to choose a life we know we will enjoy. A life that involves self examination and reflection. One lived passionately and authentically. Seeking to find what truly drives us, what's our "why"

Living vertically is to be destined to leave one unfulfilled bc you allow yourself to define success by achievement of a goal. What exactly have you achieved by taking that next vertical step, the job promotion, the PR at the gym, that next step in a relationship?

Ultimately the goal is paradoxically attainable and unattainable. It is attainable because with enough work you'll likely get there , get that promotion, hit that PR, or take that next step in a relationship and simultaneously unattainable because there's always another vertical step, another promotion above the one you just reached, another 20lbs you want on your PR, another status symbol to add. Which means it cannot be anything other than unfulfilling.

Goals are fixed objects; we/people are not. We are exactly where we are supposed to be because we are the sum total of our experiences. Over the course of a lifetime any goal we set is fixed, static, unchanging. To dead lift 500 pounds, to become a Navy SEAL, to get a PhD,  to make AVP/EVP/COO/CEO. When we set out for those goals, they are fixed. Their definition cannot be changed. We are not; over the course of our lives we change. So why let these goals, whose definitions are fixed, define us? Why focus on them (these vertical steps) so much,  when we are always evolving, learning and our perspective being altered by things that happen to us?

To dedicate ourselves so fully to tangible (vertical) goals seems imprudent, if not reckless. How could we ever accomplish anything other than tilting at windmills?  It seems, to me anyway, where we go wrong is not discovering and defining ourselves, instead of some goal. There is an old African proverb that says if there’s no enemy within, the enemy outside can do us no harm. Those goals, in this sense, are secondary because if we cultivate and discover who we are the rest will take care of itself. That’s not to suggest we never set goals, because inevitably by not choosing, everything will be decided for us. And it is ok to strive for more, whether that’s a career goal or some other vertical goal but it is sad to me that our default strive for more definition is work / material related, and we let success in that arena define us. Where we fail, in my opinion, is we don't foster spiritual growth, knowing what's your why, and the development of character; we pursue that which is next on some vertical climb rather than peace, happiness and balance. Is it any surprise then that the divorce rate is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50%? That voter turnout is so low? That living in the information age we are, ironically, so ill informed? Or, that addiction is rampant? Working on ourselves is hard; sometimes wildly unpleasant. I get that. But if you don't work on who you are, if you're not careful, your talent may bring you places your character can't keep you.

(Bernie Madoff, Aaron Hernandez et al).

The New Gilded Age

The story of Madison Holleran is a Shakespearean tragedy in modern times. A star track athlete at the University of Penn whose life outwardly seemed idyllic, until one night she took a running leap of a 9th story parking garage in downtown Philadelphia, only minutes after buying gifts for her family to leave behind. She was 19 years old. 

There's a reason my phone is never off and that I do my best to reply to every text or message I get. I've been down in that hole before. I've been in places so dark that light/hope seemed an impossibility. I've been fortunate to have family (including friends, I don't make that distinction) jump down in that hole with me. Moreover, I've know friends who were down in that same black hole and on more than one occasion have had someone call/text me from the event horizon of that black hole; where there is nothing but darkness, and one more step would be the last. However, you would never have been able to know that bc what most people saw of their lives was filtered/perfect. 

By all accounts Madison had the world by the balls. Young. Beautiful. Athletic. Smart. And outwardly, specifically on social media, she led a life of infinite happiness. 

The problem I've always had with social media at large (full disclosure I don't have Instagram, never have, but when you filter the pix so that your skin looks faker than a botched boob job...just stop) is we live a filtered existence; one in which an incredibly misleading sense of perfection is the modus operandi. 

Even the #NoFilterNeeded is complete and utter bullshit. In some ways it's worse, the consummate level of narcissism. It's as if the person is saying "I'm so perfect, or this is so perfect, I don't even need a filter", you should be jealous, envious, that I don't need a filter.  

The constant barrage of everyone else's seemingly perfect lives has the unintended consequence of magnifying even the slightest setback or imperfection in ourselves. The reality is, it's completely gilded; lives covered (filtered) with a thin layer of gold to cover up what is truly there. 

We need to be more accepting, and more real with each other. We need to stop filtering life and start looking out for each other.  To that end, here's my updated , unfiltered (not "no filter needed", bc i am far from perfect) off the cuff reality, who I am: 

My name is Craig, and I am not crazy, I am just a little unwell…actually who we kidding I am absolutely bat shit crazy. I battle demons on a daily basis that I would not wish upon anyone. I don't think Robert Frost had me in mind when he said taking the road less travelled would make all the difference. Nonetheless, here I am.

I am a much different person than I appear. I am well educated. My memory is both a blessing and a curse. I love to learn, and can’t tell you how many times I have been talking to someone in a bar, or offered an opinion (ok a drunken rant) and they have looked at me puzzled and have said “you read books?” 

"Yes I do, what are you reading?...Oh Hunger Games? How cosmopolitan/intellectual of you, when you’re done with that I recommend buying a 64 box of crayolas and doing some coloring. Stay in the lines if you can, and don’t eat the glue stick, asshat."

Sorry. I am also someone who has no filter but just bc I have no neck doesn't mean I'm incapable of intellectual discourse and the implication offends me. 

I am too quick to judge even if I am right 90% of the time, and not quick enough to forgive...especially of myself. I am slow to trust, slower still to love, but when I do it is with every ounce of my being/soul. A beautiful woman once told me the only thing bigger than my neck is my heart, I’d like to believe she is right, but I often wonder. I suppose the drawback to having a huge heart is that the bigger it is the more pieces there are to pick up and try to put to back together when it breaks. Not (m)any people ever see that side of me. I also recognize that one of life's greatest ironies is only someone you choose to let all the way in, to truly and unconditionally love , could ever hurt you. And that's a pain that there are no words for; saying it feels like someone stuck a fork in your stomach and twisted and twirled around your insides like a bowl of spaghetti doesn't do it justice. 

I am someone who values family and friends above all else.  I love my little people (Adam, Emma, Erin, Ryan and Sadie) more than anything in this world. I often wonder if I'd be a good dad, or if I'll ever get to find out.  I would quite literally do anything for those close to me; a friend texted me once telling me that righteous vengeance is one of my best qualities. Not sure how I feel about that. ambivalent? maybe? see what i did there? must be from reading books....

I do know  if anyone ever hurt someone I love, I would make it my life's mission to visit a pain upon them that would make Hostel look like a Disney movie. I am quietly overprotective. Don't poke the bear.  The lives of my loved ones mean more to me than my own. In fact that's probably how love should be defined, but what do I do know? I didn't read Hunger Games. 

I am someone who has been through the closest thing to hell I imagine exists in the world. My unfiltered life....it's been a roller coaster I wouldn't wish on anyone. I try, so very hard, to carry on, to be a better person today than I was yesterday. I don't half ass anything. All in or not at all. I give myself fully to people....only to end up in front of an oncoming train. I often wonder what this life has in store for me. I don't know If redemption is attainable. I know adversity, it's closer to me than my shadow.  I've been forged in that crucible of adversity, but strength isn't how much you can take before you break, it's how much you can take AFTER you've  broken.   Pain is/was a gateway to becoming who I am, who any of us are. We can complain about it, which is only normal, but at some point (days or weeks later) it's better to look at pain and say "hey mother fucker take a seat. Get comfortable. Real comfortable. We are going to be friends, because I don't want to be ordinary, and you're going to help me out.". After all, I've never met a strong person w an easy past.

 I also know I'm capable of great love. Of unconditional , reality altering , die before I let you down love. Regrettably, each time I am able to call upon that part of my soul for another.....there's that oncoming train. I've learned enough. I've overcome a lot. I've gone through things I wouldn't wish on anyone. "It made me better"  I said....."life won't beat me" I said. I do believe that if nothing can save us from death, at least love should save us from life.

I sincerely empathize for anyone who struggles at all themselves, in any way, life presents different challenges to us all. Call me anytime, night or day, and I’ll be there to listen and help as much as I can. Loyalty matters to me more than anything in this world. 

I am the guy in the gym alone in the corner who loves to train and lift heavy (and alone) bc it is an outlet for the anger that I let define me more often than I should. But I’ve learned as much under the bar as I have anywhere else, even in school,  because barbells never lie. They will not flatter you and tell you that you look great or that everything will be ok. They are always 100%  honest with you and will let you know if you haven’t put in the work. If you haven’t, they will crush and humble you quickly. Barbells never say “nothing is wrong" or " I'm fine”. For that I am grateful. 

I am someone who gives my all to things and people I think are worth it. I don't believe in half assing anything; have you seen my Sunday meals? I eat because I workout ; I workout because I eat. I'm fat bastard without the infanticide or cannibalism. Luckily my body has an innate ability to repartition poor macronutrients into BOOMSAUCE. In fairness I work my ass off too. 

I am self motivated and driven by something deep inside me that I've never been able to put a finger on.... maybe its fear, maybe it's passion, maybe it's passionate fear. I believe what I believe in. Black and white. There is no gray. Coincidentally I'm color blind. I do not expect you to necessarily agree with me but if you can't  present a cogent argument as to why you believe what you do and display some modicum of passion (I'M NOT YELLING I'M JUST SPEAKING PASSIONATELY)  I will mock you....endlessly. The world is too full of half assery. I invent words when I want to and decided a long time ago one could add " 'ing" to anything and make it a verb. Drunken decisioning are usually some of my best. Good beer-ing. Just like that. 

I also have a lot of bad ideas. Some are directed at bad people, who should be picked up by the face then introduced to the pavement ...from a third story window. Others manifest themselves after 17 budweisers and a bottle of rumpleminze, like running over cars, going down a flight of stairs in a shopping cart, or playing keg Donkey Kong. "Hold my beer, watch this" should probably be on my tombstone. I suggest sticking around for the tom foolery likely to ensue whenever you hear that line. It's trite/hackneyed to say "I love to have fun", and it sounds about as philosophical as tony stuttering tony, but it's true. I'd rather regret the things I've done than the things I haven't. 

To that point Ive been told I love too hard, but that it's also a gift. The jury is still out but 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. To give, and accept it, is, respectively, the most noble and bravest thing we can do. 

I think we should read ALL THE BOOKS. There is so much we can learn. As Bob Marley said "don't gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold". 

The reality is no one is as perfect as they would have you believe. In fact very often they are more phony to themselves than they are even to the public. Maybe, I am the angry boy a bit too insane,  but I am comfortable in my own skin, even though others may find it abrasive or offensive. At least I am not trying to be someone I'm not or doing the "fake fun, phony friend" bullshit. More than anything I am just a tragically flawed man who tries his best every day, and often worries that it is not good enough.  Maybe time will tell you , why I got so much hell to sell you,  but please understand me bc you can't just dance around me. 

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.