To Be or Not to Be

It is said that we should hold our heads high and proceed through life as if each moment is our last, have pride in ourselves and what we can do, love our bodies and value our minds. I think I do a fairly good job at all of the above. So good in fact it has become somewhat of a problem. Last year, having completed a fabulous new manuscript, I was making the usual rounds hawking my fresh concept to all the major and some of the minor publishing houses. I had on my new Donna Karen shirt and lucky black slacks and was awaiting my entrance into the marvelous world of the best seller. Two weeks, several cocktails and countless phone conversations with friends later I wondered what went wrong? I had the goods, I had the shirt, I had the attitude. What I didn't have was a three-book contract with foreign rights. Apparently I had grown too big for my lucky britches. I was more than confident and less than competent. I had become cocky. We all know the attitude; we've all fallen victim to it at some time or another. In our thirst for greatness sometimes we overlook the fact that we can't deliver. Just because we want to be something doesn't mean we will. How do we know if we're actually as good at a given task as we perceive ourselves to be? Do we rely on others to tell us or is that co-dependence? When is confidence cocky?

Supporting Roles

They say you never really get over your first love, and for my friend Terry, her first love was acting. She was bit by the bug early in life and never could shake her performance needs. As her repertoire of characters increased and her dating pool dwindled, Terry found herself single, thirty and still living in a one bedroom apartment; it seemed her supporting roles couldn't support her. She thought about moving to New York and trying her luck on Broadway, or heading to Hollywood in hopes of becoming the next "It" girl, but neither seemed like a great idea considering her checking account had $12.00, and her personal affects consisted of three bridesmaid dresses, two plastic ficus trees and one '94 Geo Metro. No, she would have to make do with local commercials and online dating. It hardly seems fair considering love is supposed to conquer all, but try paying your bills with a valentine or having your tires rotated for a box of chocolates. If love does not conquer all and doing what you love won't pay the bills, how can a person expect to live a rich, fulfilling life? How can one love living when her living isn't what she loves? Are the two inextricably linked, or can one have a little of each, a lot of neither, yet remain completely whole?

Renewel

My friend Angelique volunteered to go grocery shopping with me. When we got back to my place she helped me carry in the many bags of groceries required to fill my neglected refrigerator. "I meant to go Monday, but I got sidetracked catching up on my magazine reading," I told her. How many times had I blamed my magazines for not getting something done? I'd mow the lawn, but I just got a new Glamour. I was going to have my tires rotated, but I couldn't afford to after renewing my subscriptions. I was going to fall madly in love with you, but Redbook says we're incompatible. But, but, but. If it's not one thing it's another. When did I become one of them -- one of the Blame Shifters -- the people who are never at fault? We're a growing breed we makers of excuses. Modern times have allowed us to, in fact, encouraged us to relieve ourselves the burden of being an adult. But when does it end? Do we need a magazine to tell us we have reached maturity? When do we stop making excuses and start taking responsibility?

Summation

In the fifth grade I played "Newspaper Boy" for our class' play. I had a total of five lines that I proudly delivered (after a great amount of rehearsing) to an audience of fifty-seven. In the ninth grade I could bench press all ninety-eight pounds of my body weight and earned an Ironman jacket that I strutted around the hallways in even during spring highs of 90+ degrees. I graduated in the top fifty of my class, had my first body of writing published at twenty and fell in love at twenty-one. I tell you all this because a hundred years from now, none of this will matter -- it hardly matters now. Very few things last forever; even diamonds disintegrate at eight-hundred degrees Celsius.

Knowing the problems of most people don't amount to a hill of beans and our success don't send ripples across the world, is our existence worth existing? Should we celebrate minor victories, screaming them from mountaintops in hopes someone will recognize our greatness, or should we shrug them off as part of the play of life and wait 'till the end to take our bows? Is the sum of our existence less than its total parts?

Switch-O Change-O

I sat at the Village Inn, being the good son, having pie and coffee with my mother and acting interested in stories about people I don't know. I nodded my agreement and slipped in a few non-committal words to make it sound like I was listening. Then I returned the favor by telling her a story of someone she doesn't know. We continued this dance for about an hour before I made up some excuse to leave and return to my regularly scheduled life.

Don't get me wrong, I like my parents, I do, I just don't want to be them. Then I looked around and saw vestiges of them in my house, in my person. I don't collect matching puppy plates, but I do have china I've never used. I don't buy bulk toilet paper, but have purchased a double roll 4-pack. I catch myself saying things like, "If everyone else jumped off a bridge would you?" and, "Don't waste your one phone call on me." I've tried to forge my own path in life, but somehow can't completely escape my childhood. Why do values we don't really hold true stick with us? Why do we say things to others we hated being told as kids? Do we ever become an individual, or will there always be a part of us that is someone else? Do we unwittingly become our parents?

Branded

I admit, I got a tattoo in the early 90's. At the time it symbolized who I was -- young, carefree, unemployed. Now, several years later, I still enjoy my tattoo, but it is no longer a symbol of who I am. I can't help but notice the myriad of brandishings I see in the shopping malls, junior colleges and at the gym. Some of them make sense -- Tweety Bird, a skull and crossbones, some of them don't -- a heart with a name followed by another name and a name outside the heart. Getting a tattoo is a lot like eating an untried Asian food, it's exotic and a great topic of conversation, but it can haunt you. It can beckon you back to a time when you were daring to state, via your body, who exactly you are.

So I re-examined my tattoo, then I re-examined the mirror and saw new brandings -- balding, crows feet, faded tattoo and I wondered, are we always being branded even when we're not? Do we need something like a tattoo to tell the world who we are, or do our faces do it for us? How can we tell what others brand us?

Fair Trade Coffee Talk

I buy Breast Cancer Awareness stamps, recycle and give to the Goodwill, as do most of my friends. Occasionally we reach into our pocket books and write a check to some organization, or drop spare change into the plastic buckets at fast food joints collecting for who knows what.

Over bagels and coffee the other morning Sarah, Jodi and I were discussing how we would like to donate our time to a worthy cause. We thought about the animal shelter, but none of us wanted to pick up poop. We thought, perhaps, we could read to preschoolers, but that seemed like a long commitment, and none of us had time for that. Truth is in our busy lives we scarcely had time to discuss donating worse yet do it. Yet we all felt we wanted to give back a little something, but that something had to be on our terms. Did this mean we were bad people? Were we ungrateful and self centered because we couldn't do as much as our hearts wanted? Is there a minimal limit of good deed doing that separates the selfish from the saints?

What's Your Major?

I like to think of myself as a fairly educated man. I've collected a few useless degrees I'll be paying for long into my golden years, yet I remain blind to so many things that cold potentially affect my life. Ask me about poetry or pottery and I'm sure to have a quick reply, ask me about politics or potentially hazardous materials and I'm completely dumbfounded. It's not as if I don't care about poisons or presidents, I just don't care enough to give up fifty-thousand dollars and a decade of my life to study them.

This paradigm leads me to wonder if one course of study is more important than the other. One could argue points for either side, but perhaps these two seemingly different studies are two parts of the same team. After all, there are rules applied to writing, and leadership is certainly an art, so. . . in the University of Life, how do we determine which course is right for us?

Experiences

In an attempt to broaden my horizons I have recently taken to making lists of "10 Things to Do." These lists include items like, "Cross 10 Bridges I've Never Crossed Before," "Try 10 New Types of Cheese," "Watch 10 Movies Starring Audrey Hepburn." None of these items are particularly life altering, but they do force me to step outside my comfort zone and stretch myself just a bit.

This sounds easy enough, but like everything in my life I take take these challenges very seriously, so seriously in fact these simple changes became a job. Instead of picking up a smoked Gouda along with my other groceries, I made special trips to the store to get my lactose indulgence only to hurriedly eat the hunk and cross it off my list. It didn't take long for me to realize my minor life alterations were causing me great duress. So I asked myself, "Why am I doing this? Is my life richer and more exciting now that I can banter about Audrey and rave about ricotta? Or, am I simply turning into another poser trying to sound more sophisticated than I really am?" When it comes to life and its experiences, should we force ourselves to have new ones, or just cross those bridges when we get to them?

Fishing for Answers

For the first twenty-plus years of my existence I floated through life relatively unscathed by reality. As far as I was aware the world existed simply because I asked it too. Then life began to shift -- friends drifted away, parents started dying, long-time lovers split. I knew those things happened somewhere, I just assumed it was in far off places like China or Cleveland; I never imagined my being would be lured in by these events.

And then it happened. My life collided with reality and sent me reeling back to a vantage point I had never experienced before. I now stood on a precipice fishing for answers to questions I'd never thought of asking. As I looked into those waters of doubt I wondered what my new life beheld. What were my responsibilities? How was I supposed to feel? Must I deal with those realities at all? When life flows in unplanned directions and baits us with ideas of "supposed to's," is it necessary to swallow the hook, or can we bob along the surface believing couples are happy, the dead are vacationing and friends are forever? How do we go with the flow when the waters get rough?

Soundtracks

Most people spend their twenty's clubbing and bed hopping, I spent mine worrying about the state of the world and trying desperately hard to fix it. As one may imagine this caused a great amount of distress until, at the age of twenty-nine, I realized I couldn't fix the world's problems -- no one could. This freed my mine immeasurably which was fun for a while. I crammed ten year's worth of bumping and grinding into just a few, short, selfish years. After my brief run as a party hearty disco boy I felt empty. I'd dragged myself home at 2:00 in the morning still feeling the thumpa-thumpa one too many times to justify a life spent speaker dancing with strangers I cared nothing about. I wanted more.

I realized in my early thirty's that my life needed a new soundtrack -- one that included world music and club hits. With this in mind I asked a DJ friend how he managed to mix the vast variety of music available to him into one seamless song. He told me the answer was simple -- he found a common beat and threaded it through the mix. So, I searched my heart for my core beliefs and after a while I found them / thumpa-thumpa / now. . . can I seamlessly weave those beliefs into my entire life?

Truth

I have spent my entire life being the good guy. I do good deeds, go to work sick, and try my best to take care of those dearest to me. This is not to say I am saintly, for I am helplessly flawed -- my biggest flaw being I tend to trust those around me. Tell me you need money for a life saving procedure and I'll procure it even though I'm aware of your gambling addiction, ask for a lung and it's yours, after all, I've got two.

But sometimes this trust has led to heartache. On more than one occasion I have felt the blows of honesty knock the wind out of my one remaining lung and have told myself I will never do that again. Yet I do. I gamble with my heart assuming, like most addicts, that this will be the last time. But it never is. I build my walls of resistance only to have them torn down by someone else's confession. They say the truth shall set you free, but at what cost and at whose expense? Is telling the truth worth the gamble when hearts are on the table?

Life Happens

I've had dreams of being something my whole life -- a movie star, a writer, an artist. I've even educated myself in these fields throwing my whole person into each of them believing that I was the embodiment of James Dean, the essence of Steinbeck, the eye of Monet. Yet, here I sit sipping coffee and wondering what my next venture in life is going to be. Will I be a great actor, a mediocre writer or dabble in painting, or will I go to more extremes and hold up an all night convenient store for $75.00 and a bottle of Wild Turkey before hurling myself over the Grand Canyon? And if so, how do I prepare for that role? Can we manifest our own destinies by following a pre-designed course of study being careful not to stumble over the usual pitfalls of bad relationships and worse habits, or is life more like stepping in a pile of poop -- it just happens? How do we prepare for an unsure life?

Love Affairs

I've had many love affairs in life -- men, women, myself, but the things I fall for hardest are ideas. The very thought of fine art or romantic music is enough to send shivers down my spine. Every now and then I'll stroll through the museum or listen to a symphony and feel so completely satiated it seems as though no one else exists. I'm ravenous about books, enthralled by scientific theories and I'm completely engrossed by the idea of love -- experiencing love itself, however, is a foreign concept. Sure I've read about it in Gothic novels and have seen it in Julia Roberts' movies, but I've never really felt so strongly for another human being I'd be willing to betray my country. Does this mean I am incomplete as a person? Should I feel unhappy because I love ideas more than people? Is it possible to be complete having never loved completely?

A Bird in the Hand

I sat in traffic for what felt like an eternity, spending much of my time camped out behind a red Thunderbird who wanted to turn left but not daring to until all was clear for at least block, which was never going to happen at 5:15 in the evening. I tried being patient, I tried being pushy, I even resorted to calling him names under my breath from the safety of my car. What was wrong with this man? It was a simple left-hand turn; you put your foot on the gas and go. It's a lot like most adventures in life -- a little scary, the possibility of a mangling death, but the rewards were great, if not for mister T-bird, then for me who would arrive home in time to catch another re-run of Will and Grace.

We face risks every day. Some of them as simple as a left-hand turn; some of them more difficult like moving to Phoenix for a job you're not sure you're going to like. How do we know if the risk is worth it? What criteria do we measure risk against? If we've already got a bird in the hand, why do we risk two in the turn lane?

The Unexamined Life

When one is a writer, it is imperative one has the ability to listen with a perceptive ear, look with an observant eye and ask questions with the twisting, conniving ability of a lawyer -- it doesn't hurt to drink lots of coffee either. Unlike most professions where a person is given a set of demands, the utensils to work with, and a predictable end result, a writer's life is unpredictable, under appreciated and underrated. Our job is to ask the right people the right questions and hopefully get the right responses. If not, we perform a little rearranging of facts to make it seem as if what we wanted to happen did, indeed, happen. I wouldn't call it lying so much as thinly spreading the truth.

A writer, in the solitude of his own booth at Starbucks, will sit for hours tap, tap, tapping away creating worlds to exist the way he wants them to. Sometimes though, after all the facts have been arranged an rearranged, the answer is still not quite right. Writing, like life, doesn't always yield easy solutions. It is said that the unexamined life is not worth living, but what if you do examine life and find there are certain questions that don't have an answer? Should we rearrange the facts to fit the question, or would that be considered lying? Should we restate the question to fit the answer, or is that just us trying to fool ourselves? Must we seek the truth at all? And if so, whose truth? Society's, a higher power's, or is our own truth enough?

Introduction

This will go much smoother if I introduce myself. I am a thirty-something man from the mid-west who is enthralled by human nature. What drives us? What makes us do the things we do? Are we all inherently alike? I set out on a quest to find the answers to these and many other questions. With the help of a few friends, a few cocktails and many sleepless nights I find I'm still overwhelmed by man's capacity to create drama for himself. Maybe the answers are out there, maybe not. All I know is that I have had one hell of a good time trying to find out.