craziness, creativity and consciousness

So when I got this blog, life was calm. It seemed like I was going to have time again in my life to write things and get them off my mind. Writing is one of those tools that God has given me, that helps me sort. I like to sort, identify, organize, fix, connect, relate, tie, etc. It’s sort of a stream of consciousness type of thing. It’s my creative process at work. We all have it more or less and we use it more or less throughout our life. For those who exercise it, growth occurs. For those who ignore it or suppress it the outcome is atrophy.

In any case, once I’ve written and go back to what I’ve written, I can more objectively look at the holes in my thoughts and think through them, writing and re-writing to get it sorted out. In part, that’s why the first book I wrote took many years. Like eight or so. The second book took less time and the third book even less. In part because, through organizing the first book, I sorted through a lot of the assumptions I had inadvertently held. Each book I’ve written has helped me work through them further and further. Those are books on the martial art known as pencak silat.

What’s interesting about the process to me is that, essentially, writing helps me to sort through chaos, see connections, sort, fix, etc. It helps me to see the taxonomy of a thing or tear it apart to find the essentials. In essence, it’s akin to philosophy on some level or at least it helps me to view things philosophically - even spiritually.

Even in that process though, I’m learning that, what seems so obvious to me, isn’t always obvious to others - especially connectivity and relationship. Or at least the depth of impact that this process can have on me, cannot be communicated to another person, UNLESS they are of like mind. I’m still not sure what to do with that. I’m still learning how to communicate because of that. I look at a broad range of things before coming to conclusions in most cases and try to be fairly balanced and objective. Sometimes new information takes a while to sink in and permeate when I’ve spent a good deal of energy on a thing - sorting and coming to conclusions.

I want to understand how to work from craziness through creativity to consciousness in everyday life - not just in particular areas but ALL areas equally. Searching for regular epiphany.

Thoughts?

True Generosity

So today, exiting a store a “vet” just “out of the hospital” asked me if I could spare some money. I asked what he intended to use it for. He said food as he patted his stomach and looked at me incredulously, face bright red like Santa Claus’ suit. Then I asked him if I could get him some food since we were in the market parking lot and he claimed to be hungry while he stood there swaying. He declined and asked if he could have some change so he could by a lighter for his cigarettes to which I replied that I wouldn’t give him money for that. He then asked if he could have the hotdogs in our bag (which we didn’t actually have and I’m not sure where he came up with that…). I said no, but I’d be happy to go in to the store and buy him some and I started marching in. At that point, he said he didn’t have time for that and he staggered off…

I have a pastor friend who attended Moody and he said that the beggars used to line up along the streets because they knew that the Christians who attended would be more likely to help. He never gave money but always offered to take them to the McDonalds near where he lived. In the years he attended he only had one taker on the meal.

Christ said we would always have the poor with us.

Some people choose to stay right where they are, even when a helping hand is offered. They will continue on in their plight and not take help even when it is so clearly offered. They may not even recognize the value of help when it is in front of them.

How do you penetrate a person’s essence, enough, that they will recognize their self-desructive behaviors? Is it even possible, especially when the self-destructive behavior is so gradual that they get used to it and accept it as normal?

Who of us is immune?

Life.

This is a letter that I started out writing to my girls. It's a reaction to some of the things I hear from people. It's a bit extreme but only when seen in its entirety. Any one of these things by itself is not too alarming, so ask yourself, when you add it all up, where do you stand? What are you doing about it?

BTW, I know it's long but I couldn't come up with a way to break it apart. Read on if you want to be challenged or leave if you want the status quo.


To my daughters;

Let me tell you that I love you before I say anything else. I will do my best to protect you and be there for you no matter what life brings. Unfortunately, the end of life is imminent and there will come a time when you will have to be there for me regardless of what I want.

That aside I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I’ve brought you into a broken world that you’re going to have to filter and sift and sort through. It’s not an easy task and I know that you’ll make mistakes and I pray that I’ve helped arm you with enough wisdom to make them small mistakes.

If you learn nothing else – you just need to know that people are selfish. They will take before they give and prefer to get the best of whatever it is – for nothing. They want to be pampered and cared for. They want governments (or anyone) to make them healthier, more beautiful, wealthier, safer, more intelligent, freer, and life more convenient. They want to live forever and as free from the burdens of life and personal responsibility as they can. People all over the world are like this. Even the warmongers want this – that is why they fight. People don’t even want to hear disparaging comments or ever hear the word “No!” They are like children who just want what they want regardless of the impact it has on those around them.

At the same time, people want a government that doesn’t meddle in their affairs or get their children killed – even if it means others somewhere else in the world may die because they’ve chosen to look the other way – because they want to live in peace, ease, comfort and safety.

We all want the government officials who do what WE want in order to make OUR lives better and we hire them expecting they won’t make mistakes or that they will do what we want. We want them to care for everyone in the world so we won’t have to be bothered. We barely take a second look at the child being abused down the street or right next to us in the store and we certainly don’t raise a finger to help those caught in human trafficking. We tell ourselves that someone else will take care of it – that we don’t need to do it – it’s not our calling or any of a thousand other things. And don’t get me started on the homeless, our prisons, pedophiles, and pornography.

We like to complain about OUR government officials but we don’t want to do the necessary work to follow up on them and call them out when they stray with the reasons we put them into office. We are basically lazy. Not just Americans. The world is lazy. We want people to take care of us. We hire people because of what they say or do and then we don’t really give the energy to ensure that they live up to it. But even if we did stay diligent, the process is such a mess that it almost seems overwhelming to try and make a dent or have an impact.

But that’s not all. We want to complain about mandated govt. healthcare AND healthcare costs BUT we listen to every doctor, dentist, and chiropractor as though they know everything. All of this with very little of the needed checks and balances that would make it effective, then when they make a mistake we listen to a lawyer which further adds to the problem.

I don’t know what the answer is but I’m pretty sure this isn’t it. In the end it relies too much on the basic premise that people are good.

Girls, your lives are imminent as I mentioned. Mine too. We will all die. It could be tomorrow, maybe today or maybe we’ll live out our lives to a ripe old age. In any case, death is absolute. It is going to happen.

Oh, of course, we will spend the majority of our lives seeking ways to defy this inevitability. We’ll try eating healthier, drinking clean water, getting our rest, exercising, avoiding accidents, avoiding high risk activities, pollution, high voltage electricity, microwaves, cigarettes, alcohol, aluminum, drugs, stress, sharp things, saccharin, things that go boom, dark alleys, - you name it. We’ll even invest money into exercise equipment, yoga, going “green,” martial arts, “Ab Rollers”, and just about anything that we think will help us be “healthier” or more safe – especially if it promises to be easy or inexpensive. However, inevitably, we will all succumb to the imminence of death.

We have used the world, and continue to do so at an alarming rate, using all its resources for our benefit, to make our lives easier. Of course, we want things to be easy because when they are, it hides the imminence of death. If we have enough money we think our life will be easy, that we’ll have better health care, make healthier choices, and live stress free. We act like we’re being “green” because it’s all the rage, but we don’t recycle, repair our electronics, stop using plastic, drive SUV’s in the city, throw trash on the roadway’s, slash and burn for construction and dig massive strip mines. We act like we care about the environment but we don’t, we aren’t trying to save the King Crab or Polar Bear or the Cassowary. We just want to be in vogue. Of course, we worship life… ours primarily.

Again, I don’t know what the answer is, but I’m pretty sure that if there are “good people”, they aren’t really that good or that bothered because they aint doin’ nuthin’! And if good people aren’t doing anything to stop evil then we will stay headed down this path.

Of course, there is another option… Maybe people are good but just don’t have a sense of all of it together? The terminus maximus as it were. Perhaps there is a need for all of the craziness to be presented at once. Perhaps that will garner the attention of the good people and spur them to action - perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…. (Cake anyone?) Maybe you will be spurred to action instead of lulled to sleep. I hope that what you put into your minds and what you let your spirits dwell on will not allow you to get used to the stench. After all, if you live next to a garbage dump long enough, you get used to the smell.

Sincerely,
Your father

Fighting Series: Hitting

Men and boys are just different from women and girls. I know, I know, very astute right? Well, I’m really referring to how we handle relational struggles and differences not physical appearances. When I was a boy growing up, I was expected to be different—groomed to be different in fact—an expectation that was to help define me as a man.

This series then, is about my fighting as a boy and what I’ve learned from all that. I’m not sure I’m done with the Alive series since, unfortunately, I still have some interesting adventures in my past. But for now at least, the Fighting series keeps popping into my head as a series of at least a few postings that needs to be started. I suppose it’s a bit about the chronology of my past and how my mind is pulling from those fading memories.

As many of you know, or at least some of you, the martial arts is a large part of my life. It has been for nearly 20 plus years. I’ve been involved in them since before I graduated high school (I dabbled in TKD) and then after the military until today.

It’s interesting as I look back through my life because I’ve always been a fighter of sorts or doing things related to fighting.

When I was a young boy living in upper Michigan we lived amongst several sand pits. For those who may not know what those are, they are the equivalent to a rock quarry – except the element of choice derived is sand. They were quite large and were great for spending an afternoon playing.

Playing “army” was a normal occurrence as was riding your banana bike over dirt mounds, making jumps, and throwing stuff into the ponds that were inevitably created by the digging and the accumulation of rainwater.

On more than one occasion I would go into the sand pit nearest our house and punch the sand until it packed and became hard. Then after a while, your hand would sort of go numb from punching this sand rhythmically. It was a sort of therapy I suppose but later on in the martial arts, I would learn that it was a way of hardening or toughening your hands. It was a way of increasing the density of your bones and slowly desensitizing the nerves of your hands against the pain of hitting.

Likewise, I used to spend a bit of time using my forearms to knock down small, dying trees. Not to the extent that I punched and slapped sand, but none-the-less it is an element of something I did as a youngster that still relates to my life today.

You see, as I walked around the woods near our house—for much the same reason that I played in the sand pits—one of the things that I did was knock down the biggest trees I could by pushing on them or hitting them or any other means.

Normally these were trees that were dead or dying. Sometimes we (my brother Steve and I normally or one of my neighbors) would do this to collect logs that could be used for forts but most of the time it was just to be out doing something, often by myself.

Occasionally, I would use my forearms and sort of “clothesline” them if I thought they were sufficiently weak. I would get a running start and slam into them, knocking them down and feeling strong. Later on, in the martial arts I would see that this same type of exercise is practiced on the shins and forearms and called Iron Bar or Iron Broom (depending on the system). Of course, in the martial version, the goal is to kick the tree down but they start with green banana trees (in south east Asian martial arts). There are other variants to this in most major lines like the Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Indonesian, and Korean systems.

Of course, at the time I was just a child and not having a clue about the martial arts, it was just about having fun, or at least occupying myself as a boy, in upper Michigan on a random day. It’s funny the things that we do as kids and how they appear later in life.

Things That Burn

So you may have noticed that I have a trend going of stories from my past. If you haven’t noticed, it’s because you haven’t read any of the previous posts because I’ve said it outright. This is another of those. I intend to do this until I’ve gotten the majority of my life and interesting twists out on paper so to speak. It’s part of turning 40 and something I’ve wanted to do for awhile.

Once upon a time a family lived in the great white north of the U.P. (Upper Peninsula of Michigan for those less fortunate who may not know :)). In this family was a father who was a good DIY person who always had projects going and who had a shed full of things, Oxy-Acetylene torch, riding lawnmower, tools, welder, and so on. It was a simple shed with a butt chunk of expensive things in it. (Yes, a butt chunk is equivalent to a “ton” or a lot.)

At that time in history it was not uncommon to use paint that was oil based. In fact, as far as I can remember (I was quite young so who knows) that’s all there was available. As you may know, using oil based paints requires paint thinner or turpentine to clean up. It’s a fairly awkward process because there’s no really good way to dispose of the used solvent. Plus of course, you can use them more than once without any problems.

As a result, a thrifty person may have kept their used or semi-used paint solvent around for a time, sometimes even in an ice cream bucket…a plastic ice cream bucket, sitting right no top of the riding lawnmower. (That was back in the day when you could be a gallon of ice cream. Now I think a “gallon” of ice cream is actually about three quarts.)

Stage set. Now imagine a young boy, perhaps the youngest of a family, left to more or less fend for himself during the summer months. There would be no end to the interesting things he would do to stay entertained. Certainly messing around in the shed, a shed filled with interesting tools, gadgets, and doohickeys could fill the bill.

On this particular summer day, a Saturday, I’d say, because the whole family was around. The youngest boy of the family would find himself having to entertain himself and everyone else was probably assuming that everyone else was looking out after him – or those who might get in his path. Unfortunately, that might have been a mistake that left this young boy by himself, in a shed full of curiosities.

Perhaps this young boy would have been just randomly playing with tools and looking for the pliers or a hacksaw or some other very unique tools that may have helped him convert his banana seat peddle bike into a chopper bike. (This was a very common practice and the procedure for this very delicate operation was to cut the forks off of an old bike and put them onto the existing forks of his banana bike.) In any case, no matter what he was doing in that shed, he ended up playing with the sparker flint for the Oxy-acetylene torch and after a few squeezes and some random sparks there was a sound… the sound that only a large and volatile fuel source might make as it ignites.

It was at that time that the young boy became familiar with the concept of fumes and how certain petroleum based products, when in a warm shed, without any wind might erupt from even the slightest hint of a spark or open flame. It was at that time, when a young boy, noticing how little time it takes for an ice cream bucket partially full of volatile turpentine to melt, makes a spit second decision to depart the shed, close the door and move away quickly.

It wasn’t long before the VFD came and had to chop a hole in the wall of the shed to pull out the large tanks from the oxy-acetylene torch set. Most everything else in the shed was laid to waste. It was never determined exactly what had happened to cause the turpentine to erupt into flames, and in fact, it was never determined what caused the shed to erupt into flames at all.

That was a good thing.

Staying Alive Part III

Previewing my life as I was approaching and have now surpassed fourty years of age has proven to be interesting for me. I’ve never really taken the time to capture it all down before and doing so has been somewhat fun, a little scary, and certainly revealing to those around me. In many ways this is good and reminds me of the blessings I’ve had in life. It’s also made me quite thankful that, at least so far, my children have not been like me or my siblings.

As I mentioned previously, my brothers and I, (primarily my brothers) were very “outdoors” oriented. We liked fishing, hunting, trapping, hiking, biking, snowmobiling and just about everything else, at least a little. Really, we just liked anything that would keep us busy and interested. You have to remember, at that time, there was no cable T.V., no DVD’s, no CD’s and very little entertainment of any kind in Upper Michigan if you didn’t create it. So we did. In fact, those big back round shiny things - precursors to CD’s - were still prevalent. Yes - records, well that and 8 track tapes. In any case, staying busy was what we did, in any way we could do it. Especially during summer months.

On this particular day we, my brother Steve and I, had decided to go fishing down at the train tressel that goes out over the northeast end of Lake Gogebic. Somewhere just past the tressel was a small dam so it was a good place to go fishing because of the pools there and the tressels made for good Smallmouth Bass fishing.

This was the kind of tressel that was up on fairly high steel legs with concrete foundations and pretty exposed. ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/one42chrisp/509011290/ ) There were no sides to it and no walk ways or anything like that. I’m not sure how high the tressel was but it always seemed like it was REALLY high when I was so little. Today, if I went back it probably wouldn’t seem that high, but I remember feeling that little rush you get when you are up kind of high. Even the portion where the tracks were was open. You could see right down to the water. There were rail ties and tracks and the frame work of the tressel but that’s about it. We used to practice walking on the rails to get out to the center of the tressel. That always freaked me out a little bit because it was so high and there was no railing system or anything as I mentioned.

After fishing for a bit down in the pool above the dam and along the shore after the dam, we made our way to the tressel tracks, hiked down the middle of them, plopped down and started fishing. I don’t remember that it was a particularly fruitful day fishing so I practiced spitting into the water as I was fishing. Occasionally you would see little sun fish come up to the surface and viciously attack the spit that had just hit the surface of the water.

We were there for several hours, moving back and forth, trying our hand down by the shore of the tressel, again over by the dam and then back on the tressel. It was around mid-day and we were sitting there when we heard the horn of a train. It was loud. We both immediately scrambled to our feet and looked down the tracks. I’m not really sure how close it was exactly, but I remember this train felt like it was breathing on me, touching me, and about to send me on into oblivion. Okay… maybe it wasn’t THAT close, but it still scared the crap out of us which is an indicator that the horn was loud and the train was nearer than we would have liked.

Part of the reason it was able to get so close, is that the tracks on either side of the tressel were surrounded by trees and the track was not straight there. It had at least a somewhat gentle curve and because were sitting on the edge of the tressel with our feet dangling precariously over the edge and we weren’t watching diligently for trains, it was able to get reasonably close considering the distance we needed to cover to get off of the tressel tracks.

In any case, we gathered up our tackle box and rods, reeling them in as quickly as I’ve ever needed. My older brother began hauling it down the tracks and I followed - a little behind because I am quite a bit younger than any of my siblings (though as I get older it’s less of a gap than it used to seem).

I remember that my brother was almost near the end of the tressel and I felt like I was still basically in the middle when it happened…. my foot had missed one of the railroad ties and had gone down in between them…. Normally not a big deal, you just pull your foot out, pick yourself up, and take off again. It happened all the time. I was a clutzy little kid.

Unfortunately, this time my foot didn’t just pass through the space between the railroad ties… No. This time my foot got wedged in between. In fact, my foot was wedged lengthwise between them. My toes had bent upward and my foot was wedged between two railroad ties by the ball of my foot and the heel of my foot. It hurt…

I tried for what seemed like minutes to free my foot but I just couldn’t get it out. By then my brother had returned and the train… well the train was blowing it’s horn more and more but I couldn’t really see how close it was because I was stuck facing the wrong way… Part of me thinks that if you’re gonna die, it’s probably better to have no idea when it’s going to happen. On the other hand, part of me doesn’t want to die - period.

My brother tried three or four times to pull my foot out - no luck. Then he tried to push my foot through… but he just couldn’t get any leverage. I think by this time he was pretty nervous and I was starting to cry. I half expected him to jump over the side of the tressel or leave me to my ill fated death but he stayed there and kept trying. Eventually, he was able to get my foot to come out of my shoe which was just sitting there in between the tracks.

To be honest, there’s not much after that point that I really remember… I know I went home with my shoes and I know that my brother and I made it off of the tressel… but that’s about it. Oh and I also remember watching the train go by from the side of the tracks with the horn blowing and blowing…

You know, I’m not sure there’s anything to this or not but I do believe that in life, it may not be matter what you’re doing or how innocuos it seems, there is a frailty and balance to life and even the simplest of things can bring it to a conclusion.

Finally 40

On Saturday was my birthday. My wife arranged for a surprise party - apparently she worked for months trying to get people to attend but it just wasn’t meant to be or people just didn’t want to come. Who knows. In any case, it’s not worth the sweat involved with trying to figure it out.

It was nice that she tried to put that together. I appreciate her working so hard at it. That is awesome. In all of my life, this is the first ever surprise birthday party I’ve ever had. Actually, it’s just about the only birthday party I’ve had. No, really. I had a few as a kid of course, but honestly, I don’t really remember them. Most of my growing up years was marked by my parents divorce so birthday parties didn’t really happen after that. I think I was about 6 or 7 when they divorced but I’m not really sure. I was pretty young. After that point though, things were just different. I think my mother wanted to do these things but we were financially broke and it just wasn’t feasible. She always made sure we had ice cream or something to celebrate - peanut butter ice cream pie was my favorite - still is. BTW, I’m not whining or feeling sorry for myself. It is what it is and we had what we had.

My wife went out of her way to celebrate, what is imo, a milestone of sorts in a persons life. My 40th birthday. The approximate midway point. I’m still processing it - being 40 AND the party.

The party was short, much shorter than my wife anticipated and the list of attendees much smaller than she had hoped, but those who did attend (for the most part) were those most influential in my life currently. Some people that didn’t attend I would have liked to have seen, but I understand since some of them would have had to travel far to be there. My wife did a good job of inviting people given the resources she had at her disposal. Others weren’t invited just because my wife didn’t know how to get to them without me knowing. My biker friends for instance.

In any case, I appreciate those who were able to attend, you helped make the day interesting and fun. I love you man-but no-you can’t have my Shocktop!