But there he is, glaring at me under the porch light, pistol in hand, erasing all the “howdy neighbor” dialogue I’d planned out for our first meeting.

I’d also wanted to tell him I loved the version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” he and his wife’s theatre troupe recently put on in a nearby park. I love Shakespeare but that didn’t rise up as the most relevant statement to make when you have a gun pointed your way.

Rather, our conversation when:

“Was that you?”, he asked.

“Yeah. I went to the backyard that way so I wouldn’t trigger the light over my roommates’ window.”

“Well, just remember that you could have died tonight.”

I was living with some friends during the early autumn of 2008, the third residence for me and Fortuna in as many months, during my turbulence and terrible post-divorce summer. That night, I got back around midnight from an evening with friends and decided to go into the backyard to watch the stars, drink a beer, and smoke a cigarette (amazing what habits return when your life appears to fall apart).

Seemed like a pleasant, non-life-threating idea.

Unfortunately, the best way into the backyard triggered a very bright light fastened over the garage which shined onto the corner of the house and right into my friends’ bedroom window. They were early-to-bed types so, in the interest of not waking them, I decided to go around the other side of the house through a narrow easement between their house and that of the neighbor. I walked slowly, waving my hand to knock down spider webs, pushing aside overgrowth, detaching a neglected fence lock, and entered the back yard.

Nice stars. Calming cigarette. Tasty beer. Settled nerves. Sleepy time.

As I started back to the front of the house via the same narrow corridor between the two properties, the neighbor’s window opened slightly, a dog growled, and an angry voice shouted very loudly, “Get out of here!”

Once I returned to my skin (it took a few seconds), I cleared my throat and said weakly, “It’s alright. I live here.”

Moments later, the neighbor’s front door opens and I turn back from opening my own front door to apologize.

That’s when I see him holding a small revolver in his handheld, slightly raised, pointed at me.

Our three lines of dialogue ensue and he turns back into the house with an emphatic slamming of the door.

I stood there reliving the moment when he shouted “Get out of here!” and imaged him firing a shot into the side of my head from roughly 5 feet away. I see myself as a large red stain on my friends’ cedar-shake siding. What an absurd way to go.

This is all the more ironic because I’d just walked home, regularly look behind me, fully aware of my surroundings. But it took coming home to get a pistol pointed at my head.

What did I learn? Well, my wariness around much of humanity (particularly strong at that time in my life) is often warranted. I learned that guns are terrifying when they are pointed at you and my hatred them grew even stronger; I don’t use the word “hate” very often. I learned that my intention to be a good roommate should not trump my survival instinct.

If only I’d known this was the choice I was making.

I went to sleep that night knowing that the head I rested on the pillow could have been, with one simple finger contraction, splattered below the family-room window.

It was hard to fall asleep for some reason.

The whole experience makes me wonder how often I’ve truly been seconds away from death in my past. That question is, on the one hand, deeply unsettling. On the other, there is a sense of gratitude bordering on relief.

It makes me uncomfortable as I dwell on the the true randomness of life when, for example, an otherwise pleasant neighbor pulls a pistol. Thankfully, I am still here to remember and write this and that is certainly worth celebrating.

We went on to become amicable “howdy” neighbors after we both apologizing the next day: me for freaking him out and him for waking from accidentally falling asleep in his Lazy Boy and reacting from a half-asleep, disoriented state.

I was left really taking the cliche’ “life is precious” to heart.

Live it.

DB Cooper Was Not Here

A recent clear, beautiful sunny Pacific Northwest day found me and Lakshmi scaling a steep ridge in search of DB Cooper and his bundle of cash. Though we didn’t find him (yet), the day was pleasant, the climb (700 feet of elevation over about 700 yards) arduous, and the adventure properly adventurous. While I am known to hike in the woods with the pooch, I am not necessarily known as a treasure hunter.

Why then was I out there?

40 years ago, my Great-Uncle Russ heard from a colleague that, the morning after DB’s daring escape, said colleague, from his front porch, sighted a parachute caught in a tree off on a distant ridge. For 40 years, my uncle plotted, planned, and dreamed of scaling that ridge to finally solve the mystery of what happened to Cooper. I knew almost nothing of the legend until earlier this year when my uncle mentioned, almost in passing, that he knew the final resting place of DB Cooper. My great-aunt listened quietly the whole time and managed to contain her eye-rolling to only a few instances.

My insatiable curiosity led me down a wormhole after that first conversation. After 40 years of dreaming, Russ finally found someone who said, “A parachute in a tree seen from over a mile away? That’s the proof? Cool, let’s do it!”. 

Armed with a GPS (and estimated coordinates), knowledge that the ridge was on public land (I went to the county to check), a metal detector, the dog, and a pickaxe, we set out to find DB.

Just off the road, the ground rose gently and then became a formidable ridge. Lakshmi and I went ahead to scout possible routes and, when I turned back to discuss options with Russ, I couldn’t find him.

He was sitting on the grass, a mere 20-30 feet from the road, cane in hand, trying earnestly to get back on his feet. At 85 (or so), he is in generally good shape but I could feel in my heart that he quickly realized the ridge was bigger than him. He couldn’t even make it up the gentle slope and there was a very ungentle slope standing in the way of us and DB’s remains.

I helped him up and, after composing himself, he said, “I’m having trouble keeping my feet. I’m not sure if I can make it all the way up.” I said that I would rather he turn back now and wait in the car than make it to a point where he couldn’t get down without serious help. I couldn’t imagine how I would carry him with a broken bone down the slope I’d just scouted.

We decided that, with a walkie talkie in one pocket and the GPS in the other, Lakshmi and I would make the ascent and look around. He smiled weakly and said, “I sure wish I could go with you.” I replied, “Me too but I think this is the smartest choice.”

After 40 years, he stood looking at his goal, staring up at his dream and, no matter how much he wanted it, he couldn’t attain it.

There was a point on the climb where I was literally scaling up a roughly 75-degree wall, pickax in one hand, the other searching for that next branch or trunk to use to leverage myself up a few more feet. Lakshmi was diligently navigating the wall with me and, at one point near the top, began to arch off the wall, her front paws flailing in the air as she fell backwards. I had a free hand at that moment and gently reconnected her with the climbing surface.

Later, I looped a rope around a tree and slide down about 100 feet of mud and leaf to get to the next piece of flat ground. Lakshmi had to jump from the ridge, drop 5 feet or so, and land in my arms. The look on her face convened her nervousness; this was definitely more adventure than she had in mind. If she could speak, I think she would have said, “Dude, I didn’t sign up for this shit.”

Through it all–the views, the ridge (metal detector in hand), the sunshine, the clean air, the complete lack of traces of humanity, the five-point elk horn I found (and brought home)–I kept thinking back to Russ, sitting there in the grass, feebly trying to get back up so he too could ascend the ridge. After making the climb, I knew it would have been totally impossible for him to make it as it was barely possible for me. There was a point when I was over half-way up and decided to continue because I wanted to make it for his sake. A parachute in a tree was the ostensible reason I was there but the truth is that I love my uncle dearly and figured that, barring actually finding DB, I could put a part of his dream to rest and, in my own small way, vicariously accomplish his lifelong goal.

I found a saying in one of my old journals (source uncertain) a few weeks ago–”Practice with love and without expectation”–and that was my mantra for the day. I was there for love, not expectation. Hundreds of feet below, my great uncle sat in the car knowing that he would likely never make the ascent. It was too late and this was the only way I knew to help heal a bit of his heart that was surely still breaking open in the shadow of the ridge.

I’d be happy to again explore the ridge when the dead leaves are gone and the moss not quite so invasive. I’d be happy to again wander around all day in hopes that the few bits of metal on DB’s person would trigger the metal detector. If I never make it back, though, I’m alright with that too.

But what I know for sure is that I am never going to wait to fulfill a lifelong dream because, if I do, I very well could end up as Russ did, collapsed on the side of the trail staring up at my goal so close yet forever unattainable.

I choose to not let that happen to me.

A New Day Dawns in NYC

Certainty in Uncertain Times

Parks clear. Cleanup begins. Leaderless movement now a placeless movement. Mixed messages. Clear focus. Regroup. Recommit. Refocus. Violent here. Nonviolent there. Streaming video captured with smartphones of confrontation reminiscent of peaceful resistance images from the pre-YouTube past. Pepper spraying grannies and pregnant women. Molotov cocktails. Rumors of anarchists building weapons. Crowds shut down a port. Hygiene issues. Drugs. Fights. Unclear focus. Clear messages. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in park maintenance and police overtime.

Dismantle the camps while the campers sleep. Worked for George Washington in Trenton. Works now.

Now is the winter of our discontent.

No camps to occupy… good news for the anti-OWS folks, bad news for the pro-OWS folks.

But if your enemy is not in one place, they can be anywhere.

Bad news for the anti-OWS folks, good news for the pro-OWS camp.

In my ongoing quest to make sense of it all, I turn to the certainty of the courts. After all, the judicial system is there to tell us right from wrong, good from bad. Surely the women and men in black will restore order and give us all a sense of normalcy. Right?

A Place to Rest Your Head… Somewhere else

Judge Michael Stallman (New York State’s supreme court) writes:

“The movants have not demonstrated that they have a First Amendment right to remain in Zuccotti Park along with their tents, structures, generators, and other installations to the exclusion of the owner’s reasonable rights and duties to maintain Zuccotti Park, or to the rights to public acess of others who might wish to use the space safely.”

First Amendment right to free speech is safe as long as you don’t plan to sleep over. What are the implications for dating? Otherwise, this is clear. Thanks Michael*.

(*Can I call you Mike? By the way, that was fast! Way to be on the ball! What an efficient legal system!)

Now New York’s Finest can set up security searches for the most dangerous of paraphernalia: blankets, tarps, and tents. Can they still bring camping chairs?

Walk across the wrong part of the Brooklyn Bridge. We’ve got rules about that too.

It is all becoming clear again. Thanks judicial system!

Now, let’s see some more kick-ass-and-take-names approaches to the economic collapse that helped get these ramble rousers out there camping illegally, walking on the wrong parts of bridges, and occupying ports.

Slapping Wrists with Wet Noodles

The SEC has opened a can of whoop ass!

Morgan Stanley pays $3.3 million. Goldman Sachs pays a whopping $550 million (they went on to add $5 billion to its market capitalization over the two days after the settlement… not the only reason this settlement was a win-win for them). That’ll show ‘em!

All this in only three-ish years. Nice work! So efficient!

How did we get to this swift and decisive action? Well, there was a lot of buzz around finding the responsible parties. For example, in late 2009, the Justice Department put together a task force to investigate. That’s only a year or so after the fact. This stuff takes time people.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission formed earlier in 2009 (speedy!) to investigate and issued their findings in January of this year. There is lots to say about that report (the conclusion is well worth reading) so let’s just highlight a bit:

We do place special responsibility with the public leaders charged with protecting our financial system, those entrusted to run our regulatory agencies, and the chief ex- ecutives of companies whose failures drove us to crisis…   In our inquiry, we found dramatic breakdowns of corporate governance, profound lapses in regulatory oversight, and near fatal flaws in our financial system.

Unlike the unanimously supported 9/11 Task Force report, there was dissenters on this commission that split right down party lines. I’ll let you guess which party dissented.

But still, we have enough to go after folks right! We can make amends, restore confidence, and let the blind scales of justice settle again, right!

Right?

How about some criminal charges (I’m thinking civil cases) for the financial crisis? Reporters Louise Story and Gretchen Morgenson have examined the lack of criminal prosecutions (read the highlights from their excellent Fresh Air interview for more):

When the energy giant Enron collapsed 10 years ago, top executives of the company faced criminal prosecution, and many served lengthy prison terms. In the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s, hundreds of bankers went to jail.

But the financial meltdown of 2008 hasn’t generated a single prosecution of high-level Wall Street players — even though the Securities and Exchange Commission has brought civil cases against some companies and reached financial settlements.

Thanks Justice System! It’s all clear now… Kind of.

Sleep in a park, disrupt the flow of commerce, peacefully organize, walk on the wrong parts of an iconic bridge: State Supreme court judges step in and riot police set batons to twirl, pepper spray to eye level, and gas canister trajectory to skull-cracking. The swift arm of justice descends.

Fail to regulate the financial system? Fines amounting to a drop in the revenue bucket. The deliberate* and balanced** arm of justice descends.

(A nice way of saying: *slow and **partisan)

What’s that you say? Judicial rulings on squatting in a park are a lot easier to hand out that the thorough investigative conclusions of the financial sector?

Good point.

That must mean that the investigative arms of our government made all the necessary resources available then to do the investigating. Right? From the aforementioned Story and Morgenson (yes, the article is long but it is so worth it):

As the crisis was starting to deepen in the spring of 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation scaled back a plan to assign more field agents to investigate mortgage fraud. That summer, the Justice Department also rejected calls to create a task force devoted to mortgage-related investigations, leaving these complex cases understaffed and poorly funded, and only much later established a more general financial crimes task force

Got it.

Let’s do a final review then:

Camping/Trespassing Bad. Let’s make sure there are plenty of law enforcement officers on hand then. Riot and SWAT at the ready? Good!

Destroying the economy and a generation (or three’s) future. Meh. Doesn’t sound like we need a lot of people on that.

No wonder so many people are pissed off.

Onward and upward

I wrote a quote on the inside cover of a journal spanning April 26, 2002 to January 12th, 2004. The quote, captured before I started journaling, accurately sums up the content that eventually followed:

To become acquainted with yourself is a terrible shock (Carl Jung)

This journal covers the summer leading up to my marriage. It covers the death of my father a month after tying the knot. It covers a time of doubt: for myself, my marriage, my life. It covers my birthday in 2003-2004 during a trip to Mexico when I rediscovered the ability to relax… after almost 18 months of trying.

Basically, it covers my dropkick into adulthood.

I reread this journal yesterday and reacquainted myself with myself, clearly seeing the incompleteness of my search for self during those years. The profundity of the Jung quote also struck me as doubly true. Here is a record of my search from almost ten years ago when that search was very present and active, now viewed through the lens of those intervening years, a perspective full of insight and sympathy for that past, incomplete me.

The reacquaintanceship plays out in the four drafts of my wedding vows followed a few pages later by drafts of a eulogy for my father. It plays out in a long entry in the summer of 2003 when I can’t separate the pressures of work, grad school, mourning, and being a newlywed. It plays out in a bullet list of activities in Mexico followed by random thoughts of the day.

It is during the long summertime reflection that I begin questioning (and doubting) my patience. My tolerance, composure, and calmness come across as stoicism and imperturbability but I recently admitted to myself and the world that is a facade. Anyone who has ever seen me lose my temper (aka “hulking out”) knows that there is a deep reserve of emotion under that smooth surface, deeper by far that the illusion of patience.

These entries are from a time when I wasn’t plumbing those depths. At the time, I still believed my patience inexhaustible. But doubt was cracking the foundation of certainty.

As I reread this little journal, emotions–the bittersweetness of the wedding, the emptiness of the funeral one month later, a hollowness that I still feel today–came on strong. However, it was that summer entry that spoke loudest for it is there that I ask myself the tough questions… the possibility that my patience is a lie, the fear that I don’t actually know how to love, and the worry that I chose the wrong partner.

Looking back almost a decade later–after a divorce and an ongoing process of aligning myself so that I might have fleeting tastes of balance–I felt an abiding compassion for 2002-2004 Steve. I felt validated as well looking back at all that doubt and confusion with a clarity made available by the distance of perspective and the wisdom of paying attention. There is a frozen-moment quality to the rumination, a blurred snapshot of my mind that I can now look at fondly, filling in some blanks and adding back some of the faded colors.

In it there are also questions and perspectives that remind the almost-2012 Steve of the timelessness of some states of being.

How much of me is a lie? Do I really do so much? Do I really give more than I get? I realize how unhappy I am, working so hard that I don’t find time to enjoy myself. When I do have the time, I’m so preoccupied with the weight of responsibility that I don’t settle into the moment. This is clearly no way to live.

I wonder what Steve will be reading my journals eight years from now. Where is he? What is he doing? Does he still occasionally forget that unhappiness is caused by losing the moment in a torrent of to-dos and should-dos? Is the process of acquainting himself to himself still sometimes a terrible shock? Has he answered any of the burning questions of today? What questions does he have in his present moment?

I look forward to meeting him and hearing his answers.

Entitled deadbeats protected by the minions of bloated govt.

I went to downtown Portland yesterday to see what three-to-five thousand whiners, deadbeats, slackers, and ne’er-do-wells looked liked when they descended en masse on Portland’s “Living Room” (Pioneer Square). Here’s my report:

On the surface, the crowd seemed disturbingly normal. It spanned in age from teenager to elder in very equal proportions. I overheard radical socialist and/or anarchist ideas (same thing?) disguised as thoughtful conversations about taxation, offshoring jobs, lacking healthcare, access to education, holding banks accountable, and long-term unemployment. People carried signs supporting collective bargaining rights and the power of numbers… numbers of people, not dollars. There were a handful of people in masks or dressed up like Wall St. Banking Puppets. Otherwise, lots of Gore-Tex, baseball caps, and wool apparel. After all, it’s Portland and it’s getting cool.

There were funny signs: “Soylent Green is People! Corporations are Not!”

A sign with an image of a rabbit that said, “Screw Us and We Multiple”

Amusing and not too america-hating on the surface. But aren’t you all subversive freedom haters? What’s on the other side of that sign buddy?

Fortunately, to stave off my own critical thinking, there were some signs clearly spawned by anti-trust-your-benevolent-corporate-friend, anarchist nazis expressing disturbing notions like: “Unemployed Construction Worker willing to work under the table since I can’t even land a minimum wage job” and “Single mother of two with no health insurance”.

I thought back to what I’d read from Herman Cain minutes before heading to the protest:

“Don’t blame Wall Street,” Cain said. ”[D]on’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself!”

and my own questions began to bubble up:

Why do these people look so deceptively normal? Why are there as many spectators as marchers? Why are these bystanders snapping pictures and cheering? Why aren’t any of these people working at their real jobs right now? What am I doing here? Shouldn’t I be working hard? Just because I plan to work another 10-12 hour day today and every other day through this weekend, does that excuse the two hours I took to be here?

Am I an america-hating, social leach and I just don’t know it?

Most importantly,”Why don’t I see any “I’m unemployed and not rich and I blame myself?” t-shirts and signs? Maybe I should get one for myself.

To help me start answering these questions, I decided to visit a website today that actually knows something about an organic, grassroots movement that provides “another avenue for people to have their voices heard” so that they can advance the spirit of the American Revolution. You know, that little scuffle with England that “unleashed the most individual freedom, individual liberty, and human advancement unmatched in the history of humanity*”?

That’s right, I found my answers over on The Tea Party of Oregon site.

This is where I got the ”Advancing the spirit of the American Revolution*” quote (it’s in their mission statement. More on this site in a second… or maybe I should say moron this site in a second.

(*The writer in me needs to clearly distance himself from that clunky, poorly-written sentence.)

The “another avenue for people to have their voices heard” quote? Eric Cantor on the Tea Party. Cantor on the “Occupy” movement? “I am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and other cities across our country.”

Alas. If only it was just another avenue for people to have their voices heard. But I don’t want to get sidetracked by Cantor. I’ll leave that up to Washington.

How then can the Occupy people get it right?

My desire to help the Occupy Movement gain credibility–I mean, they seemed like nice enough people and they’re just so darn earnest–took me deeper into the sage advice of the Tea Party and spawned more questions:

1. What if Occupy (insert place) could help protect the inalienable rights of people? 
2. What if they could help create a system that “allows the individual and their right to use their intellect, education, muscle, ingenuity, work ethic, talent, & experience, by free choice & free association, in order to trade those attributes, and to provide opportunity, advancement, profit, prosperity, a future and opportunity for themselves, our children, and therefore our nation”?
3. What if they could address “massive unsustainable spending… economy-crippling debt… government NOT picking winners and losers… corporate welfare, (and) wealth redistribution” thus allowing “the people of the United States to thrive, prosper, and grow, without interference, and of their own merit.”?

The answer, you see, is simple. The Tea Party is already doing all this. These are their three core principles.

Turns out the if you do things like insert the word “corporation” for “government” when discussing institutions that bar us from our inalienable rights as people, you’re a whiner and a deadbeat. If the Koch Brothers fund your movement then you’re a real american. If a bunch of real americans come together then you’re a mob.

That’s clear. I’m feeling better.

However, if you don’t get your proper permits to organize and stay overnight in a public park, your event is “nothing short of illegal camping and trespassing.” Reach out to the city? The planners, parks/rec, and the cops? Why would we want to fund the bloated bureaucracy just so they can tell us what to do? Isn’t overreaching government the enemy? Isn’t The Tea Party channeling the spirit of the protesters who broke the King’s Law by dumping tea in Boston Harbor?

Damn… now I’m confused again.

According to the Tea Party, if you’re organizing and using up public funds on road blocks and a police presence, you’re a “Fleabagger“. What are you when you organize people around the country in 2009 and also forcibly disrupt town-hall meetings? That’s right, now I remember. You’re a concerned Patriot.

Clarity returning.

But wait… as of 11/7/11 at 1:00 pm PST, the Fleabagger page on Facebook has 103 likes. 40,000 people like the Occupy Wall Street page. Since we all know that, these days, your number of likes on Facebook determines your value, what is this telling me? Oh, the Tea Party Patriots page has 850,000 likes.

Order is restored.

A group wisely started the “We are the 53%” page to support “Those of us who pay for those of you who whine about all of that… or that… or whatever.” It is full of people who work 2-3 jobs, 60-80 hours a week to get by. One guy works that hard and only gets paid for 45! Patriot!

You know, the ‘”work hard not smart” crowd. Lots to learn there.

What is 53% by the way? The number of Americans with “real”, “pay your dues and someday you’ll get a brush to scrub that toilets” jobs? I thought the hard jobs all went to undocumented workers and/or China so WalMart could keep prices low.

This is quite a wormhole I’ve entered! Where do I go next?

What about a newspaper? The NY Times? Paul Krugman? What he says about Occupy makes so much sense but he’s a liberal, right?

So confusing!

For some final solace and clarity, I will end my journey with a visit to some economic data. Nonpartisan economic data. How about a Nobel-Prize Winning Economist? How about Joseph Stiglitz? This is what he says:

“The top 1 percent of Americans now take in roughly one-fourth of America’s total income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, . . . the top 1 percent now controls 40 percent of the total. This is new.”

But this is not new. The last time a system like this was in place, didn’t we revolt against the monarch of England? What was that called? Right. The American Revolution.

Crap… looks like it’s back to the Tea Party Website again.

The answer must be out there somewhere. Can you help me find it so I can stop thinking?

Snake Got Your Tongue?

I sometimes worry that I spend too much time emailing with my friends when I “should be” doing “real” writing. Yet, just as it was in the lost days of letter correspondence, it is in the process of writing a loved one that I mine deeper into myself and find stories to share with a wider audience. Sharing, after all, is my purpose in this grand exercise called life.

*Tim died in 2002 and I cried when I heard the news. It was the first time I lost someone whom I considered a mentor though I never told him in person that he mentored me. This is the story of how that happened.

In the fall of 1993, I received permission to take a writing class at North Carolina State University. I’d taken ever available writing class at WG Enloe High School (um… go Eagles!) so, while many of my fellow seniors were taking physics and calculus and such at NC State, I got the green light to go and write. The excitement I felt was a lovely precursor to the sheer terror I encountered the first day of class. Here was a room full of adults… and I mean “real adults”, people in their twenties and thirties! Grad students! Adults in the continuing ed program! Then there was me, a 17-year-old with the zits to prove it.

The teacher was an eccentric ex-Marine, ex-Peace Corps volunteer, former snake-handling carnival freak novelist name Tim McLaurin. Tim brought a couple of snakes to class once–a king snake and a rattlesnake–and I remember one classmate conceding his intense phobia of snakes was getting the better of him so he jumped out of the (second story) window and took the rest of the afternoon off (i.e. he was fine). This seemed excessive as he was sitting nearer to the door than the window. Writers!

One of Tim’s old carnie tricks was to extract venom from the rattler with a wine glass. If you ever get a chance to see this, take it. A snake with its fangs hanging over the fragile lip of a wineglass, a slow dribble of liquid pooling in the base. Tim’s deft hand holding the snake tight, his thumb pressed firmly into the back of the snake’s head. Tim completed the spectacle by opening a can of Schiltz Malt Liquor, pouring it over the venom, and drinking it all down.

I was way out of my comfort zone.

The class was structured such that each student wrote and shared two stories. Each week we read two stories, each from a different student, and gave feedback. My first story was not memorable. I say this with utmost sincerity because I cannot recall it… and if the author can’t remember then the chances of anyone else remembering are slim to none. My second story was about a knight traveling to the northern wasteland to kill a barbarian king. You see, the king “had his way” with a maiden during a raid many years back and her son, the knight, was now riding to kill his father.

During the feedback, one of the students asked, “Is this from Dungeons & Dragons? It sounds like it’s from Dragonlance.”

I cleared my throat and muttered, “It is.”

A few students chuckled. I felt like jumping out that very same window.

Tim, who always went last, said:

“Sure, there are some stylistic and mechanical issues here. Sure, the content may seem juvenile to some of you. But let me tell you this Steven: you’re one hell of a storyteller and no one can teach you that.”

I nodded slightly and continued staring my notebook. I slowly picked up my pen and started writing “YES! YES! YES! YES!” in the margin.

I still get a shiver when I remember that day and I carry Tim’s validation with me always. Tim, I never got to say this while you were alive but here it is:

Thank you. Thank you so, so much. There are days when those words are the ones keeping me at the keyboard.

I promise to pay you back by giving that unconquerable sense of worth and value to people in my life.

Caught in the Thought Loop

**Psst. Psst. Can you still hear me? Are you sure you want to do this? Think about it. It doesn’t seem very safe. Are you sure you want to try? Think about it. Shouldn’t you just stick with what’s safe? Think about it. I mean, really think about it.**

**I don’t think you’re doing enough. You should hurry up! I think you’re doing too much. You should slow down!**

**Why not make a list? It always help you sleep when you know you have a list to jump on first thing in the morning, right?** 

I know this voice, it is the sound of my thoughts. It is the sound of my busy, buzzing, preoccupied mind. Maybe it sounds like your thoughts too. But there are other voices, voices that appear in my head but come from somewhere else entirely. Strong voices, sure voices, voices saying things that don’t really make sense when I think about it… but somehow I know they’re spot on.

Example: it’s Monday morning and I sit at my computer for another day of typing my way toward making a living. These voices say:

***Feel that connection? Feel that inspiration? Yeah, that’s why you’re here. You live this way because you love it, not because it is the next right move up the career ladder. You live this way because it’s in alignment with who you really are and that feels good.***

But then the voices start to argue. 

**Shouldn’t you go out and get a real job? Shouldn’t you stop pretending that this ‘freelance consulting thing’ is working? You’re just another writer/blogger/speaker. You can throw a rock and hit one of those these days. You’re nothing special.**

**‘Will think for food’ is your stupid mantra right? You’re just a small fish in a vast ocean. Didn’t you see Finding Nemo? Why are you away from the reef? Don’t touch the boat! Get back here right now!**

 Example: Now it’s friday night and I’m choosing to stay home with my dog because she’s been alone all afternoon.

***Ahhhh, this is nice. Warm blanket? Check. Glass of wine? Check. Dog-ball for repetitive tossing while watching a movie? Check. Eager dog staring intently at the ball? Check.***

The voices begin arguing again.

**Wait. Didn’t that woman from yoga class seem suggest you two get a drink to talk more about chakra meditations and breathing exercises?  Shouldn’t you be out there dating? Shouldn’t you be out there meeting people? Shouldn’t you be lamenting the state of the dating scene post-30, post-Facebook, post-Match.com. Shouldn’t you be unhappy about something?**

I realized in 2008 that I’d grown so used to listening to the insane loop of self-consuming thoughts that I didn’t really–and I mean really–question my thoughts.

• Where are they coming from?
• What formed them?
• Why do I believe them just because I think them?
• What if everything they ever said was a lie or, at the very least, only a tiny part of total perception?
• Why don’t I give the same attention and sway to the voices of emotion and instinct?

As I wrestled with these questions, wrestled with the feeling that I was trapped in my own head… and I realized something even more insidious: I project these thoughts onto other people. 

• You should this, you should that…
• I just thought you’d be able to do that…
• I’m disappointed in you.
• Why can you be more like…?

It’s bad enough that I torture myself with own thoughts, can I be more mindful of not subjecting others to them? Sam Harris provides a fascinating perspective that speaks to he constant struggle I have with that unceasing narrative running in my head:

…if you speak to yourself out loud all day long, you are considered crazy. But speaking to yourself silently — thinking incessantly — is considered perfectly normal… the continuous identification with discursive (digressive, circular) thought is a kind of madness.

Thoughts are like the mythical Ouroborus (oo-roh-BOH-rohs), creating and consuming themselves in an infinite loop. Intuition and emotion try to break break the cycle but so many of us, myself included, learned only to listen and trust in that self-defeating loop.

Today I encourage you to see when you can start to break that thought loop–to hear the other voices in your head–so that you might live more fully. I started by abolishing the word ‘should’ from my vocabulary and then moving on to ‘supposed to’. Now I enjoy challenging anyone who uses those words in conversation. It makes me a lot of fun at parties.

And don’t worry, if you don’t choose to break the loop… I won’t be disappointed in you. I won’t even judge you. I won’t think myself better than you. I won’t feel sorry for you.

Non-judgment is one of more significant way I stopped listening to the whispering, doubtful voices in my head–voices that make me doubt me and voices that make me doubt you.

We seem to have hit a wall

Dear Action-Film Screenwriters,

I watched ‘Tron Legacy’ last night and I have a question:

For a film built on the premise that getting shot with a special laser will send you into an alternate reality, why do you then spend so much time trying to make reality in ‘The Grid’ seem plausible?

I was more than willing to totally suspend disbelief when I sat down. That was the point really.

See, when you try so hard to make the fabric of this reality seem tangible, you ultimately have the opposite effect : you merely remind me that I’m watching a movie about digitized beings shattering one another with flying discs and energy walls. If you think about it, it’s totally ridiculous.

So why are you making me think about it?

You’re bringing me down man.

I wrote last year about my litmus test for action films: there should be 51% or more action and 49% or less plot development, talking, romance, etc. I call this theory ‘The Planet of the Apes Rule‘. Might I suggest you try it out?

Like that simian slugfest (and seemingly most new ‘effects-driven event films’*), ‘Tron Legacy’ is a remake. I get that. I get that remakes engender certain parameters around which screenwriters must craft a fresh tale. However, you can take a pretty easy route when writing your remake.

For example:

‘This is the alternate reality that you knew and loved as a kid. This is what it looks like with 21st Century special effects. You want lots of chases, hand-to-hand combat, and explosions? You got it! You don’t need an explanation for why this is all happening? Great! You see the characters primary role being the vehicles to carry out this explosion-o-rama and not archetypes used to mine the emotional depths of love and unhappy childhoods ? Awesome!

Have we got a film for you!’

I didn’t sit down to watch ‘Planet of the Apes’ or ‘Tron Legacy’ hoping that the advent of 21st century filmmaking would allow us to create (rather than simply choose to believe) a reality in which intelligent monkeys duke it out or badass ‘programs’ in glowing bodysuits turn one another into shimmering avalanches of raw data.

I want to see shit blow up.

When I want plausibility and deep character development, I pick from the annual bevy of autumnal Oscar contenders.

Want an example of a remake that kicked ass? Look no further than the 2009 ‘Star Trek’ reboot. Want an example of explaining a reality and then quickly getting out of the way so that shit can blow up? Watch the first ‘Matrix’ film again.

The formula isn’t that hard really. Getting it right, however, seems challenging. How then can we, the viewing public, help you?

Sincerely,

Steve

*Thanks to the brilliant writers of ‘Tropic Thunder’ for this apt description.

The first comic I purchased was issue #195 of the ‘X-Men’. It was 1984 and it cost me 65 cents.

Think youth makes you invulnerable, bub?

Apparently I can now buy it for $7.00. Why would I need to buy another copy?

Someone stole it.

Someone stole all my comics and, in the process, took from me the collection that defined my youth.

My voracious comic collecting was match only by my brother’s tenacious stockpiling. Together we consumed most of the Marvel superheroes universe in the order of 20-30 comics a month. Pretty much all our combined allowances went to comics.

I drew pictures in my notebooks from my favorite images. I took Russian in high school because my favorite superhero Colossus spoke Russian. Seriously. I talked comics with my friends. I role-played ‘Marvel Super Heroes’ as often as I played ‘Dungeons and Dragons’. The fantasy worlds of super heroes, wizards, warriors, and goblins were more a part of my real world than anything else.

And then someone stole it all.

You've made a colossal mistake

A ‘Friend’ on the Move

I got back from Japan in 2000 and it didn’t take me long to realize my comics were nowhere to be found. When I inquired, my mother emphatically started the tale with, ‘ I had nothing to do with this!’ and then said:

My brother, then in Seattle, knew some ‘friends’ moving from Raleigh to the Pacific Northwest via the southern states. Together with the help of my father, they all hatched a plan:

These ‘friends’ would swing through Jacksonville, Florida, stop by mom and dad’s, grab all the comics, head west, and deliver the comics to my brother. No one shared this plan with me.

The ‘friends’ never showed up.

My brother continues the story from there:

After months of repeated emailing and calling, he finally heard from these ‘friends’: They ‘didn’t make it’ to Seattle and instead stopped in California. In the intervening months, they ‘had to throw away all the comics because they were a fire hazard’.

All this transpired well before I returned to the US. When I got home, I felt like I was hearing about the death, memorial, burial, and one-year observance of a friend. I’d missed it all.

I was livid. I wanted to sue them. I wanted to find these ‘friends’ and kick them hard in very sensitive places.

Furthermore, I knew they were lying. ‘Threw them away’? Really? Any idiot with a few braincells to rub together knows that comics are worth money. Our collections–combined numbering over a thousand comics–would easily fetch several thousand dollars, maybe even five figures. They were lying! Bastards! They either sold them and owe us money or they still have our comics and we need to go rescue them!

But, according to my brother, there was no way to get to them. They’d disappeared.

The Long Road to Recovery (Goes Ever On)

I literally could not let myself think about what happened for several months because, whenever I did, I wanted to punch my father and brother hard in the kidneys. How dare they give my comics to total strangers. How dare they do that without asking me*.

*I often wonder if, had I know what the hell was going on at the time, I would have agreed to this plan. It is hard to be objective but, I feel in my heart, that I truly would have said no. After all, my post-Japan plans were to move back to North Carolina. I would have picked up my stuff from Florida and moved north… with my comics in the passenger seat so we could catch up.

I lived a few blocks from a comic store in southeast Portland and I felt a surge of hate jolt me every time I walked by. I couldn’t think about comics without getting angry. Really, really, really angry.

I watched a documentary on one of the Spiderman DVD extras about the evolution of Spiderman’s costumes. As the covers flashed by, I started by saying, ‘I had that one.’ ‘Oh, that was a great issue.’ ‘I remember that one.’ This quickly became: ‘Fuck! I had that one too!’ ‘Dammit! I loved that one!’

I threw the remote at the TV and went for a long walk.

I was only livid with my brother and father for about five years. Well, my dad died in 2002 and that has a very strong overall forgiving effect. I didn’t mention it to my brother for a very long time.

I know that my brother also lost his collection in the heist and I know that he feels absolutely terrible about what happened. I don’t feel any animosity toward him now and I say that honestly. It took a long while though.

Clearly Still Forgiving

Yesterday, however, I was eating breakfast with a friend and the topic of childhood collections came up. He told me about how his father got rid of his train collection. I told him about the comics.

And I could feel the anger rising again. I am not a vengeful person who wishes ill on anyone but, the truth is, after 11 years, I do wish harm on these absconders of my childhood. I still find solace imaging them in bankruptcy, getting mugged, getting in a car wreck, losing a pet, and/or getting beat up my a band of people dressed like D&D characters.

I want them to hurt and that is so contrary to how I approach the world.

Yet is it what it is.

I want to forgive. I want to not feel this knot of hate every time I think about comics (like now for example). I want to move on. I want to live the idea my friend mentioned after hearing my tale:

One of the many truths of a long, healthy life is the ability to suffer, forgive, and move on. It is in the letting go that we heal and release energy, energy we can use for less cancerous thoughts and actions.

I want to feel that the comics are not really me, that possessing them doesn’t make me any more me than I am without them. In general, I am very ‘anti-stuff’ and I don’t believe that you need physical objects around to remind, validate, or otherwise define you.

But when someone robs you of the one possession that defines your youth, can you ever forgive? I hope so because I still think about these ‘friends’ get hit by a bus and I’m working on not feeling happy about it.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

What struck me the other day was that Buddhism has a similar description of insanity called samsara (which is so very related to karma). Simba from ‘The Lion King’ might call this the ‘circle of life’ (albeit with that anything-is-possible-if-you-wish-hard-enough fluffy Disney spin).*

'No Perpetuating'

*Yes, I am taking some liberties but I am also linking one of the greatest mind of the 20th century to records of an enlightened being to a song by Sir Elton John, one of the world’s greatest dressers. I am doing this because it amuses me.

Samsara, according to the Gospel of Wikipedia, is the ‘continuous flow’ from one cycle of life to the next–birth, life, death, rebirth. It is when we are on this cruel (at least in our perception) cosmic wheel that we suffer.

Our attachment to this wheel is in the form of the past shaping our current perspective. This is one of my favorite ways to describe karma–the cumulation of past experience shaping your present outlook and decision-making abilities. Put another way: the past shapes how you perceive the present and that affects how you move into the future. Lose that tendency and you get off the samsara wheel. Get off the wheel and you’re enlightened. How easy.

Jargon? Not.

I’m guilty of it too.

I ask, ‘What exactly does that word mean? How is that concept defined?’

The parts I often miss is the ‘to me?’ and ‘by me?’ parts of those questions. I’ve mentioned this before: we get way too hung up on words, especially spiritually loaded words. So, rather than going back to notions of samsara and karma and suffering and lions and such, let me try a different approach:

We do the same thing over and over again–often because of tradition, fear of change, and/or an unwillingness to admit that we see other possible-but-more-difficult paths–and we’re miserable (and maybe thinking we’re going insane) as a result.

We eat too much. We drink too much. We do things that we know will hurt but dammit if the instant gratification doesn’t make it seem worth it right now.

We have romantic relationships crumble under the same pressures because we seem to keep being attracted to our ‘type’.

We grow restless in our relationships because s/he ‘never changes’. We have the conversations we expect to have.

We find the same dissatisfaction in our work, our community, and our lives because we keep doing the same shit over and over again. We learn to do this because we learn to do this.

A redundant statement?

No.

Our experience shapes our outlook. Our outlook shapes our decision-making. But, if our past is defining our present then aren’t we doomed to repeat the same patterns in the future?  Welcome to existence on the circular wheel of insane suffering life. It reminds me of a great ‘demotivational’ poster I saw recently:

“Tradition: Just because you’ve always done it that way doesn’t mean it’s not incredibly stupid.”

Buddha and Simba and Einstein would agree this is all pretty messed up. Call it samsara, insanity, or “our place, on the path unwinding, in the Circle, the Circle of Life.’

I call it perpetuating bullshit and I have a sign on my door that says ‘No Bullshit’ for a reason.