Create Something!

22 months ago I started writing this. Coming up on two years, I couldn't be more pleased with the results. I mean, no book deal yet, but still quite content. One of the results of my ambition in writing is this, a brilliant show-all be-all fashion for cheap blog, keeping you up to date on fashion trends while saving your budget. Even further, saves her own budget by featuring herself and close friends as models. Even if you're not big into fashion, there are still some awesome pictures to ogle, mostly taken by the author herself. One of her features is on a starting out musician and friend who has recently recorded a bunch of songs as part of the acoustic rock genre. While I've only dabbled in his music, it's clear that his sound and writing has staying power.

I bring up these two because along with my own endeavor in this blog, they both had a passion that was lying dormant, and instead of quietly watch them float away, they put in the effort to create something they could be proud of. This might end up paralleling my complacency post, but this time there are real results and real services. Yes, I write for myself, but the main reason I write is for others. If I help even 5 people tackle just one life dilemma, I consider my writing a success. As for my friends, I'm sure they have a sense of personal accomplishment and are proud of what they've done, but Fauxshionable is meant to help others, and Tyler's music was meant to reach out to listeners. We might be self-promoting, talking craft, creating Facebook pages, and doing everything we can to make ourselves seem more popular, but I can assure you, it stems from the desire to reach more people and help to change even the smallest portion of culture. As Chuck Palahniuk wrote, "the goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that does." That's what we're doing, as artists. And if what we've done influences a dozen people, the world is forever changed, and that's inspiration enough to keep on doing what we're doing.

Will these things launch us into stardom, strutting the red carpet in Hollywood, going to Catalina Wine Mixers? Probably not. Do we secretly hope that they do? I think that's safe to say. But would we stop creating now if you told us that we'll never be recognized by anyone besides friends and family? I know I wouldn't.

When I wrote about always wanting to take piano lessons, similar ideas were discussed. There was something that I thought fell by the waste side years ago because my parents (dad) got me playing 'baseball' when I was 5. (Just kidding with the baseball in quotes, it was the right choice.) But as you've surely read, I now own a keyboard and have taken the first steps to learning the craft. But that's about 95% personal goal and personal reward, the spare five percent coming from entertaining the crowd at dinner parties, of course. Motivating yourself to pursue something that will really only impact you can be challenging. But once an audience is created, once a 'service' is provided, once you understand your role in changing and influencing others with something you created, it can be exciting. It thrills me if someone comments on something I write. Not because I need the kudos, but because I know that I just positively impacted someone else's life.

So aside from promoting my good friends Whitney and Tyler, this is another kick in the ass to anyone sitting on a passion and neglecting it for any reason, be it time, money, or doubt. It's worth it to try. It's worth it to take a chance. If not for you, do it for the people that it might affect.

Wiggle Room

Back in May, I wrote about being the rash judgment we apply to people and situations before we have all the facts. I encourage you to read or reread if you haven't. I also touched on this topic after I read DFW's 'This is Water' speech where he made some of the same claims. I'm not going to bring up what you can find in those two posts, but this morning I thought of an interesting addendum.

Unless I leave for work before 6:15am, it's going to take at least 30 minutes to get to work, and I'm going to be caught in stop and go traffic. It's inevitable. Now that I leave my cube at the end of the day and head downstairs to the gym for an hour, I'm not leaving work until 4:45 or later, it's going to take at least 45 minutes to get home, and I'm going to be caught in stop and go traffic. It's inevitable. Not a day goes by, not a day, that I don't see a car buzzing down the shoulder, a motorcycle tip-toeing the center lane lines, someone running a red light, someone dragging ass in the left lane because they're on the phone, someone too oblivious to their surroundings that they don't have their lights on even though the sun has been gone for a half hour, or some other bad excuse for driving. I center this around driving because I do it for between 90 and 120 minutes a day and it's the most frequent test of my patience.

Typically I am a laid back person, so it's easy to be 'slow to judge.' If you're patient, if you like to get all the information before you react, if you don't let things stress you out, etc, then the small stuff doesn't bother you as much, and it's easier to reserve pegging someone as evil. There are so many situations throughout my day where I never have to stop and think before making a hasty decision on someone. Generally, at work, or at the store, or at the bars, things pretty much go with the flow and I don't bat an eye.

But driving as much as I do, encountering hundreds of drivers a day, my sample size is staggering.

Today was no different than what I've just described. Sitting on the Edens, approaching Peterson, crawling in the right lane, and sure enough two cars pull out over the solid white line and zip down the ample shoulder space. The first car coasts onto the off ramp heading west while the second car throws their turn signal on and eases back into traffic, passing a dozen cars in the process. The result of this story is not the purpose of telling it. When I saw both vehicles jerk out of their lane, 'Quick to Judge' popped in my head. Given my level of frustration on this cold, overcast morning, I thought they both deserved to be penalized. Right after thinking that, though, I thought about my own writing. I thought about my words, giving people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that second car thought it had to get off, then realized they were one exit too soon. Whatever the excuse could have been, it didn't make me dislike that driver any less. But just the awareness to stop and think for a second made me happy.

See, I make a lot of proclamations when I write. I offer advice, I try to provide the most logical, thought out response to an array of situations, and the theory is whatever you decide, whether it be to follow my words to find your own path, that you set some guidelines and you follow them. Well I just said that despite my own 'rule' to give people the benefit of the doubt, both drivers this morning pissed me off. But I was sated at the fact that I could back away from the situation and see what was happening before making my decision. In reality, I did exactly what I set out to do, which was delay my judgment. I reacted, thought about it, then didn't change my reaction. But thinking back over all the different tid bits of 'advice' that I've doled out in the last 22 months, there are countless times when I ignore my own words. And even though I've written about heeding my own advice, I think there is something to be said about acknowledging the situation, but choosing against it.

You can't cookie cutter every moment into something you've already broken down. You have to be able to play it by ear, to an extent. The rules you end up writing for your own life shouldn't be written in permanent marker. If there's no room for wiggle, there's no room for error, and that's an impossible way to live.

Staying Disconnected

So this past weekend, I broke my phone. Spilled a drink on it without realizing it was still in my pocket. Fell asleep. Fried it when I tried to plug it in. Not smart, I know. So I woke up Sunday morning without a functional phone. For those of you that don't know, I have been using an iPhone for 10 months now, and, needless to say, have grown accustomed to it. Not a huge app user, but I did my share of using my iPhone to its capabilities and generally enjoyed having it as a phone. Nervous about not having an upgrade through my AT&T account, meaning not me, or either of my parents, I wasn’t sure what this would spell out. I wanted to address the issue as soon as possible, but without fully knowing my options between AT&T, Apple, or any other alternative option, I didn’t want to rush into a financial mistake. Either way, I figured I would take a substantial money hit once I finally figured it all out, and was none too excited about this.

As it turns out, money is not the purpose of this post.

14 months ago, I wrote about staying connected. With the means of communication these days, there isn’t an excuse in the world that you can make to lose touch with those that you care about. Well, I fully understand that my sample size is miniscule at best, but there was something unexpectedly refreshing being without a phone. Please ignore the fact that I spent one of those days sequestered to the couch watching football and paying attention to my losing fantasy team. Also ignore that I pretty much never signed off gchat or Facebook. And keep in mind that two of those three days where spent in the office, where the beginning of the week rush was in full bloom, even as the outside was just the opposite. So to say I was ‘out of communication’ would be a bit of a stretch.

But let’s say that this refreshing splash of pseudo-isolation is one part lack of communication, one part decreased dependency.

Part one: Lack of Communication

So like I just said, I was barely ‘out of communication,’ and I have already written about the importance of staying connected, but there is a something to be said for being outside the loop for a little while. With the emergence of Twitter, gchat, and Facebook statuses, people are collecting information from their friends and peers at an astounding rate. Add in the cell phone, which not only allows you to access all of those things, but also includes phone calls and text messages, and it can be too much. There are some commercials out there advertising for Bing, claiming search engines like Google or Yahoo create search overload, and I think the same types of symptoms can arise due to overstimulation of we’ll call them ‘bits of social media information.’ It can be exhausting keeping pace with the constant flow of information. Without a phone by my side, not only was slightly more isolated from accessing others, but vice versa. There was a comforting delay in not hearing my phone vibrate and seeing it light up every dozen or so minutes, be it an email, text, phone call, or a new move in Words With Friends, because I am a nerd and I play scrabble on my phone. Now I know my phone doesn’t really blow up that often, because let’s be honest, who is really in that dire of a situation and needs to talk to me?

But I guess the point of being out of reach is that it makes the communication exchanged a little more valuable and meaningful. The overstimulation of bits of social media information saturates the content and floods the filter, so much so where the daily and mundane are piled in with the relevant and pertinent. It’s like when cell phone minutes were valuable, or when it used to cost 50 cents for a collect call; you had to pick your spots. A trend that is all but dead. Granted not having a cell phone meant no one would be able to call me, but you get the idea. Having one source of information eliminated does add value you when information needs to be passed along. For that, it was refreshing.

Part two: Decreased Dependency

This is a similar can of worms, and something my dad has preached about for years, but back when cell phones were first getting popular, he could not understand any reason (aside from emergencies) that someone would want to have a phone with them at all times. My dad loves the idea about being out of reach. Granted, more times than not, he wants to be as isolated as Jack and Elizabeth (See: Pirates of the Caribbean), so his opinion probably isn’t too ‘balanced,’ but the point remains valid. Think about why vacation is so appealing. I once wrote that it’s so appealing because they are escapes from everyday life and allow us to be independent. Well what could be a better escape and more independent than being unreachable? It’s a 2010 version of freedom.

And if I would have had a longer stay without a cell phone, there would have been a few more nuances. I would have had to take down numbers with a pen and some scratch paper. I would have had to actually go and see somebody instead of punching away at text messages. I would have had to coordinate plans days in advance instead of saying ‘I’ll just call you when I’m leaving.’ It wouldn’t have been an issue for me, but no more calling from the car to get the last few turns to your newest destination, you have to get the full directions before you leave. It got to the point in three days that I was forgetting what I could and couldn’t do without my phone. I’m going to the bank, do they need my phone? No, no, just I.D. What about driving? Nope, still don’t need it. Got pictures printed at Walgreens, and they ask for a number, but will they actually call it? So many questions.

But as it turns out, I walked into the Apple store on Tuesday and they replaced my phone with a new one, free of charge. There was pretty much nothing that I truly missed doing on my phone, except maybe Words With Friends. And the whole (3-day) experience left me realizing that I don’t need my phone attached to me. It’s nice to be dependable, but it’s nice to go rogue for a while, go dark, under the radar, and escape for a while. If you can’t find a way to get out of the country for vacation, and you live in such a hell hole that a ‘staycation’ won’t even be worth it, then how about you turn off the cell phone, log out of Facebook, why not even turn off your computer, and see what it’s like to be free.

Face the Truth

As I caught up on my TV shows last night, heavy eyelids eclipsing the waning moments of FX's newest show, 'Terriers,' a relatively disturbing scene left me restless at night. Lost in my thoughts on my now-dark drive into the office, the lingering effects still crept in and out, seeping between cursed out rapid breakers (1. (I can't do superscript for footnotes, so I'll just throw a number and a period in a parenthesis to show a side tangent. Read at bottom)). Killing the first few minutes at work, reading my favorite sports writer's new column, once again, the topic once again resurfaced. This is the reason for what you see below.

The scene in Terriers to which I am referring revolves around a cheating girlfriend. Scared, unstable, and noticeably upset, she invites her boyfriend's best friend to breakfast to confide in him, a scene eerily reminiscent of Gwyneth Paltrow and Morgan Freeman in Se7en. Long story short, Morgan Freeman's advice parallels the show, in which there can be a decided advantage to keeping a secret. While the topic of the secret varies, the message is still clear: to save the relationship, keep the secret. As Freeman says, "your marriage would just wither, and die altogether." In 'Terriers,' the advice is 'never tell him. That's what you do.'

My most often quoted line, 'you know there's a flipside to that coin' (mainly because 80% of what I do here is present the other side of the argument...). In this sports column about Randy Moss, the Vikings and Patriots, and Twitter, Bill Simmons has some principles to uphold. As he describes, "I am a big 'don't make it worse, come clean' guy... People are only as good as their word."

Thus begins the moral debate.

I wrote about keeping secrets back in May, but I wrote about them in a battling the dramatic, avoiding conflict, and keeping things simple kind of way. I see the previous scenarios as a different breed. We're not talking about covering up the fact that you've tried an array of illegal drugs, or that you really got a 2.5gpa, not 3.5gpa in college; those are the little things I was speaking to previously: cover-ups that might not affect situations one way or another, but added together, create a blanket of deception. This time I'm talking about relationship altering, life altering, people changing, big ass things. And not everyone comes across stuff like this. Some of you might go your whole life without there ever being an elephant in the room. But place yourself in a situation where you have something to have. Let's use that 'Terriers' situation. Say you're in a good, faithful, trusting, encouraging, blossoming relationship, a few steps away from engagement, seemingly perfect relationship. One drunken night, idiotic, barbaric, animalistic passion overrides logic and you go home with something you know you won't be able to have in the future. The person you commit infidelity with is not as important as the act itself. Now you scamper home, embarrassed, dirty, nervous, and completely regretful, the question looming: do I confess?

Scenario #1 ('he's hanging by his neck in his fxcking closet;' sorry, Baseketball reference.): Lock that little nugget in the deepest vault of your brain and tell no one. Do everything you can to forget it even happened. Convince yourself of the lie. Time advances, as it usually does, and the farther this event falls in the past, the easier it is to deal with. The relationship flourishes, engagement rings, congratulations, wedding planning, holidays with the family, the ceremony, the honeymoon, kids, school, etc. But for those last 10, 15 years, how have you been sleeping? How many times do you clench your stomach during a movie involving affairs, which, let's be honest, happens quite frequently. How long can you live with the guilt? And that's only if the secret manages to stay hidden. Let's say you run into that late night encounter while you're out with your significant other. Now there's trouble in relationship heaven. What if 5 years have passed, and now you have to tell the truth? What kind of outcome will that produce? As Bill Simmons says, "...the cover-up is always worse than the crime. Any good public relations guy will tell you that." Not to mention how much more will have been invested as time passes.

The counter argument is that confession will result in crushing the person you care about most, and you can bring yourself to hurt someone that much. Well the two outcomes that I just describe either end with crippling self-guilt or delayed disaster. Unless you're conscienceless, one of the two is inevitable. And neither seems acceptable.

Scenario #2 ('Coop went to Disney World;' sorry, Baseketball reference.): Face the music. Tell the truth. Confess. Lay your cards on the table. There is no bluffing, no games, no deceits, no tells. Your chips are all in, your hand is flipped, your sunglasses are removed, hat thrown aside, and nothing up your sleeve. Is there any other way to face it?

If you tell me that sometimes, 'scenario #2' is the worse outcome, I would agree. Sometimes, telling someone the truth about a major incident can lead to pain, suffering, separation, and misery. But, that's kind of how it works. If they forgive you, then all is well. If they don't, then you brought it on yourself. Your love was either stronger enough to prosper, or flawed enough to fail. But you owe it to yourself and to those involved to be honest.

There are certain situations where I am hypocritical and believe in the whole 'ignorance is bliss' thing. There are so many current topics, news stories, leaders, politics, and everything else in the world that I keep my head buried about. Those who know me know I don't watch the news, read the paper, etc. Right now, I have enough to worry about and to enjoy without adding the ebb and flow of the world. It's a selfish outlook, but for me, it's what I have to do to keep my head above water. I'm sure, one day not far from now, I'll look back critically at my early 20s self, but until then, I'm fine where I am. But 'ignorance is bliss' when it comes to personal matters, matters of the heart, is not comparing apples to apples. Not staying caught up in the current affairs of the world is one thing. Not being informed about current affairs of my significant other is a whole different story. You can't manipulate the lives of the ones you love. That should not be up to you to decide.

PostScript: This is one of the more polar opinions I've taken on any topic, and I understand there are outlying circumstances in which someone has the right to hold back the truth. As always, I try to write about across the board generalizations, and by no means is 100% ever the right answer.

(1.) Rapid Breakers: I drive 40 miles a day, 30 of which are on the Edens expressway. Depending on when I leave, I am caught up in between 30 to 90 minutes of stop and go, bumper to bumper traffic. Many days I've tried to brainstorm enough about traffic patterns to spawn an entire blog, but I just can't rant and bitch for 800 words and think that anyone will give a shit. So here it is in a nutshell. It is my firm belief that a large percentage of traffic is caused by shitty drivers. Mainly: people that brake too frequently, without paying attention, and people that have no idea how to merge. Bad mergers cause traffic, fine. I don't see them as often. But the assholes that are part of the four or five car group ahead of me that tap or hit their brakes every 5 seconds need to be slapped. Every time they unnecessarily hit their brakes, WHACK. These people are not paying attention, don't take into consideration the trend and flow of traffic, hit their brakes when a car in THE OTHER LANE hits theirs, and more times than not, is usually caught up talking on the phone, texting, eating, smoking, or jamming out. If not, they're just a waste of space and need to get off the roads. Pay attention, notice that the cars ahead of you aren't slowing down too much, try just taking your foot off the accelerator for a while. This isn't damn rocket science. But no. Instead, every brainless driver abruptly hits the brake, so the next person does too, without thinking, then all of a sudden, 30 cars later, complete stop, traffic, misery, and a long effing commute. Am I the only one that gets pissed about this????

Following Through

Goals are important. Resolutions, too. Anything you can plan out in an attempt to better your life, to accomplish something, to make a positive change that will increase the odds of happiness, all of it is gold. Being a planner, that step is important. Whether it's writing a five page essay about a poem or getting ready to walk down the aisle, planning is and should be an integral part of the process. Planning is the launching pad from which you are able to complete the task at hand. But all the planning in the world can't help you if you don't have the will to do it.

Back in March, I wrote about my lifelong desire to have piano skills as a hidden talent. Well I guess it wasn't lifelong, or I probably would have taken piano lessons as a kid. But as I breech the barrier into my adult years, I am jealous of those with the dexterous ability to rattle the ivories. And the moral of that story? It's never too late to start, so avoid the complacency of my comfortable life and take action. I was very pleased with this idea. But words that are digitally imprinted on the screen can only mean so much. It would be my dream if my words were able to inspire someone to start something new and explore new experiences, but what kind of hypocrite if I never followed through myself. I don't want to be a theorist, writing based on what I think as opposed to what I have done, or what I will do. How empty will my words fall on your ears if you knew I didn't heed my own advice? Talk is cheap, so to speak. Like the phrase I love, 'Be the change you wish to see in the world.'

Well, you will be happy to know that 5 weeks ago, I began my first piano lesson under the guidance of my brilliantly talented cousin, who, not surprisingly, was forced to take piano lessons before he knew what a piano was. I traveled to his apartment a mere mile and a half away, and over several beers and almost constant laughter, we knocked out a solid hour of beginner learning. What I've come to find out is as challenging I thought it would be to learn something new as an adult, the capacity of my mind to apply knowledge makes learning the fundamentals of playing piano quite a bit easier than I anticipated. While a 4 year old might be instructed to place fingers on keys and push down when told, the adult mind can comprehend the general ideas, and as long as the lesson is catered to an adult mind, much more can be accomplished in a short period of time. Not knowing for sure how serious my cousin was, he claimed that I learned in 1 hour what he learned in 1 year as a kid. This little comparison was not only staggering, but encouraging. It kind of makes me mad that I didn't start this earlier. I could have been Sebastian Bach by now. But the long talked about meeting was everything I had hoped, and definitely got me paging through websites about piano and trying to learn as much as I could without being in his presence or having a keyboard of my own to practice on. Slipping between two busy schedules, we met again two weeks after our kickoff lesson. Now with his expectation, the hits continued to be delivered. With the basics coming easier than I thought, I knew this was something I would stick with. And I am pleased to announce that 13 days ago, after a little Criagslist negotiating, I took home my very first keyboard, opening the door to hours of practicing and annoying my roommate.

Goal: Learn to play the piano. Plan: Ask cousin to teach me. Result: ACTUALLY DID IT

Back in August, I wrote about my trip to New York City. Not so much about the trip, but about some of the phenomenal pictures that I took. My plan was to use these as more than Facebook entertainment and get them printed, poster size, frame them, and decorate my walls with personal art. The idea was that the sense of accomplishment can be more valuable than the result. I may be able to purchase some kickass panoramic posters of the NYC skyline and the Brooklyn Bridge, but being able to point to the name at the bottom of the frame and smile, knowing its your own signature, is priceless.

Well, once again, great in theory, but without action, empty. The posters (2) are ordered (from Large Format Posters.com), the frames have been purchased (36" x 12"), and within the next week, my apartment will be newly decorated by original art. I decided against the whole 'three pictures taken within 50 feet of each other,' and instead found my two favorite pictures, cropped them to fit, and though that it would look better on the wall. I have a picture of Central Park, with some hills, trees, and buildings, that when chopped down, really takes a special form. The second is a picture of the heart of Manhattan, Empire State Building acting as the center piece, with a few cables of the Brooklyn Bridge slicing through the frame. I am beyond excited to see how these will turn out, and even more excited to adorn my walls with something I created.

Goal: Decorate my walls with something I created. Plan: Find my favorite two NYC pictures and crop til perfect. Result: ACTUALLY DID IT

The point of this post wasn't to toot my own horn, but you're welcome to toot it for me. The point is, the best theories in the world mean nothing if there is no result. I try, very hard, to live by the way I describe in my writing. Whether it's refusing to overheat when yet another person flies up the right lane on Addison at Western without turn right, or slowing down my thoughts enough to get a decent night’s sleep, I wouldn't write it if I didn't believe in it. But believing in it is different than doing it. And following through with what you proclamation is what separates the ‘phonies’ from the ‘realies.’ And I am here to tell you that I can be hypocritical. I can be lazy when I claim to be motivated. I can be an asshole when I claim to be a nice guy. I can even have a short fuse when I claim to be as calm and relaxed as possible. But it's not often. And I am truly proud to say that I have followed through with two things that I could have easily only used to write about.

And I can honestly say, not only am I a.) avoiding complacency and b.) accomplishing something myself, but I am adding a skill set and a sweet new decoration. The results are multiplied. I hope you find the same reward when you follow through with something you've wanted to start. It's never too late.

Native Tourist

Vacations are amazing; I don't think that's up for discussion. You get to see new places or visit old favorites, meet new people or see old family, try new adventures and ignore work emails, all under a mindset that allows for complete relaxation and carefree fun. When approached in the right context, vacations are not just a break from the common scenery you've been consumed with for monotonous month after month, but it can be a break from life. Even if month after month doesn't feel the same, especially in Chicago where the temperature can change 50 degrees in the same week, there is still a certain amount of mystery and excitement that surrounds a getaway of any kind. And that getaway could just be taking a few days to bum around the house, do a few projects, some yard work, some shopping, and just taking advantage of down time in your own house and in your own bed. Some might call this a stay-cation, but it elicits the same feelings of carefree relaxation.

One option that isn't often considered is what I experienced on Saturday. A good friend of mine had an old friend coming to visit that wasn't too familiar with downtown Chicago. Now, I have had a Chicago address for exactly two years. I've ridden the Red Line from 95th to Howard, I've been to movies in Millennium Park, I've swam in a pool 44 stories above ground, and generally, done a decent job making my way throughout neighborhoods, buildings, pubic transits, and establishments in my time here. So while it seemed like I was an ideal candidate to play tour guide, what transpired made for such a memorable day, 3 cameras couldn't even capture everything.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm talking about being a tourist in your own backyard, seeing it as a foreign land instead of your stomping grounds, and allowing yourself to treat your time like there's no plan, no schedule, no sense of responsibility, and just letting loose.

So what happened? We took the Red Line down to Chicago Ave, walked past The Water Tower (ya know, that thing that survived the damn Chicago fire), and headed north to the Hancock building. At the base, it's as overwhelming as ever. The 40 second elevator ride left my ears in a constant state of popped, but the views from the observatory were worth it (even if the views from my brother's roof are half as impressive and kind of ruined the surprise). We (the girls) did some Michigan Avenue shopping, which albeit wasn't the most exciting thing in the world, it still felt very touristy. And after passing on the 45-60 minute wait for Uno or Due (deep dish pizza places), we walked over to Portillos for a magnificent Chicago style late lunch, officially kicking off our drinking, and sending the day into a level of fun that didn't dip the rest of the evening. We bounced from bar to bar, hitting up Clark St Ale House, Mothers Too, Benchmark, Market (briefly), Bon V, and Exit, taking in the trendy to the chill, the fratty to the hardcore.

Like I said, it's less what we did, and more how we did it. Granted, one member of our crew was actually from out of town, while another member resides in a distant suburb, but my brother and I are Chicagoan city dwellers that explored and partied like we weren't from here. It felt like a mini vacation for me, even though I traveled about 10 miles, round trip. I had the fun, the rush, the excitement of trying some new things and meeting some new people, but I had the comfort of sleeping in my own bed. There are thousands of exciting adventures in the world that I want to try, there are hundreds of cities in dozens of countries that I would love to visit, and there are experiences that will be so far out of my daily life that I can't help but to call them exotic, but I think it's important to be able to appreciate what is lying in your backyard. And while you might explore the surrounding area often, even as I described, to do it like you're on vacation is something more. Experiencing the familiar in an unfamiliar way can be enlightening, worthwhile, and refreshing. And that short statement can be applied so many ways in so many parts of life, it's up to you how you use it. Let's see what you can do.

Fall: Looks Like the Lives Are Changing

As summer winds down, only days away from the official beginning of autumn, I find the contours of my life changing alongside the colors and the temperatures that a new season brings. At no point did I think that nothing would ever change, but as I inch closer and closer to my quarter century mark, some of the relatively static portions of everyday living are being shuffled, exchanged, swapped, altered, and reformatted. As more and more friends move away, pair off, move out, tie the knot, and start families, the dynamic of our relationships will shift with the additional construction supplanted all around. It's inevitable. And although inevitable, there are still several different ways that you can react, eventually dictating what level of happiness you are able to carve out of the trees that once surrounded you.

1.) Follow Suit, Turtle Style

So your life is changing around you. The rest of the world is in motion, advancing, maturing, discovering new journeys with new people, leaving you caught in the middle, surrounded by the rush. Well, we can take a lesson from physics, ya know, the whole 'equal and opposite reaction' thing. Well flip it. Instead of combating these new trends, flinging yourself into a propelled tailspin, further distancing yourself from the very life you wished to stay connected to; you turn and run with them, greatly minimizing the impact. Physics analogy aside, you follow your friends, your peers. The more and more "First Name Maiden Name Last Name" titles you see in your friends list on Facebook, the more and more you want to join them. So if you were behind the curve in the beginning, you shorten the distance and make up ground.

What does this do? Well it keeps you with the lead pack, or if nothing else, on the lead lap. Maybe it was the motivation you needed to take some new strides and make some new plans. This might be the best thing that ever happened to you. It also might be a mistake that you rush into because you believe it's where you're supposed to be, when in reality, like I've stated previously, "we're all wired differently, built differently, composed of the same parts, but we're all running different software." So to constantly compare your progress with those that you've always been around might be misleading. It can be a good measuring stick, but at the end of the day, you have to decide on what makes the most sense for you, what you're comfortable with, and forget about the variables. If you would have ended up in the same spot, then you got lucky. But those chances usually aren't very high (with no actual proof to back any of this up, mind you. Just my thoughts).

2.) Stand Your Ground, General Custer Style

Let's look at that same physics tid bit, ya know, the whole 'equal and opposite reaction' thing, but this time from the other side. So your life is changing around you, but you're not ready to move. You like the butt rut you've grooved into your La-Z-Boy and it would take a helluva wind storm to blow you over. In some twisted form of protest, you make it a point to participate in any activity that your fleeting world has left behind, regardless of what it may be. This doesn't only apply to the mid-twenties, but any time frame during your lifespan where you feel your world shifting seemingly without notice. So as a self-proclaimed outcast, you rebel, and also seemingly unknowingly, you begin to pour your own cement, guaranteeing the stagnant build-up of stale decisions and a lacking motivation.

What does this do? Well, it completely ostracizes you from the world you are trying to hold on to, it creates a lifestyle set up for complacency, and most likely leads to an attempt to ice pick away the dried mortar that keep your legs from moving in a positive direction. Okay, maybe I made that sound a little more harsh than necessary, but choosing to directly oppose those you wanted to keep close should never end in the place you wanted to get to. It just doesn't make sense.

3.) Explore New Land, Lewis and Clark Style

Physics be damned (not literally, just for this scenario). When that whirlwind of debris kicks up, leaving you blind, if you don't run with it, and you don't run into it, if you time it right, pick your gaps, maybe, just maybe, you can run through it. Be not confined by what those around you are doing, and instead, take your experiences, take your friends' experiences, take what you already know and combine it with what you want to know, and explore. While the comfort of a familiar life is, comforting... it can also be restricting without squeezing. You can be tied-down with no strings attached. And even though the life you're leading is everything you think you could want, there is an unfathomable amount of options and people and experiences that might not otherwise be experienced.

What does this do? Well, if done correctly, it merges what you loved from the present with your adventures from the future in some sort of newly evolved balance. Every life is and should be different, and no one way to live it is correct. But if you look at situations in the right light, at the right angle, and keep twisting them until you see an opportunity, you can almost always find a way to make your life fulfilling enough to skip over the lulls and disappointments, the valleys and the ruts. After all, "if you don't like it, change it. But if you can't change it, change the way you look at it."

Fantasy Island

Fantasy Football (FF) is a funny term. Everyone knows that FF has taken over mainstream male culture when summer starts to fade into fall (Not to exclude women, but let's be honest, a higher percentage of guys are participating in FF). You can't watch a sports station or check a sports website without hearing about injury updates and trade rumors and depth chart swapping and how all of this will impact your team. And if you're anything like me, FF was too overwhelming and ruined my viewing experience. I had a team (the Bears), and I watched them. Trying to catch the last few minutes of the Chiefs game to see if Larry Johnson would break 100 yards seemed silly. Why would I root for someone who isn't directly helping my hometown helmet-bashers?

Well, last season, wanting to be a part of the phenomenon as opposed to looking in, I joined a league. Maybe it was the Bill Simmons articles, maybe it was the lure of winning money and proving my dominance in football knowledge, but either way, once I joined I decided not to take it lightly. I began listening to pod casts, taking notes, making spreadsheets, watching ESPN, pillaging through their website, taking pointers from any voice of reason I could imagine, hopefully preparing myself for success. Well, long story short, I did well. Lead the league in cumulative points for the season (won me $30), lead the league in points in 3 different weeks (another $12), but lost my semi-final playoff game and ended up taking 4th (net -$8 after the $50 entry fee).

Generally, I found the experience extremely enjoyable. My logic of not wanting to root for anyone not playing for the Bears was completely flawed. Take this season for example: I expect nothing from the Bears. Their lackluster 19-14 victory because of a poorly written rule over the woeful Lions is nothing more than a perfect encapsulation of how I predict their season to go: Shows flashes of upside, but really, only a few plays better than a crappy team, so with some luck, might end up .500.

Not to get caught up in sports posts these days, but this goes right back to my die-hard mentality about the Cubs. The same way I can truly appreciate the relief of not having to watch the Cubs every because they are 20 games under .500 is the same way I can become engrossed in checking the scores and box scores of 8 different games every weekend, with lucrative possibilities abound. The ante went up to $75 this year, so the better my fantasy team does, the closer I am to a Christmas bonus.

You hear nay-sayers point out all these adult men only fantasizing about playing football instead of actually doing it, about all of us that are trying to hold on to glory by fanning our feathers and imposing our football domination. And the ironic insult, calling us all nerds for crunching numbers and extrapolating entire seasons about this punishing game we all wish we were stars of.

But I'm here to say that as much as FF isn't real life, it's real for those of us who participate. It gives us something to occupy our time with. It brings us closer to friends, and maintains relationships with those that have spread out around the country or world. It keeps our interest in a long, slow, depressing fall season where new TV shows bomb, the weather gets worse and worse, and year after year, our home team continues to under-perform. We all know that FF isn't the real thing, and that there is as much luck as skill involved in drafting the proper crop of players, but if this small miracle of online athlete tracking can yield such positive results, it is something that should be relished as opposed to questioned. Seeing the 'Fantasy Tracker' on the bottom of the screen might annoy some, but to many of us, it's just one more way to survive, to give us hope, to give us something to look forward to each week and each year.

Creatures of Habit

Throughout this blog, I have preached balance, adaptation, analyzing, thorough, and thoughtful care to each and all situations, approaching with an open mind, ear, eye, and heart. A large part of these ideas is the constant state of change, of growing, maturing, evolving, and revolutionizing any or all aspects of your life. Not necessarily because I have all the answers, but again, to challenge people, and myself, to shine a brighter, more intense, invasive, and exposing light on things you might have taken for granted, amongst other things.

That being said, I believe that we are all creatures of habit, and to some extent, doomed to repeat many of the same mistakes over and over. And I, the preacher, am no stranger to falling into the same traps.

I can't even stop this conversation with mistakes, There are more situations in life besides successes and failures. In fact, almost nothing is that black and white. There is always debris, there is always fallout. Not everything is crisp enough to assign a plus or minus sign to. Not all victories are without loss, and vice versa. So considering all of these scenarios, these literally countless occurrences that fall in the middle, the muck, the gray area, all your adventures and relaxations, we continue to repeat what we know, step in our own steps, with something between fear and comfort keeping you inside the lines.

I'd like to say I can offer a way out, but this is something that I struggle with too. I'm thinking of this less in the terms of ordering the same thing every time I go to subway. It applies, but in a different way and for a different post (see future: Breaking the Monotony). I'm thinking bigger things, life things, job, things, relationship things, where even though you are consciously attempting to steer clear of whatever path you had previously carved, it's hard to wiggle free of something that you've already done, whether because it was the best option, the easiest option, the most impressive option, or, for a masochist, the one that offers opportunity for punishment and personal turmoil. The idea of learning from past experiences seems relevant here, but I'm not saying there isn't learning. I might spend an entire week waking up late for work, cursing myself each day for the extra hour in the car during my commute, the being one of the last ones in my group to get to my desk, the staying later in the afternoon to make up time and missing some early evening activities, etc, so I learn, and I promise myself that next week, things will be different. I learned my lesson. I understand the consequences. But sure as shit, next week, the extra 30 minutes of sleep is more important than aaaall the things I just listed. I learned, sure, but I didn't change, because during the summer, I'm a lazy creature of habit.

So maybe this was just a personal kick in the ass. Yes, I got to work at 7:01 this morning, but still, across the board, I want to challenge myself to be observant enough to recognize when I'm treading over my previous tracks. Not because what I did was right or wrong, but touching on an old, super-cliche, if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always gotten' (Tony Robbins). I know, I know, I hate cliches too, but there's something to that. So if you aren't happy with the results, see if you can find the power to break the habit.

Self Accomplishment is Priceless

I just got back from a weekend in New York City. I did a similar trip last year, and had a similarly good time, but the difference was, this time, I had my camera. Even though the battery didn't quite last as long as we did, I anxiously sat on the plane, hungover to the wall, waiting for touchdown, knowing how close I was to charging my battery and uploading my pictures. I took 160 pictures and 9 videos before my little Casio called the quits, and I could not wait to see what the 17" of my laptop screen would reveal. Obviously I was excited to post the pictures for the world to see, but I wanted to validate my naive, amateur, basic level of photography as something that could be appreciated by both ends of the artistic spectrum. As I cycled through, laughing at the shenanigans, cowering at the embarrassment, and cropping the excess, I realized that I have a legitimate chance, between the resolution of these pictures and the megapixels of my camera, to produce something that might end up looking relatively, well, professional.

Having a camera with enough megapixels to take wide enough pictures to crop when you get home makes all the difference in the world. And cropping the crap away from the target in a picture is something that goes overlooked in the layman's photo album. As most of you know, I am a freak with a camera. I figure snap happy now equals real happy later. And so that's what I did while I was in NYC. I think I took 25 pictures just walking the Brooklyn Bridge. That's 2 pictures every tenth of a mile. I guess when you break it down like that, it's not nearly as impressive. But the point of the matter is the more I took, the more I had when I got home, and the greater opportunity I had when it came time to do something more than make my facebook creepers happy.

I've almost settled on three pictures: Three pictures, three skylines, three different parts of New York, and all taken within a few thousand feet of each other. So what's my plan? Well I want to take these three pictures, cropped as they are at a 12 x 36 ratio, print them (on some nice poster paper), frame them (in something more than four pieces of skinny aluminum), and mount them on my massive living room wall. You know what it will cost me to take three pictures, get them printed, buy three frames, fit the posters in the frames, and get them on my wall? Probably over $100, depending on how cheap I go and what kind of deal I can find. You know how much it would cost if I went to allposters.com, picked out a random picture of a New York skyline, scooped up a cheap-o frame from Wal-Mart, and tacked it to my wall? Probably less than $10.

So the question is, why?

Well there's two reasons, and both reasons are selfish.

1.) When people walk into my apartment, I want this display to be one of, if not the first things they see. It will be hard to miss. And hopefully, if done well, will draw enough attention to it so people forget about the off shade of urine that my living and dining room walls were painted before I moved in. So my goal is that my little ensemble will be a conversation piece. I envision a new arrival to question where these so similar yet so different pictures came from, at which time I can gleefully claim that despite their professionalism, charm, and beauty, they were all taken by an un-charming, mildly attractive, amateur. Then I get to watch their transformation from appreciation to reasonable astonishment, and receive a bevy of questions about when I took them, where I was, etc, reliving the masterpiece that was my trip to NYC and basking in the moderate glory of my photographic skills. AKA I want to brag.

2.) While bragging is important, the basis of this rambling was to bring light to the importance of self accomplishment. I couldn't imagine anybody in this world walking into a store, seeing what will be the result of my hard work, and thinking that what they see is worth the ~$40 it would cost to take each piece home. It's not that I believe people don't overpay, I just know that there are more professional, better looking, more awe-inspiring pictures of New York City that deserve to be on a wall, and for less money. But the idea of decorating my apartment with things that I have experienced, documented, and created, makes me love my apartment more than anything else. Sure, it would be nice to have great taste in decorations with a deep check book, but where's the sense of accomplishment in clearing out a few aisles at Target? Sure, it would be nice to have great taste in fashion with a deep check book, but how much more significant is your favorite scarf that you made for yourself?

Now, I am definitely a hypocrite on this topic. There's a sense of accomplishment in changing your own oil, but really, if it costs the same and takes less time, I'll continue to have NTB do the dirty work.

But the closer you can come to self accomplishment, self sufficiency, self autonomy, the closer you will be to your own identity, your own life, one that you created, and one that you and only you will occupy, and that feeling is worth more than any dollar or credit card can buy. No one can take it from you.

"Die-hard"

Being a 'die-hard' fan of anything is tough work. Usually there is no way to curb the utter devotion you have to whatever object you are a fan of. For the sake of this post, I'm saying this as a die-hard Cubs fan, but in my mind, a modern die-hard Cubs fan. So what's the difference between a 'modern' and a 'traditional?'

Well there are two ways to consider the updated version of a die-hard fan, and they swing in opposite directions.

1.) There is more technology at our fingertips than ever before. You can be so engrossed in your team that you watch games on a 60inch LED TV when you're home, and watch them on your 3.5inch touchscreen phone when you're not. You can access pages and pages of stats, find out injury updates, contract updates, criminal report updates (K-ROD), read recaps of minor league games, follow players from Single A Daytona to Double A Tennessee to Triple A Iowa, catch highlights and expert analysis on several different media outlets including satellite radio and multiple TV stations, and find tickets to any game you would want to go to between stub hub and Craigslist and any other ticket selling website.

Summary: You can be more involved in your team now than was ever possible, imaginable, conceivable 20 years ago.

2.) This is more of the Baseketball mentality... "Now your kids with your loud music, and your Dan Fogleberg, your Zima, hula hoops and pac-man video games, don't you see? People today have attention spans that can only be measured in nanoseconds!" Well the details probably aren't too transferable, but the message is the same. The same technologies that make it easier than ever to be a die-hard fan also provide enough distractions to cover up any remnants of a team you once worshiped. Hundreds of HD channels, thousands of iphone apps, millions of downloadable movies, billions of downloadable songs, and trillions of daily tweets can keep the average, digitally connected 'die-hard' occupied like port-o-potties at carnivals. We are a generation built to multi-task, trained to tune out that which doesn't immediately entertain us, and assembled to switch gears like Chicago drivers.

Summary: You can be disconnected quicker from your team now than was ever possible, imaginable, conceivable 20 years ago.

My point of laying all this out is to say that these days, unlike for 'traditional die-hards,' there's more to do every day than head to the ball park to catch a game, but that doesn't mean that I am any less of a die-hard fan. After all, what does it actually mean to be die-hard? Adj. "Stubbornly resisting change or clinging to a seemingly hopeless or outdated cause." Doesn't say anything about knowing every stat, watching every game, rising and falling with every win or loss. It just means that every year, we're back at the table, licking our lips at the chance of glory, even when you have more unmovable parts than a brick shit house (Thanks to Jim Hendry).

So now that I don't feel like I'm wronging anyone, I'm here to say that sometimes it's nice to be able to hang up the jersey a little early. In the last few weeks, I have been moving nonstop, following plans sometimes 4, 5, 6 nights in a row, using weekends to their fullest, going up to lake houses, boating, working late, running errands, assembling my new home theater, playing volleyball, playing softball, and generally filling my time without added responsibility to check scores, standings, and stats as the Cubs finish out their season. The 2010 season is lost. I'll get back into baseball as the Division races heat up, I'll root against the Sox, and I'll look forward to the playoffs, but when you're able to slide off the shackles that being a die-hard fan can put on you and just enjoy the rest of what life has to offer, it can be quite a positive experience.

I'm committed to being a Cubs fan, and couldn't possibly fathom ever rooting for another baseball team for the course of a season, but to survive as a passionate fan of anything, you have to be able to thrive as much with it as without it.

Karma

What goes around, comes around, right? I have spent long-winded passages declaring my overall belief in being a good person, leading a good life, setting a good example, and falling asleep with a clear conscience. And I guess I figured that in the long run, as the idea of karma implies, any bad luck or hard times I've come across will be lost and forgotten when the good will of the world wraps me up in a blanket of warmth, blessing me with happiness and more or less rewarding me for being a 'good person.' I declared this because I do not consider myself a religious man, so instead of living my life for God, or living my life with the sole purpose of finding myself in heaven once my time expires, or whatever reason people give for following rules, laws, and commandments, I am content with helping those around me and doing everything I described in sentence #2.

With all that being said, is believing in the idea of karma inherently selfish? Mind you, I could write the same thing about those who live life for God or for heaven or whatever reason, but that's not my sack of potatoes.

I once questioned where people get their motivation from, and I guess that is the root of what's going on here. Do people perform good deeds because they believe that it will, in some way, come back around. And if so, is that good deed tainted? Closer to home, do I believe that? People always tell me that I'm a good person, that good things will come my way, that I impact lives in a positive way, and in some way, this is my motivation. Making the lives of those around me better makes me feel better. It's not truly masochistic, since it doesn't always cause me pain, but at some point, the happiness of others is more important than my own. So in that way, I get pleasure out of 'doing the good deeds of karma,' or however you want to describe it.

But I also really want to believe that I will be, as I said 'rewarded' in some way. I mean, if I am always caring for and taking care of others, I would hope that one day, whether its a full life or an eternal afterlife, my actions can be justified and the universe can once again hang in balance. I'm not saying that I'm unhappy now. I honestly have very little to complain about. So then I guess I would hope that as I continue on my journey, that the effort I put in is reciprocated by the results. In simple terms, I hope the ends justify the means.

But isn't there an unmistakable scent of selfishness in those last two paragraphs? How can you separate the desire to help others with the hope that it's not a wasted effort? I explain all of this because I believe it is rare, nearly impossible to find someone who does something good without thinking about karma. Maybe that's the cynic in me, and I hope that the world can at some time convince me that it's made up of good people. The Dark Knight seems to think so, and in reality, like Tweek says on South Park, 'even though all the news is about murderers and abductors, those kind of people only make up a very small part of the world.' But for now, I'm not convinced.

I don't know if it will ever be possible for me to do a good deed without thinking that there is some form of benefit for myself. So maybe I'm not the best person in the world, I'm no Saint, I'm no Angel, I'm no other mythologically moral creature; I'm just a regular guy with a solid approach to the world. And I don't think I realized this when I started mulling over the idea of karma, but if the world was made up of people selfishly playing their cards in hopes of it coming back around, then you'd be surprised how much happier this world would be.

In reality, I think karma is a bunch of hogwash. Bad things happen to good people, and vice versa. Don't let the result cause you to second guess your decision. Living a good life will see its reward play out tenfold as the world evolves, because the more you can impact the lives of those around you, then the more people they can spread it to. It's a pay it forward type of thinking. Hopefully that is enough to keep going.

Natural Default-Setting

I recently read an old commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace to Kenyon College in May of 2005. DFW is an author that I have come to realize possessed several similar qualities of my own writing, thus peaking my interest in this legendary, unfortunately deceased writer. While this speech is only the tip of what I hope to be a lengthy and enjoyable adventure in his writing, it has, almost immediately, left me changing my ways and thoughts and analyzing my day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute thoughts, actions, and approaches. Sounds like me already, huh?

I am going to give a brief, brief, brief summary of his speech, but if you have the time, I highly suggest you taking the 10 minutes to read this. It is top shelf material. So the overall, if you absolutely had to sum this up in two sentences type message is that we, as a people, are programmed to the 'natural default-setting' of living, which basically entails ourselves as the center of the universe, the focal point of existence, and every experience in the world is from our perspective, with us as the main character, and with everyone else as the supporting cast. His ultimate piece of advice is that 'most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at...' and fill in the blank, whether it's the inconsiderate prick talking on his cell phone swerving through traffic, the miserable parent that's dragging a kid through Old Navy, or just an unruly neighbor playing music too loud.

While there are literally thousands of words I could spew at this, and have no shame in drawing obvious comparisons to some of my own writing (cough cough Quick to Judge), I am choosing to ground this in not only something that I am very nearly in the future going to experience, but something that a large percentage of people don't seem to understand, yet have not thought about it in the proper context. And so even though this might not have been the most direct point DFW was trying to convey, this is just one way I want to run with it. Excited? Then keep reading.

So for years now, between bringing Rage Against the Machine into my 3rd grade music class to sneaking into my brother's room to listen to a Machine Head CD, I have been somewhat of a metal head. And from my first concert, seeing Fear Factory at the Metro when I was 13 years old, to my most recent concert, seeing Fear Factory at the Metro last Tuesday, I have loved the feelings, passions, motions, movements, and environments that a metal concert brings. And with every genre of music comes its own form of dancing. For heavy metal, this is known as moshing. And for over 11 years, moshing has been a part of my life. It is my firm belief that moshing is one of, if not the single most exhausting activities one can engage in. That's an assinine statement for me to make, considering such things like the ironman competition, but when thought of in a relative manner, meaning that moshing only takes place for 1, maybe 2 minutes at a time for 8, maybe 9 songs in a set, if you extrapolated this activity at a constant rate over the course of, say, an hour, well I just don't think you would find people alive on the other side. Moshing is brutal, seems barbaric, and in many ways is. You walk away sore, tired, bruised, out of breath, sweaty, and possibly seriously injured.

So why in anyone's right mind would you choose to participate in something that is most obviously detrimental and possibly seriously dangerous?

Well there are several reasons. At some point, it's like a badge of courage. 'Did you see that pit for Lamb of God at Ozzfest??? Yeahh, I was there.' It's the way us metal heads express our love and passion for the music. But in relevance to this piece, like DFW tries to convey, it is an unreal event that allows the inividual to lose sight of him or herself as the center of the world and be a part of something bigger, something that embodies an entire genre of music, something that people can show their friends on youtube the next day, and something that the bands feed off of, inspiring more crazy, passionate, ass-kicking music to rattle the crowd with.

In a mosh pit, there are no classes, no races, no ages. The playing field is leveled. Well, besides the differences in size. But, for the sake of the music, all differences are set aside in order to join together in an appreciation of the music and each other, knowing we are all bound together by what has so often cast us out.

So for those moments, banging, clashing, and colliding with each other, we have forgotten ourselves as the center of the world. And it is in this way, we have altered our natural default-setting.

And for those of you that didn't believe me after reading this, my skinny, shirtless, khaki cargo short wearing body is seen skipping through this Hatebreed pit...