I have more in the hopper, but this caught my eye…
Sex is more than an act of pleasure, it’s the ability to be able to feel so close to a person, so connected, so comfortable that it’s almost breathtaking to the point that you feel you can’t take it. And at this moment you’re a part of them.
–Unknown
This is a helluva feeling. I’ve been there once or twice.
This was a great excerpt from a Maurice Sendak obituary. A few months ago, friends asked for books for their newborn, to build a library. I was one of three to bring “Where the Wild Things Are.” It’s as good a children’s book as you can find.
Explore – What is unique about Sendak stories, though, isn’t….
In school, I hated getting Fs. Mom hated them, too. But I’m relearning that we deal with two Fs throughout our lives–fear and failure. In my life right now, I’m wrestling with both. I’m scared to move the career move I know I need to make. I’m slowly moving in the direction I need to be in, as difficult as it is to move away from something I’ve known for all of my adult life.
And that leads me to the second F–failure. I think it’s taking a bit of time because I’ve failed to imagine that aspect of my life being different. But now I can. I can see myself doing something different. I’m not held hostage by what I’ve done for the past 15 years. I’ve enjoyed what I’ve done, it’s led me to a lot of great experiences, but I want more experiences, different experiences, now. I want to enjoy doing something else.
I’m getting there, in all its inevitability. Slowly or otherwise.
Real happiness is not dependent on external things. The pond is fed from within. The kind of happiness that stays with you is the happiness that springs from inward thoughts and emotions. You must cultivate your mind if you wish to achieve enduring happiness.
- William Lyon Phelps
I’m working–slowly–on making the changes professionally I want to make. But I need to look at three things a little differently…some (edited) notes…
Live…where and how? For the moment, let’s stay where I am; close to the city, the airport and the beach. Close to the turnpike for the drive home. Would be great to live at the beach?
How? Like I am now…I don’t need much really, glad that I don’t own a house. Some clothes, some books. Don’t really need a tv. Should I get a laptop? Big, powerful one. Apple, of course. Definitely need high-speed internet access.
Need to be in an active town; no suburbs. Parks, bike trails. Transit to the city, good restaurants/bars/culture wherever I am.
Work: is the field I’m looking at just a waypoint? Probably. But a good one. Would love some combo of a couple of fields plus life coaching. Mostly from home, but want to be in an office a couple of days a week. Would love to work overseas for a few weeks a year–Brussels, Paris at the top of the list.
How do I get into my new field? How do I get into coaching? Trying to get into that new field–informational interview Wednesday will help. Need to dive into coaching certification. Need to maintain momentum of search while working–hard to do, has to be done.
Play–doing well in not obsessively checking BBerry at home; keep it up. Don’t be afraid to go for vacation time–it’s yours. You work best when you are rested. Rest. Get to Europe this year.
Real playing–go to the beach. Go to jazz. Take the train to DC. Relax. Buy a truck someday. Move to the beach. Flirt. Have great sex. Drink well. Eat well. Take care of your body and your soul. See some baseball. See some soccer.
Live.
If your car engine isn’t running on all cylinders, you can tell.
If your mind, or heart, isn’t running on all cylinders, you can tell.
There I was in the office late today, and all of a sudden, things got busy. It happens in my business, out of nowhere something happens, and we respond. Normally when this happens, I get buzzed and jazzed and ready to dive in. This time, I dove in. But no jazz, no buzz. I wasn’t revved up to tackle the busy period that came out of the blue.
I realized this, and tears welled up.
I realized, it’s time. It’s time to find another challenge. It’s time to find another professional reason to wake up in the morning.
Maybe I just need time, significant time, away.
I don’t know.
But that small moment, only felt by me, seems like a huge crack that I don’t know if I can repair.
The thing that has gotten me up in the morning and out of the house, I’ve been doing for a while–since high school.
Yet I think I’ve been handed the craziest thing–the opportunity to shape the rest of my life. How crazy is that…
How can I do x if I have to deal with y? That’s the tether. That’s the leash keeping me where I am. Cutting it will be the easy part.
There is something that I’ve been doing for two-thirds of my life. Overall, it’s been very rewarding, with some occasional frustrations. It’s something I wanted to do when I was a kid, and I’ve been lucky to do something I’ve always wanted to do.
But…
I’m toying with something, a field that I’ve wondered about for years and years. A field I’ve been looking at from across the fence. A field I believe I can play in.
But…
I need to achieve escape velocity from the field I’m playing in now. A field I’ve been playing in for two-thirds of my life.
This will be fun…
(the train ride home edition)
Good Morning have a wonderful day….b blessed and enjoy life to the fullest 
all is well if we got Jesus
–my brother
My advice to you is let go, let the universe do its thing protecting you. You may have put things in the universe about positive change. It may be happening and it requires you out of there for that to happen. … Resign to the universe and choose your thoughts carefully. Be aware of the transition. … We select our thoughts. Select ones where you constantly see yourself happy, succeeding, leading an abundant life. Don’t run from this tension and opacity…embrace it.
–from my best friend.
Like I said last week, I’m ready for something new. Not totally new, but making adjustments in my thinking. About what is possible, what can be. I’m still working to part the clouds in my head, so explains the vagueness. But the sun will shine again. It always does.
I’ve said to myself, jokingly, that now having reached 40, I officially don’t give a shit. Jokingly, of course. I think I mean that I want to care deeply about the things I want to care about, even if no one one is interested. I don’t want to seem selfish, I want to be smart and thoughtful about life.
I suppose that I should have some momentous thing to say today, but actually I don’t. I feel fortunate to be here, at 40. I’m not facing any major crises, I’m not feeling that I have to grab what left of my youth and do something stupid and insane. I feel…good. Fine. I have my health, a roof over my head, food in the fridge. I’m counting my blessings.
That being said…
It feels like, there are more things for me to do than what I’m doing now. Little things, nothing massive, but things that aren’t going to be soul-crushing. Things that are fulfilling, though they may be small. I feel like I’m ready to find something else to fill my days.
I just want it to be good for me and my soul. For the next 40 years.
"Empty vessels make the most sound."
-Anon.
Love the line in this video…
Never let the world define or determine your honor.
I’d avoided reading too much about the Trayvon Martin case because it’s sadly familiar. But I read this, and the blood boiled a little. I sent it to my brother, him being only four years older than Trayvon, if only to let him know I’m thinking about him.
There will be people who will never countenance my presence on this earth. For them, all I can do is pray. The rest, the vast majority, I will love the best I can.
I will not proscribe living my life the best I can because a few have irrational fears/thoughts/feelings about me. I will continue to live, be human, be complex. As God intended for me to be.
We can’t our lives without desires, but we can live without clinging to our desires.
The Buddha said: “When a person has thoroughly understood the world, from top to bottom, when there is nothing in the world that agitates him anymore, then he has become somebody who is free from confusion and fears and tremblings and the longings of desire. He has gone beyond getting old and beyond birth and death.”
- Sutta Nipata
The stronger the force, the more wisdom and more clarity and more care one must bring in dealing with it….because the force is stronger, it needs more attention.
And the force he was talking about…sex. Of course. The thing we put so much into, we take the least care with.
We should care more.
“Mario is very reserved,” said one non-European central bank chief who has worked with him closely. “He takes his time and listens carefully before making a decision. But when he does, he’s all in.”
Sounds like an introvert to me…
The new theme for this blog…
Try to be reasonable in the way you grow, and don’t ever think it is too late. It is never too late. Even if you are going to die tomorrow, keep yourself straight and clear and be a happy human being today. If you keep your situation happy day by day, you will eventually reach the greatest happiness of enlightenment.
- Lama Thubten Yeshe, “The Bliss of Inner Fire”
This was a tough, yet, somewhat familiar, story to me, and probably many others. And the writer is right…
his happiness wasn’t my responsibility: only my own was.
I can’t wave a magic wand and make you happy. This sounds strange to say, but your happiness is your own work. You can most certainly get help on the way. But you succeed when you do your own homework.
Yes, it was strange to divine a life lesson from moving an old couch out of my apartment. But, it is what it is. Here’s the epilogue…
After many years, a much more comfortable couch. To be a couch potato on, and to read on.
Introversion — along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness — is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology. Introverts living under the Extrovert Ideal are like women living in a man’s world, discounted because it goes to the core of who they are. Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality trait, but we’ve turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform.
Susan Cain in Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, one of 7 great books by TED 2012 speakers
2-27-2012
Professional attainment, based upon prolonged study, and collective study at colleges, rank by rank and age by age — those are the title reeds of the commanders of future armies, and the secret of future victories.
- Winston S. Churchill, 1946
Yesterday I had to move my old couch out of my apartment to make room for the new one coming in tomorrow. That old thing was 15 years old, too small and getting hard to get comfortable in. Moving it was a chore–pushing it on its side, humping it onto the dolly, pushing it into the elevator, then wheeling it through two parking lots to the Dumpster. At first, I tried heaving it onto that dolly with one big push. Which went nowhere. Then I figured, slowly–tiny movements, side to side and up, then that 150-pound sofa was on and ready to roll. Same with the getting through the door and outside–small movements, no rushing, slowing the dolly down a slight drop. When I got to the Dumpster, same thing in reverse–easing it off and setting it down gently.
The rush to get where we want to go in life can often lead to places we don’t want to be. We have to understand where we want to go, the steps in getting there, and know that there will be difficulty getting there.
Most importantly, we have to know ourselves in that journey, and that we evolve throughout that journey.
All of this from a beat-up couch…
Right now, I should be heading up the street, slipping into a restaurant, ordering a gin & tonic, and listening to some jazz. But I’m not. Or, maybe better, I can’t. Why, I don’t know. I’ve missed a bunch of sets around town this winter, and I guess I could blame the weather. I feel, though that I may be in a I-can’t-listen-to-jazz phase right now, the whys of which I can’t explain. Maybe I can’t keep still, maybe my music tastes are evolving (I am listening to a lot of ambient/downtempo). It could only be a phase; I hope so, because I don’t want to abandon the form of jazz. But right now, it’s competing with this…
Whoa, this is a good, powerful one…
I do not fear an army of lions, if they are led by a lamb.
I do fear an army of sheep, if they are led by a lion.
- Alexander the Great
Trying the podcast thing again right here. I can’t seem to embed the Soundcloud track into the post. Fixed that. Anyway, this will make it easier for me to do what I haven’t done in ages–record one of these things, on the fly and without the tech rigamarole of the past.
When I heard that Whitney Houston had died last night, I was as stunned as everyone else. All I could think was, Lord, have mercy; why her, and why now.
This past weekend, Super Bowl weekend, was quiet. Very quiet, to the point of feeling strange. For 10 straight weekends, it was, as my dad says, rippin’ and running’–a date, dinners, lunches, brunches, parties, trips home, a trip abroad. Spending a weekend alone, with no agenda, felt refreshing. The batteries were running down a little, and the respite did wonders. Kicking the feet up and watch the game (admittedly not that exciting, until the last five minutes) was the perfect denouement to the weekend.
Now if I can just beat this cold…
From MLK…
There are always those who say legislation can’t solve the problem. There is a half-truth involved here. It is true that legislation cannot solve the whole problem, but it can solve some of the problem. It may be true that morality can’t be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. It may be true that legislation cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.
–Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., sermon at St. Paul’s Church, Cleveland Heights, OH, May 14, 1963
Have I posted this before? Possibly, but sometimes a repeat doesn’t hurt…
An officer should never speak ironically or sarcastically to an enlisted man, since the latter does not have a fair chance to answer back. The use of profanity and epithets comes under the same headings. The best argument for a man keeping his temper is that nobody else wants it; and when he voluntary throws it away, he loses a main prop to his own position.
- Gen. S.L.A. Marshall, 1950
Maybe as perfect a line from a song for an introvert as any out there…
I am human and I need to be loved
just like everybody else does
Popcorn-napkin edition…
In the U.S., today is Martin Luther King Day, a federal holiday. And like most holidays, retailers are attaching sales to MLK Day now. I suppose that’s a sign of progress.
From here, and appropriate, given where I just traveled to…
God summons the Archangel Michael in to show him his greatest creation: earth. God waxes on, explaining how he has perfectly balanced everything: power to lions, but speed to the antelope, tall trees, but giraffes with long necks, an entire biosphere in perfect harmony.
He then tells Michael, let me show you something I am particularly proud of: Canada. I have given it great natural beauty, abundant natural resources, clean cities, lovely people, everything that is the best of the planet.
Micheal perplexes asks: but I thought you were balancing everything. It sounds like they have everything, whats the offsetting balance?
God responded: ah, let me tell you about their neighbors.
Until last weekend, I hadn’t been to another country in an embarrassingly long time. So when I spent New Year’s weekend in Toronto, the itch to be overseas came back. And no, don’t give me the “Canada is the 51st state” stuff. Toronto feels distinctly different from the rest of the U.S, and Montreal even more so. It’s time to break out and travel a little bit. I miss the flying (I’m still not great with turbulence) and walking a city–listening, seeing, exploring. Time to re-expand the borders.
No, this isn't an ad for the airline--I actually took this...
Having taken this subway ride many a time–day and night–I can attest to the beauty of the view. And the rush of everyone checking their cellphones on the bridge.
Scroll down to the last paragraph here. If Hawking can’t figure it out, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Because I am one–an Aries, that is…
This being the end of the year, it’s customary to celebrate it and hope for a better year ahead. And that’s cool.
Remember, though–what you have now, will be there tomorrow. The making of you doesn’t stop, or begin, because the calendar changes. The process continues.
The only connection I have to cricket is this:
It’s a cricket bat I bought at Lilywhite’s on Piccadilly Circus in London. I wanted a cool souvenir.
Still, I read with interest this story on test cricket at Lord’s, the spiritual home of the game. What I didn’t expect was a treatise on the state of modern life, and the need to not be bored, as told through the England vs. India five-day Test match. It was a brilliant piece, and well worth the time spent on the train reading it.
Two quotes really stood out…
“There’s an entire generation of people,” my ESPN colleague Andrew Miller says in the press box, “growing up without knowing how wonderful it can be to wait for something.”
and…
“Everyone’s reality is peculiar to them,” he says. “It has to be. Thank God.”
There’s a constant push to be entertained, a constant desire not to be bored. A constant fear of the quiet, a constant fear of not being able to wait. In a five-day test, waiting is the joy. Waiting is ok.
Cynicism is the enemy of leadership.
- Anon.
The Christmas season always feel like a rush, a mad sprint to the end of the year. It’s akin to a mountain climb, struggling to the top of the summit. And at the pinnacle–a weary relief that the climb is over.
Till next year.
For once, I want the climb to feel a little less arduous. Less a sprint, more of a saunter.
You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him discover it in himself.
—
Galileo Galilei
yep…
