The Accidental Voice

There is that saying that if it doesn’t kill you it only makes you stronger.   And if you learned from a bad experience, at least you got something out of it…yeah, that’s cool, but when you’re in the midst of that hard lesson and you DO nearly get killed, I’m not sure that’s in the forefront of your mind.

So, as experiences go, getting punched in the face is one of the more unpleasant ones and one of those times where you’re not thinking, “ah, can’t wait to find out what I learn from this.”

A punch in any general proximity to your head is fairly crappy and multiple hits takes it beyond horrible.   Your head’s hard and for a reason.  The brain is an important organ and needs a lot of protection.   Thus the up-armored nature of the skull bone.  I guess, too, that’s why it hurts a lot when you’re hit there.  A not so subtle message that you’re doing something wrong on the quest for survival.  Pain tends to be our body’s way of teaching us lessons, but it is up to the individual whether they learn from those lessons or not.

In my early twenties, I was feeling the invincibility that was left over from my late teens.   It had started to wear off as I contemplated being the responsible adult and making a living for myself.  But there was still that glow of power, the feeling of mastery of the world and the testosterone induced need to show people what’s under the hood.   It seems the norm in sports, business or really any opportunity that calls for demonstration of “maleness”;   Out of college, on one’s own and ready to take on the world.

And so it was that I found myself in one of those darker corners of human experience.  During a transitional period when I was finishing up a graduate level statistics course (yes, it was the boring hell the subject indicates it would be) at Villanova University for my degree in math and actually deciding what I was going to do with the newly minted sheep skin I would receive, I had a job renovating two floors of a Hilton Hotel in King of Prussia, PA.   I was part of a crew of guys who would gut a room, strip it to the bare walls and then remake it in a more appropriate late eighties decor.   On the other side, we’d put in new carpets, lamps, beds, and fixtures.  My job was the bathrooms (probably fitting for one who’d spent the last six months and would spend the following three being a complete tool.)

One particular week, a new team had come in to paint the walls and texture the ceilings and with them came the drugs.  One of the other summer employees, we’ll call him Harold, took to these folks.  He was fat and pasty and had coke bottle glasses.   A big guy with self-esteem issues he began hanging out with these guys regularly during the day.

I didn’t much take to drugs and laziness (I wasn’t that much of a tool) and got a little frustrated when I realized these guys weren’t pulling their weight.  Harold was happy not to do the labor, and would disappear into one of the rooms for stretches at a time.  The work was hard enough without all this going on.  The problem was, I was a cocky bastard.   So I wasn’t all that nice to Harold, looking upon him and treating him with disdain as if I had nothing more to learn.

One day, when finishing up putting fixture handles on sinks and tubs and ensuring the water feeds were turned on in a recently finished bathroom, Harold appeared in the doorway.   I say he appeared, but it was more like he filled it.  He asked me point blank,

“Do you have a problem with me?”  He had obviously caught my negative vibe.

“No,” I said, “I just don’t like the drugs on the work site.”

“You don’t know how badly I want to hit you right now,” was his reply.  I could see he was roiling just beneath the surface but unfortunately my flight or fight response had gone to lunch early and I didn’t really consider what that meant.

This was the point at which the road forked.   Here he was extremely agitated and I was certain that he had already partaken in some kind of illicit activity earlier in the morning.  Looking back, I could honestly say he seemed crazed in a controlled sort of way.  And there we stood with two paths from which to choose.

I could have taken the path of reason.  The proverbial high road.   I could have put up my hands , palms out, in a gesture of acquiescence, telling him I was sorry, I didn’t mean to offend him and that regardless of what I felt, what he did was none of my business.  But I didn’t do that.

I was twenty-three, arrogant and apparently not as bright as I’d believed.  Looking back now, I realize how very non-bright I was and it brings shudders.

So I said, “but you won’t.  Because you’ll be fired.”  And I didn’t say it matter-of-factly, no.   I said it with a slight air of arrogance, repeating myself a few times in response to one or two other threats he made.  An air like I knew what was going on and how things worked.  The air of a fool.

The rest is a little fuzzy because at that point a freight train named Haymaker slammed into the left side of my mouth.  It must have started in Detroit because the pain was exquisite and exploded through my  head with incredible volume.  I involuntarily spun away to my right but the sheer locomotive-like speed behind that meaty fist may also have had something to do with it.

It must have been only a split second but suddenly my left side was against the wall, I was bent over the commode and this psycho with the coke bottle glasses was hammering the back of my head.  Not the nice round part that’s hard and protective, but the soft muscles at the base of my skull.  It was all I could do to stay conscious or even say something.   But I was able to get out four words and I believe those four words are what might have saved my life.

“I’m down, I’m down!” I said, and the rain stopped.

He must have landed four of five solid hits.   The fact that I was still conscious, albeit barely, was a bit amazing and I am not exactly sure how that could have been, based on the lightning bolts and thunderous throbbing currently going on inside my head.  But I think those few words stopped him.  It took the life out of his fury as quickly as it has come, letting him know he’d “won” and he didn’t need to  prove anything more.

At that point, focus was limited to the immediate.  I no longer knew he was there but simply checked my face in the mirror, verified my teeth were all there (they were but my gums on the left side were slightly cut), and walked out of the room.

Looking back, I am really not sure how I found the others on the crew nor that the room I walked in to happen to have everyone in it.  But I simply turned the corner, poked my thumb over my shoulder and said “he just attacked me.”

At this point, I was barely hanging on.  I had just been severely beaten and that’s never really sat well with me.  It seemed (and still seems) so surreal since I had neither put myself into nor been a part of that kind of situation before or since (except when the cops drew down on me and a few others in Ocean City, NJ but that was a misunderstanding and mistaken identity…for another time).

Being that close to unconsciousness and still trying to function cognitively takes monumental effort.  As I stood there trying to relate what happened to the foreman and  the others standing around a little stunned, it became too much and the blackness began to close over me like a wet, sweet cloud full of corruption bubbling up from deep in my head.  That was the most terrifying because I was convinced that if I checked out, I might not come back.

I nearly fell backward, but, luckily a folded carpet roll was wedged in the doorway of the bathroom and I landed on that.  Putting my head down, the blood returned and my head cleared a little.   They asked if I was all right and I assured them I was not.  I never went to the hospital but knowing what I know now, I realize I probably had a grade three concussion and at the moment was doing pretty poorly so just sat there dazed and confused with my head hanging to my knees. We were told to head down to the maintenance shop and wait there and another co-worker was told to help me because of the challenge I was having standing up.

Then I did something that was strange under the circumstances but didn’t really surprise me.  I stood up slowly, got my bearings and stepped over to Harold.  I put out my hand and we shook.   It was a simple gesture, but I meant it.   I meant that there were no hard feelings, I was embarrassed by my own behavior, disappointed in his and somewhere in my scrambled brain I knew I’d pushed too far and we’d both been wrong.  I needed to at least try to be the adult I thought I was.  I didn’t care if the others in the room didn’t understand, nor if they thought it was a crazy thing to do.  I believed  it was the right thing to do.

The next day, Harold came in with an enormous bandage on his hand.   Aside from a monster headache that lasted about a week (yeah, a pretty bad concussion and I, to this day, kick myself for being and an idiot and not having a physician check me out) I was pretty well unscathed.   Apparently, you can get sepsis from hitting someone in the mouth if you cut your hand.  The human mouth is full of bad organisms that, once in the blood, can really ruin your day.   So I feel like he made out worse than I and have to admit that a small part of me hoped that he would at least get an infection that hung on a little longer than he liked.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t totally cured of my ignorance and hubris.

I probably could have tried to press charges but I didn’t and there were no witnesses, anyway.  I had egged the guy on so I clearly had to bear at part of the blame for what happened.   Unfortunately, the manager of the engineering department was such a milquetoast and so afraid of upper management (someone else with self-esteem issues) he couldn’t figure out what to do, nor act on it appropriately if he could, so he decided to take the easy way out and get rid of the problem by asking us both to resign.

I had no problem with that, really.   Summer was winding down, my class was ending, I wasn’t really digging on working there anymore and a friend of mine worked at a Steak & Ale down the street which seemed more fun anyway.   So I wrote my resignation letter, went upstairs to say goodbye to the guys I’d gotten to know.

One of the senior workers was a big guy named Mike.   He was a street wise, strong, tough single father and pretty much didn’t take any B.S. from anyone; couldn’t afford to.   But we had a mutual respect because he could see I cared about the work I did and wasn’t some panty-waste just passing through after college on the way to bigger things.  At that point I at least had an ethic that said if there is a job to be done, no matter what it is, it should be done right.  So I went up and said goodbye, but also told him I wanted to make sure he hadn’t lost any respect for me.  For some reason, this was important to me.

“No, man, I haven’t lost any respect for you.   But you shook my boy’s hand and I don’t think I’ll ever understand that.”

Well, I am not completely certain I understand it fully either, but I was brought up to believe that you policed up your own stuff and sometimes you have to own the consequences of your thoughts and actions.   When you come to a fork in the road like that it’s always best to take the one that goes up.   If it takes eating a plateful of crow or downing a huge tanker of pride, fine.   Do it and get on with it, because without that choice and the knowledge of which is right, we aren’t much.

I have never been hit in the face since and I haven’t really had to choke down any feathers or drink that bitter, decaying glass of pride, either.   I like to think I was able to stay off the paths that even led to those forks.  Maybe, maybe not, but I will always remember that particular lesson I had to learn the hard way.

This is a bit of a rant, so if you’re one of those who takes things personally, or gets all hot and bothered by things people write, well, maybe just pass on this one.

I do a mental exercise every so often.  If  a commercial comes on while I’m watching TV, I try to put myself at a remove from it.   The goal here is to be more an observer than the passive participant that is often how we experience TV.  Doing this allows for evaluating the commercial more objectively and I can tease out the subtle message the marketers are trying to send.  Sometimes I do it for fun, sometimes to tell my kids so they understand that it is not reality, just marketing to separate people from their money.

One group who has mastered the ability to manipulate us by preying on the phobias, inadequacies and especially desires we all feel is food companies.  And fast food companies do it very well.  Cheap, tasty food (well, tasty is subjective) that just happens to contain the right mix of salt, sweetness and fat that our primordial brain craves.  Add some capering friends and smiles all around or the abundance one person purchased for a dollar next to the rip-off tiny meal the other one has and boy isn’t life grand.  They tempt our children at an early age with clowns (which are creepy as hell to me, but whatever), toys and games that hook their fancy and then reel them in with the food that is specifically designed (yes, designed.  Make no mistake.  This is not actually food, it’s a manufactured thing masquerading as food.) to elevate serotonin levels in the brain so people want more.  A recent study found a correlation between the response the brain feels to fatty foods and the same response derived from using cocaine or heroin.  Nice, right?  And people are feeding this to themselves and their kids on a regular basis … sometimes daily.

When my boys were in elementary school I was talking to the principal one day and he’d told us how frustrating it was manning the carpool lane.  Every morning the minivans would drive up, the doors would open and there would be fast food wrappers littering the floor at the feet of the kids.  It very much bothered him but he had no way of changing it.  In some way, it’s not even the parents’ fault (although, in the end, it is really, but I’m not accusing anyone of anything lest I be lambasted by someone who doesn’t get the point of this essay.)  Kids’ brains are no match for the tryptophan in the cheese, the salt, the sweetness and fat combinations that have been tweaked and tuned for over 50 years.  It’s by design.  And just take a look at the line for the drive through on any given morning (even Sunday) and you’ll kind of know what I mean.  “Hey, kids, before school, let’s stop for an eight ball at McTaco King.”

The addiction comes on slowly.  A progression from “oh, well, every so often isn’t going to hurt” to, “no time for a proper breakfast so we’ll just do what we usually do and drive through to get a quick bite.”  And before you know it you’re trying to score a double cheese something or other on the way home, too.

It’s no surprise this crap, dense with calories, so easily acquired and packed with things that make our brains go “Ooooooo,” is one of the most consumed types of food these days in the U.S.  But the odd thing is, it’s all kind of the same stuff.  Back in the late 70s, Steve Martin had a bit about fast food where he talks about “a vat of this stuff.”  Someone’s dipping into it, squish, “here are your fries,” squish, “here’s your shake,” squish, “here’s your change.”  The sad things is, he wasn’t so far off the mark.  The typical fast food meal, in most cases, is 60% corn.  Not corn-on-the-cob corn but #2 dent corn that is inedible off the cob.  It’s inedible until it’s been run through chemical baths and manufacturing processes that, once it comes out the other side is nothing close to what it started out as.  This kind of corn is basically raw material from which chemical companies create food.  Frankenfood.  Something way too far from its origins to actually have any nutritional benefit (which by definition is what food should have in some regard, right?)  Ever actually look at what’s in one of those disks of “chicken” you get in a little box?  Chemicals, and a lot of them (one of which is benzene … that’s lighter fluid, folks.)  Even the “flaky” chicken strips are not actual chicken but a processed item that is made to look like chicken meat.

I sometimes wonder if people look around and see 2 out of every 3 people who are overweight or obese and wonder what’s going on.  I wonder if they see children walking around that are 50% larger than they should be and feel scammed for profit.   Do they wonder about the clothing companies that, in order to protect their market, rename clothes sizes and adjust waste and length sizes to match the wider shorter person that seems more prevalent today than not?  They…are…not…helping.

I read the report (password is mohan) that the insurance companies have $1.8 billion invested in the fast food industry (with a similar report from about 10 years ago showing the same investment in tobacco companies that still exists today…but that’s another essay)  and wonder if they’re just hedging their bets; banking on the crap being peddled by Big Food driving people to an early grave or at least into a health care system that’s set up to make them a bunch of money.  Are we no longer capable of using our brains due to the constant bombardment and manipulation by the marketers?  It just feels like we’re being told how to think and that’s really not what we’re capable of is it?  They are in your head, and that sucks because only one person should be there.   You!

Look, I know this is a harsh indictment.  And I’m sure people will get all wadded up about some things I have written here, thinking me condescending or arrogant or whatever.  They’ll claim they lost weight eating only fast food or “hey, I like my Double Royale with Cheese, so STFU and let me eat what I want.”  Ok, sure, go ahead, I am not saying you can’t do what you want.   But make sure you are doing what you want and not something someone got you hooked on or has convinced you you should be doing by other subtle means.  Maybe I’m just being a food snob or something but this crap is bumming me out and what really gets me is I can’t help anyone or change it.  When I was deep in the nutrition industry in a former life, I was digging on getting fit, being fit and trying to give people advice (only when they asked because I know how annoying it is when someone decides they know everything and are all too happy to tell you about it … hmmm, is this essay like that?) on how to be that way too.   I was having fun, why not spread the joy.  Not a single person actually took my advice.   If they did get in shape, it was because they changed their minds but I know I didn’t change their minds for them.   That’s not possible.  You can’t tell anybody anything.   They have to come to it on their own.

It’s just frustrating that with all the reports of childhood obesity and now the emergence of breast cancer in girls as young as eleven and the onset of metabolic syndrome (coronary artery disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes) sooner and sooner it just doesn’t seem to be changing.   These folks are still making obscene amounts of money and a lot of people are still making the same choices to help them do it.

We’re better than this.  I’m certain of it!   It kinds steams me when I hear a comment on a show on BBC that seems to indicate we are thought of across the pond as those fat ones (“You can’t be American, you’re too skinny.”  Crowd laughs knowingly.) It makes me wonder just what the hell is going on and who’s making money off taking this nation to a bad place.

There is a particular commercial that kind of illustrates the point (actually there are a lot but the message is the same.)  You’ve probably seen it.   It involved the message that high fructose corn syrup isn’t bad stuff.  Two women are at a kids’ party.  One offers the other some kind of sweetened and obviously non-fruit juice.  The person being offered the treat feigns offense by saying “oh, hey, how can you serve that,” or “don’t you care about me?” and the offering person says, with a knowledgeable, slightly arrogant air, that high fructose corn syrup isn’t bad;  After all, “everything in moderation.”

OK, yeah, I get that.  You don’t consume too much of a bad thing and your body has a nice ability to process it.   The body’s a pretty cool organism that way.  A healthy body is even better at doing that.  But here’s the thing.   Crap like high fructose corn syrup contains highly concentrated calories.   It is so highly processed that it interferes with the body’s ability to absorb water (such irony when the athlete in the commercial comes running off the field only to down that frosty bottle of cola or sugar bloated sports drink.  “Ahhhh!  Ready to score another goal coach.”)  Moreover, that high concentration of calories not only jacks with blood sugar levels but also changes how the body uses the calories it takes in.  We’re built to use the easy calories first which are sugars (probably due to way back when we either had to catch dinner or get away from becoming dinner and needed immediate energy to do both.)   What’s left behind?  Fat!  What do you get in a society that consumes obscene amounts of foods dense with sugars and fat?  Obesity.

Yes, I can understand drinking a can of soda or a fake fruit drink every so often or dipping fries in ranch dressing or catsup (how do you really spell that word?) at the restaurant.  Yummy!  But that’s not how it usually works.  High fructose corn syrup, saturated fats and hydrogenated oils are in everything.  Go ahead, take a little extra time in the store and read the labels.   Just about every bit of food that’s in some way processed has these things in it.  The corn fed beef that’s in the grocery store is 40% fattier than it used to be (and by the way, cows are made to eat plants, not corn, so corn fed beef is not a good thing.)  All the stuff in the middle isles of the store, the processed foods, are full of this poison that would probably be fine in moderation, but since it’s in just about everything, moderation goes out the window.

But that doesn’t stop the Corn Marketers Association from creating those commercials about HFCS.  And they are doing it to counter the attack that doctors and other health professionals are raining down on their cash cow.  This kind of tactic is called manufacturing doubt and if it doesn’t sound familiar, it should.   The tobacco companies did it for 30 years.

But I have hope.  I know Americans are strong people and most of them have brains and sense and when they get those collective minds around something good, they run with it.  Run hard!  They really do.  With just a little effort, I’m guessing the trend will stop, eventually.  As soon as people do that thing where they step back and, from a bit of a remove, really look at what’s passing their lips, things could start to change.   We can stop poisoning the children and ourselves and realize that eating good, whole, non-processed food is an excellent way to live…and live long.

I would love for more people to read Fast Food Nation (don’t watch the movie, it’s not even close to the same thing,) see Food, Inc or watch Supersize Me! I hope one scene in Supersize Me! sticks in their minds, too.   The scene in which Morgan Spurlock, after about two weeks of a month long experiment in eating a fast food-only diet, is feeling horrible at around 11pm.  He heads out and gets something to eat (fast food, of course, it’s the point of the movie). A few minutes later he feels excellent and immensely happy.  Smells like a physical addiction to me.

I hope more people will read The Omnivore’s Dilemna (a little more cerebral but a really excellent read) engaging their brains to realize that we are in a sense being poisoned by Big Food, slowly, and with our own tacit consent.  And then right on the heels of that understand that if we didn’t ask for it, they wouldn’t provide it.  Because it’s a basic law of economics; as long as someone asks for it, there is money to be made.

We are a visual species and food companies work very hard to make food look good and, in that, rob that food of nearly every shred of nutrients that actually means anything (buy the ugly tomatoes, they taste way better.)  Does that make anyone feel duped?

Companies try to convince us that there is an easier, quicker way to cook and eat.   If you’re not shortening the time it takes you to make a meal instead of deliberating consciously about what passes your lips, there must be something wrong with you.  And, oh, you can be doing so much more and packing so many other activities into your day if you just made mealtime faster.  How could you not be doing the best for your kids by actually cooking them something that didn’t come out of a box.  But they are not really trying to make our lives better, more convenient or provide inexpensive food that is good for you.   They are trying to make money … and a lot of it.  Do you get the idea I’m not big on money?  I realize I sound a bit shrill about this.  I don’t mean to preach but sometimes I just get a little p##ssed.  This country produces enough food for each woman, man and child to eat 3,500 calories a day!  And some people are actually doing that.

We have brains and we should use them.   Applied to this dilemma the world could be a better place … I’d be happy to see the U.S. actually be that better place … first.   And I am hoping it can start with something simple.   The realization that cooking real food is sometimes a great way to spend time thinking/praying/meditating, cooling out after a particularly hard day or chatting with friends or family.  Take my word for it, it’s pretty gratifying creating something that looks and tastes good and what’s in it is not a mystery.  It might take a little time, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing…slowing down can be good for you, too.   And the best part of all is that a little good food can go a long way to curing what ails you.

I have hope that someday the tide will turn and kids will get disgusted with the businesses that are making money at their expense and get wise to the manipulation being heaped upon them.  And I have hope that more brains will engage and take to heart the words of Michael Polan from The Omnivore’s Dilemna:

Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.

End of rant…

This is my computer. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My computer is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I master my life. My computer, without me, is useless. Without my computer, I am useless. I must operate my computer true. I must code cleaner than my competition who is trying to eat my lunch. I must out-code him before he out-codes me. I will….

My computer and myself know that what counts in technology is not what it looks like, the marketing hype, nor the claims we make. We know that it is the code that counts. We will code…

My computer is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weakness, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its keyboard and its display. I will keep my computer clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will…

Before the ever present electrons I swear this creed. My computer and myself are the defenders of my paycheck. We are the masters of our domain. We are the creators of interactivity. So be it, until the monitor goes dark and there is no more code, only Peace.

“Pay It Forward” is a movie in which a young boy, who believes in the basic goodness of people, decides to try to get as many as he can to do good.  Instead of paying a favor back, he asks them to pay it forward and, in that, do something for someone else.

A boy with a drum, wanting to give something to a very important person of his time, but having very little, decides all he can give is his music.  It is one of the best gifts.

“Seven Pounds” is a movie in which Will Smith stars as an IRS agent who, due to a haunting secret, decides to change the lives of seven people he does not know.

And, finally, there is the story of the young girl who gives her last peso to buy a cage for a bird with a broken wing.  A king comes to town.   People from miles around come to honor him with gifts, but the girl, in helping the bird, has left herself with very little.  She visits this king anyway, apologetically telling him she has nothing to give.   He simply asks her to open the door of the cage and out flies the bird.  It flies up to the rafters and from its throat issues a song for which there are no words.

History, literature and music are full of tales like this.  Sometimes trite, sometimes filled with irony (check out “Gift of the Magi”  by O. Henry), sometimes just a story for it’s own sake.  Someone decides to do a good deed to help someone or give a gift even if it requires giving something of themselves.  Self sacrifice for the betterment of another.  Regardless of whether or not these stories represent specific meaning or characters to you, they are heart-warming and a pleasure to know for anyone.

Unfortunately, what we hear and read about in the media and sometimes what we actually see with our own eyes during this time of year doesn‘t necessarily jibe with the pleasant emotions these stories make us feel.  In the reality of everyday life, we hear few stories of loving kindness and personal sacrifice compared to those of mayhem in stores, money spent or made, shootings, murder trials and pop stars’ transgressions.

We see trite signs admonishing others to remember the true meaning of a particular holiday.  Yet they are surrounded by plastic, over-sized candles and nylon blow-up Disney characters.   All the focus is on giving, but not in the way that goes deep and requires actual emotional work.  It’s giving as an afterthought.  It’s giving the way the marketers want it.  And when the marketers are in control, there’s something seriously janky going on.

Bah, humbug, right?  Wrong.  It’s out there.

I am an observer this time of year.   We celebrate a day/set of days that is different from most everyone else in December and so find ourselves a little on the outside looking in.  Speaking with a friend the other day about the holidays and how he celebrates with his family,  he related how he and his wife raise about a thousand dollars a year with which to purchase gift certificates for food. They take them down to the mission in the large city nearby and hand them out to the unfortunates.  Those folks that wait each day for the mission to open so they can once again get a hot meal, a warm place to rest, perhaps hear a kind word.

My friend has a secret, too.  A secret he has told few people.

Only until relatively recently I have always thought Black Friday meant a dark day in which people fought and jostled and set aside their character to buy, buy and buy some more.  It represented the side of the final days of a year that were unpleasant, cold and superficial.  A day when being friendly takes a back seat to being first.

Then I found out it was just about money.   Retailers getting into the black for the year.  A concept dating back to the forties just after the war had ended and the economy was in need of a boost.  Don’t misunderstand.  Commerce is important and store owners and their employees have to make a living, too.  For them Black Friday is something to look forward to (mostly).  But ignorance really is bliss sometimes and even though I now know, I will still think of that particular Friday as a dark day in the course of human events.

My friend, let’s call him Kris, is not well off in the practical sense.  He and his wife, in fact, have had their share of financial challenges in this economy.  He does, however, own a custom tailored Santa suit and that changes everything.

On a random night during the holidays, he wears that suit and heads out to drive around looking for people.  Not necessarily people down and out, just people.  Maybe someone’s pumping gas, buying groceries or a family is having a quiet dinner together in a restaurant.  It could be anyone, anywhere.  He’ll roll up in his Santa suit to buy all the groceries, ask the restaurant server to let him pay the bill for the family or even walk up and slide his card into the reader at the pump before the person getting out of their car can do it.

I do not know what the exact nature of the interactions are or what is said between this Samaritan and the recipients of his kindness.  It is theirs to know and there is a certain quiet privacy to such kindness and generosity.   That’s the beauty of it.  The purity.  What I do know is they both walk away with something more than they started.  When it comes down to it, isn’t that the stuff we all want a little more of?  I do.

As the days of 2009 ebb away and this year comes to a close, maybe if you’re standing in line, get the pastry for the person behind you or tell the person serving you to take their time, slow down.   Or don’t.   But imagine what it would feel like and amp that up some.   Get a little of that magic for yourself.  Give a smile instead of a scowl; a handshake instead of a cold shoulder.

No matter what you celebrate this time of year, whether it’s Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, the Solstice, the Yule or even just a year of health, happiness and success in business, slow down and enjoy the quiet moments; the soft breathing of the kids after lights out, the crispness of the air on a star-filled evening, the soft embrace of someone loved.  It matters, we all matter and the more of us who know that the better things could be.

It is a joy to ponder this kind of humanity.  What is present in most all of us that sometimes gets lost in all the expectations and “rules.”  I think about it and I believe.  The spirit of kindness that is so often associated with this time of year is there.  It just takes work to see it sometimes and a little extra effort to bring it out in ourselves.  I think I’m going to work on that.

The long dark days are coming to a close and the light will soon return to the world as the days begin getting longer.  I hope kindness and good fortune shine well and often upon you.  Really, I do.  Happy/Felis/Merry/Joyeux whatever-you-may-celebrate.

About fifteen years ago, in a former life, I worked with Josephine and Josephine had a plan.   She was driven by a single goal which was to work as hard as she could, climb the corporate ladder and make enough money so she and her husband could retire at forty-five and live the rest of their days in relaxed splendor.

Jasmine planned to begin working part time about two years ago.   In her mid forties, she felt it time to spend more time with the kids who had, up to this point, been brought up by nannies.   She was considering going freelance and starting her own consulting business.  Her  time would become her own and she’d made enough money that she and her family were pretty well off.

Hunter has worked extremely hard for the last several years trying to grow his company and build a solid nest egg.   He and his family live in a large house, they drive new, higher-end cars and on the surface all is going according to plan even though he works long hours.  A stranger passing the house in the late evening might see him, a solo figure in the room at the top of the house, working in the only window lit in the house.  But it is worth it because later they will all enjoy the fruits of this labor when it is time to stop.

***

John Steinbeck, in Of Mice and Men, wrote, “The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.”  In other words, reality has a way of stepping in and stirring up your nest and often does.

The large telecommunications company Josephine worked for went bankrupt when the CEO, who is now serving 25 years in prison, decided to use the company as his own personal bank account.  There is a very real possibility Josephine lost everything.

Jasmine never did go part time and although her hours were shortened she still worked the same amount of time and is now back at full salary.  Making great money, sure, but never stuck to the plan and her kids are still with the nanny.  Just recently she told me “why not make the money while I can.”  I just congratulated her quietly and a little sad.

Hunter has worked himself into poor health, obesity, seemingly perpetual fatigue and seems not as happy as he really could or should be.

From the guy who worked three jobs at twenty-three in order to retire to the redwood forests of California with his wife when they reached forty-five to the high-powered executive who’d done nothing but work and was now planning his early retirement, no one can predict the future or what the reality of life will toss their way.  Because the twenty-three-year-old couldn’t know that the house in the redwoods would be lost to an earthquake and the executive would never foresee losing his life in the accident that happened while he was engrossed in an early morning conference call on the drive in to work.

***

When someone needs glasses because they can’t see at close range, it’s called hyperopia and living your life only focused on what will be and not what is now is living a hyperopic life.  And that’s no way to live.

It is everywhere around us.  People looking to the future while they close that one last deal; placing that one last bet, that never seems to actually be the last, in order to get that payoff; chasing the money because they can’t seem to let go of the power and wealth to enjoy what they’ve worked so hard for.

But in all that time and while they are spending it focused on later, they forget to put on their glasses for today, missing their kids growing up, the beautiful turn of their young wife’s  jawline, the particular way the sunlight strikes the glass of tea perched on the deck railing, a quiet moment of reflection on a warm summer day and yes, even the successes that can be had on a work day well done.  The clichés of missing something in their life in order to set themselves up for later are legion and, unfortunately, true.

Back when I worked with Josephine, the cube farms were just an numerous as they are now and we all felt the pull to get to work and stay as long as it took.   Working late nights because we felt “it was the right thing to do.”  If you left before anyone else, you’d be thought, and sometimes called, a slacker.  You’d be ridiculed in jest and some would look askance at your departing back with the quiet accusation that you weren’t pulling your weight.  From what I can tell, nothing changed for the most part.   That environment still exists in a lot of places and some would say we’re no better off, nor more secure or happier.  Where does all that get you if you haven’t found the moments of joy and thrill?

A professor of business at Columbia University named Ran Kivetz theorized a paradox in human behavior.  When we put our responsibilities ahead of pleasures, done long enough, we are often left unhappy down the road.

Did you have those times in the past when you went for a beer and a bagel at O’Toole’s instead of studying for that Econ test?  She was cute and you just wanted to be around her.  You quit writing that term paper  a little earlier than you’d planned to go hang out and watch the popular TV show of the day with friends.  (It was so much more fun.) You went out after the softball game with new colleagues instead of getting home early so you could be well rested for work the next day.  Later in life, the lawn got a little longer in favor of heading over to the neighbor’s to watch the game or going out back to play soccer with your son.  Work was good and could be fulfilling, but so was having fun.

Then there are those times at the start of falling in love when everything took a back seat and being irresponsible was the responsibility.  It was so easy to favor the brief moments of pleasure and joy over the responsibilities because time could be made up later.  It would all get done, and perhaps the work would be a little more intense when you got to it, but it would get done.   It always did because here you are, reading this and you’re not living in a tent. You’re still alive and you’ve found a moment to relax.   A moment of your own.  Now.  But I’m guessing for a lot of people, these moments of ease and taking time out for themselves are fewer and farther between.   And that’s a shame.  Because indulging in the simple pleasures of life is, in the end, what makes life so great.

In some faiths the Present is the only real thing (I won’t go in to how that’s not even real because that’s for another time).  It’s the whole notion of living in the “now,” being in the present, yesterday’s gone and tomorrow’s not here so why worry about any of it.

Of course, realistically, you have to think somewhat of the future and responsibilities certainly are greater as we get older.  Hedonism can be just as dangerous as a bullheaded drive to work harder.  But, instead of going back to work after lunch, wouldn’t taking the left into the theater to see the matinee feel pretty good?  What about calling in sick one day so you can go on a hike with your new significant other or because you needed to cut the grass.  Then afterward, sitting back with a cold glass of something and enjoying the sweet smell of that freshly cut lawn, the birdsong and warm sun on your skin made you realize the real reason you called in.  We take these moments for granted but it’s these moments that create our lives.  String a bunch together and weave them throughout those things you really must get done and I bet it makes everything balanced, smoother, nicer to live in.  I called in sick from the Albuquerque airport once  when a buddy and I decided to spend the weekend and part of the next week hanging out in Taos, Santa Fe and Ghost Ranch, New Mexico.  It seemed like it was just kind of the right thing to do.  And being bad sometimes feels pretty good.  We all need to do more of that, don’t you think?

As we get older and the responsibilities of a more important job or children or a new business grow, we lose this ability to throw caution to the wind every so often.   I’m not advocating professional anarchy or anything.  I’m more talking about balance.  It’s like the old saying “take care of the pennies and the dollars take care of themselves.”  If you cast off the little things, the simple pleasures, you risk looking back in ten or twenty years and wishing you’d kept more pennies in hand.   Yes, the “dollars” in life are important and they always will be.  However, without the nuance of a well-lived life – the pennies – all the money or possessions in the world won’t salve the ache of regret over having not flown to Seattle to meet the girl you called Boomer for dinner with her parents in the Space Needle.   It won’t turn back the clock so you could go to the Balerics with your mates where the people are beautiful and the cuisine exquisite.  And you won’t be able to say “because I could” more often than not when asked why you did it.

I read or heard a story recently, I’m not even sure where, about a man who, on his walk to work every day, passed his favorite bakery.  He’d stop occasionally but knew stopping a lot would be trouble in a lot of ways.   On one particular day, he was a little late for work so passed by.  But the smell was enticing and seemed to call to him all the way to his office building.  He was at the door to his building when he just decided to indulge himself, turn around and walk back to the bakery.  He decided to keep the “pennies” and give in to the impulse, putting off the responsibility for just a moment longer.  Because he could, he did.  His life changed that day because his building was Number Two World Trade Center and the date was September 11^th, 2001.

We all have choices and each moment is our chance to make the choices that will help us look back later and think, “yep, I did it all pretty well.”  So, next time someone calls you up and says they have tickets to the game, or you’re sitting around the dinner table and you and your spouse and kids suddenly decide you want to take next week and go to Yosemite, maybe don’t think of what you have to do that week, just go.   Live your life on purpose!  Not only will you have fun now but you’ll be able to tell the tales and smile when you reflect later.  It seems like we’d all be so much the better if we trusted ourselves to balance the responsibilities with a bit of fun now and then.

Make it a life well-lived.