Irony

I was driving home from work the other day, and the car in front of me had a slew of conservative-thinking bumper stickers: (the Nobama/anti-abortion/Jesus fish sort of stuff.) One in particular caught my attention, referring to no longer wanting to pay for unnecessary spending anymore.

Then I noticed their muffler was barely staying attached to the car.

In the Spirit of that Marty McFly Guy

Have you ever awoken groggily from your bed, wearily stood up, and the first word you utter of the brand new day is equal to or synonymous with, "fuck"?

I feel that there's a lot of people out there these days that have such thoughts. And at times lately, I would join the cacophony of disillusioned people. The world isn't a terribly friendly place when the chips are down, and the current state of affairs do tend to skewer in that direction. We do have the basic constants for starters: war, terrorism, racism, prejudice, the occasional lone wolf with a shotgun - it can be daunting. Mother Nature is always stirring up trouble of some kind. And lest we not not forget that we also have the global economic system that recently tried to commit seppuku and an around-the-clock media network determined to tell you how scary and bleak the state of the planet is because of it all, well shit, it's no surprise some people would prefer not to get up in the morning.

But it's better than the alternative isn't it?

That's typically how I try to see things.

I mean, trust me, I'm quite adept at playing the glass is near-empty card if I get into a bad mindset. The last year of my life has been nothing if not tumultuous. It's now been just over a year since I lost my mother, and I still quite haven't found the composure or desire to write more about that. It still affects me, and likely will for quite some time. A year ago I was without a job, then I got the one I have currently, and then just recently that same job now has decided to screw me over; the search begins anew. I had to contend with finding a place, the ordeal of actually getting it, and then all the headaches and empty wallet moments that has come with it. I found someone I'm positively crazy about, and yet I've had to endure months of her being on another continent. I constantly feel like there's something I'm missing out on just out of arm's reach. Stress and anxiety have become an issue in my life for the first significant period of time. I still have that notion that I'm missing out on something I should be doing. And so forth.

It doesn't take much effort to bog yourself down with the negatives if they exist - especially if they exist. But that's the rub.

There are two things you really don't want to do in these situations. First, and it sounds silly enough to come out of some new-age self-help book is: to try not to dwell on them. It's easier said than done, again, I know. It can be self-destructive though. How many nights of lost sleep or moments of relative enjoyment have been lost to letting something sit on the forefront of your mind like an invisible vise? Much like Yoda says about the dark side of The Force: thinking about the negatives of your current situation in life is quicker, easier, and more seductive. And frankly, that's why we all do it. We want to take that easier path at times to illicit an escape. Or sympathy. Or provocation. Or maybe just as a means of directing the blame at anything or anyone simply as a way of coping with the woes you've been inflicted with. But also like the dark side, it doesn't make you stronger.

The above paragraph of my personal situation didn't take much effort to compose together. It's a simple "what's unfortunate about my life" thing. It's melodramatic and sullen with a hint of dramatics. Now let me easily spin the same events into what's more realistic:

Yes, my mother passed away, and that is a traumatic and horrible event in any person's life. If something good came out of it, however, it's that it brought my extended and immediate families together in a way I'm not sure would have been possible otherwise, which, ironically, is precisely what my mother was good at, though she was never one for huge gatherings.
Yes, it's cliche as all hell to complain about one's current job predicament, but there should be emphasis on the word "current". With millions of people out of work, it's hard to forget the simple fact of the matter that I still have a job, which is also ironic since it's the very boss I used to complain about all the time who saved my ass from the street to begin with.
Yes, it is overwhelming to buy your own place. But it's mine; it's a product of my hard work and effort and saving over a number of years, culminating in something noteworthy I can call my own. I should feel proud of that. And I do.
Yes, it sucks that Erin is abroad, but the simple fact of the matter is that she is still very much connected to me even if she can't be in the area, something I am grateful for every day. And I know it's only temporary circumstances.
The stress and anxiety? The feeling of always missing out on something? They are more or less something I have to chalk up to my personality. I don't like rapid sudden change to my personal life that I didn't have a hand in. I tend to freak out. And I spent most of my life as an outcast, either by circumstance in the early years or by choice in some of the later ones. The trick is to use these traits to my advantage. For example, I can take the anxiety of having to come into Boston every day as motivation for finding that new job I want. Again , the current situation is temporary. I don't have to like it, but I have to accept it. It works out to some degree too since I'm a horrible procrastinator.

The point of all this is that the statements are what they are. Both depictions of my current lot in life are true. Yet, it's the simple way of looking at it that can discern whether the world is dark and scary, or just a difficult place with challenges to meet.

Which brings me to the other thing you just don't want to do when you feel life wanting to crush your ambitions into dust: do not ignore them. Simple as that. The world isn't all gumdrops and cotton candy, and no matter how much you isolate your mind or your outlook from the rest of the world, it still exists. Bad stuff will happen to good people. You know good people? Bad stuff will happen to the good people you know. Logic dictates that. So, no, I'm not trying to gloss over the ailments of the world around me. I am not blinded to plights, or suffering, or that some really, really unfortunate stuff happens to humans and/or the natural world without recourse or reason. I just try to stay centered on what I affect though.

Moreover, ignoring the predicaments that bring you cause for dread will inevitably lead to one of two failures. Either you put blinders up to what's really going on around you, or you forfeit any ability to take charge in your own life.
The first one garners you nothing. Nothing good has ever happened by ignoring a problem and hoping it will go away. Ultimately, it will be that much worse off when the walls inevitably do come crumbling down around you - and they will. Walls didn't keep the Mongols out. They didn't keep the Nazis out. So why would they keep your daily concerns at bay? That rash, that coworker, that ex? They still exist, whether you want them to or not.
You may temporarily be relieved from the mental strain of whatever current problem is afflicting you, but unless you do something to rectify it, or at the very least accept that you are unable to fix it at that moment in time, those thoughts will come back. And I would argue that they'll probably all come at once too when you least want them to, in those moments of weakness we all have. Because hey, we're all human.
The second one is equally as detrimental. There are some people who are so convinced in fate, so willing to throw aside the steering of their own ship to the wind, that they will leave everything to it. To these people the notion that the universe is one big chaotic mess is too much to bear, and therefore some unseen force must have a hand in it. I can understand that. (Which I suppose is why I tend to like chaos theory: order through disorder.) And while the idea of faith isn't the topic of this piece, I will at least argue that it isn't a bad thing if used correctly. Faith can help people through tough times, whatever it is you believe in - and doesn't necessarily have to be a god or higher power. Regardless - and this is key: always, always reserve a measure of faith in yourself. Be positive in your capacity to make changes in your own life. We can't control everything, true. But you'd damned well be surprised when push comes to shove how much you can.

It's that simple really. Problems will come and go, and more will come to take their place. It sucks, and it isn't fair. There's no hiding that. So don't try to. Even if you can turn the other way on a grand global scale, it becomes that much more real when it's happening directly to you. Whenever you feel at the bottom rung of your own existence, remember that there's always going to be someone worse off than you. That's not meant to make you feel better or guilty, or shameful; merely to put things in perspective. If you ever feel so overwhelmed, deciding that your life is so awful for innumerable reasons, take a second to think if you'd be willing to trade your own circumstances with someone starving in a third-world country; or someone suffering from a degenerative, incurable neurological disease; or someone that just lost everything and everyone they knew to a catastrophic event; or perhaps you being one of those people someone else just lost. Really think about it.

Don't let your issues control you. Put aside what you aren't able fix at the moment. Then focus on what you can for the better, one little thing at a time. If everyone does that, the rest would work itself out. Now go do something about it.

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." - Theodore Roosevelt

The Westgoing Zax

When I was in senior year of high school, I did what all good students looking to get into college do: we researched different schools, compared prices, looked at our own activities, and then wondered if what we have will be enough. We also shelled ourselves to those we wished to write letters of recommendation. And since (generally) we wish to have positive responses, we went to those who were the most likely to give us positive feedback.
I say generally of course because I have been told of a few occasions wherein individuals approached teachers with more neutral to adversarial relationships; the results varied. Think of Snape writing one for Harry Potter. Some refused, and some wrote what amounted to, at best, backhanded praise. Still, if nothing for lack of trying it was those individuals that I was always impressed with the most because they strove to generate a balanced viewpoint of how the academic world saw them. After all, if you could get an adversary to say nice things about you, think about what that says about your character.

Consequently, I was not one of said students.

I had enough enemies in high school and enough of a chip on my shoulder at the time not to want to debase myself by approaching someone who didn't care for my stylings. Ahh, teenage angst. Where would we be without it?

One of my letters was written by one of the few teachers I had in those years that I can honestly say benefited me with a life lesson or two. The utmost important one was demonstrating that there is a definitive difference between morality and ethics, and yet people by and large do not differentiate the two. This, hands down, was the greatest lesson I learned in high school, and shaped my exploration of the world since. I fear it also makes it terribly confusing trying to espouse to people, for example, why I think prostitution should be completely legal, and yet I'd have no interest to utilize their services should that be the case. Or while I completely have no respect for users of pot (or similar alternatives) and find the whole atmosphere around it ragingly stupid, detrimental to the individuals, and antithetical to the advancement of society, I still think it should be legal.

I digress. Sort of. Hang in there.

This teacher even showed me the paper he wrote before sending it off because he only thought it was fair practice to do so. I'm not sure if your teachers did this, but where I went, this was not standard practice. I thought it was also very cool of him. After reading it over, one part stuck out enough that it resonates with me today. I paraphrase, but it said something to the extent of,

"At first glance, Ryan can strike the individual as arrogant with a slight dismissive air around him. I would counter that it is not arrogance that he has, but a form of self-confidence and determination in who he is as a young adult that you do not often see in someone in this age group. He still has much to learn, but it would be a mistake to assume that if decides he is up to a challenge that he won't put himself into it wholeheartedly..."

Something like that. It's been almost 8 years, and I'm sure I messed some of that up. That said, it was easily one of the best summations anyone to that point in my life had attributed to my work ethic. I have report cards as early as kindergarden where the teacher felt it necessary to note my personality indicative of one "ahead in years compared to his classmates." It's not a shocker really. For one, I was groomed by birthright for being the oldest of my father's children (thanks Mom and Dad!), but I also was burdened with a ravenous desire to understand the world. Now don't misunderstand me - there's plenty of things that were quite on par with kids my age (and with things such as girls, even at a quarter century old, I still feel myself actually a few years behind). But couple that advancement with the expedition of my still-developing psyche through the traumatic events of my pre-teen years (thanks again Mom and Dad!), well, it made me hurdle over a lot of the gateway stages in life. I missed out on much of the teenage rebelliousness and general nihilism that everyone goes through. By the time everyone was head-long into it, I bemoaned the fact that I couldn't partake, but also couldn't bring myself a lot of the time to do it.

I don't regret the decisions that I effectively haven't made. Choosing not to is still a choice. Gandhi has a wonderful quote to this when he says, "A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble."
They're still choices made that have affected who I am as an individual. To wish changing them would risk altering who I am as a person. Rather, I try to understand the incongruity that exists in the world on this point. People do things they regret. We accept that. If people choose not to do those things, they respect them for it. It is, however the former that get most of the attention and admiration. Case in point: if a man gets addicted to heroin, goes into rehab, comes out clean, and then goes around telling his story, he is admired for his story. If, however, another man finds the same temptation presented to the first but never does heroin at all, why is he not more admired? Shouldn't he be? He is the stronger one of his convictions and made the 'right' decision. Strange then that he isn't. We as a society prefer the first. We have become a society that prefers the flawed character to the upstanding one. Superman versus Batman if you will. Clearly since both exist superheroes exist and are popular, we didn't always think this way. There was a time when virtue and character were the lifeblood of society; when a person making the more upstanding choices was lauded at, not flouted.
The more modern consensus of social thought is that there is no true "right" decision, no "correct" mannerism of behavior. I concede that no one deserves to return to the rigidity of the pre-1920's world. I still maintain, however, that there are actions that are more worthy than others. I understand that this is completely subjective, so I won't go any further than that.

So, what the hell am I talking about. Where does my personality, decision-making steps, and social observation all converge? A schism in my mind.

Effectively, there are two philosophers that argue in my head. Rationalism, meet Empiricism. They debate the singular question: Is it it better to learn something through studying it or experiencing it ? Is it better, for example, that I run half-naked into a lake in February with friends only to realize it's a bad idea, or just decide not to bother because I've already concluded it is a bad idea? (True story). Reading this, your logic would tell you that you probably wouldn't I bet, but if you were there on the beach with your friends, how many can honestly say you still wouldn't?

As with most things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. My science-loving male-dominating side of my brain argues rational choices, all the time: it's smarter to do Y over X. My abstract-loving, free-spirited side argues empiricism, most of the time: do both X and Y and then choose which you like better. If you can only pick one, pick the one you think you will like more.

I sometimes fear I get typecast into a mold. I like to think myself the Malcolm Reynolds type, but the truth is I'm more a combination of Wash and Simon. I don't like the idea of being typecast or predictable, but when people are genuinely surprised when you swear, let alone do something entirely unexpected, it becomes disconcerting. Is it a culmination of people close enough to you to actually understand you, or you being such a creature of habit that you become repetitive?

I have lived the majority of my life basing my actions on what is more logical thing to do. Or at least, stuff pertaining to school, work, important decisions of life itself. That sort of mundane pragmatic stuff you'd expect of a New Englander. When it comes to matters of the heart though, logic and reason often get a back seat. And I love when I get to set that part free. It feels more... forgotten inner child. Still, I'm ok with this arrangement since both sides at the end of the day usually get to be happy. Usually.

I never claim to have everything figured out. And I've realized in the last couple months that it's hard to control that spontaneous side once I let him out. It's fun but nerve-wracking at the same time. Give me a computer to fix or a problem to solve and I will show you that strong personality and work ethic mentioned over and over and over again my entire life. Ask me to explain that subtler, more intangible side though and it's like navigating rainwater; you never know which direction it can take you. Here's to finding out. It's the rational thing to do.

The Modern Traveling Caravan

I love trucks. I have since the days when I still wore diapers. I spent many days on end playing with my metal Tonka trucks in the sandbox in my backyard. And I'm not talking about pickups. No, real trucks. Construction trucks - earth-moving, size-of-a-house, work-of-a-hundred-men trucks. They fascinate me on a number of levels. First, I love the science of hydraulics. Second, to me it's a marvel of human engineering that we can create machines that are capable of so many endeavors, such as literally scooping out boulders from the ground that haven't been moved since the Ice Age (and with relative ease). That amount of ingenuity is nothing but impressive.
Lastly though, and probably the most esoteric of the lot, is sometimes I like to think of them not in terms of a man controlling a machine, but of an artificial life form itself. Mechanical dinosaurs: powerful, lumbering, not terribly intelligent, and yet still an odd grace to their movements. I recall not but a year or two ago I stood watching a backhoe dig up a tree stump, and I remember fighting the urge as it was working to make roaring noises in an attempt to bring my imaginary metal friend to life.

To that end, I completely failed. So, I named him Herman.

That all said, there is a component to the man-machine dynamic that I do find both fun and endearing in a way I can't really explain. And that is of the modern traveling caravan. A multi-vehicle convoy. The reasons for it don't really matter to me; whether it's a military transport, a large family vacation, the Ice Truckers of Canada, utility men coming in to the region to fix our power lines (as was the case back in December of '08), or today in our nor'easter, I still find it, well, cool.
Caravans have always had logical purpose. The original camel caravans in Africa were necessary for survival. Merchant caravans of the Middle Ages required security from bandits. Frigate convoys protect the carriers. And so forth. The medium is always changing, but the reasons are still fairly fundamental: mutual collaboration and symbiosis.

I espouse this all because the plow trucks are out today, and as much as I chagrin at moments having being caught behind the diagonal row of plows clearing the highways, there's another part of me entirely that just finds it captivating. They're out there doing a job, sure, and getting paid for it too. I get that. This isn't altruism. However, if they weren't doing it, there would be a lot more issues on the roads. And the alternative? Follow the car in front of you to stay in their tracks? That's just another convoy. Six of one, half dozen of the other really I suppose. Still, I'll take the more efficient one. Plus the one that has plows and lights. I might as well get a show if I'm forced out in the weather.

I am perpetually marveled by the grand human condition - civilization, society, the prides and pitfalls of it all as a whole. I also marvel at the individual condition and what the everyday person can accomplish. I think about ideals and often wonder what we as a people could do if we all strive for something together. The modern traveling caravan is a microcosm of that ideal.

Today though, I'm just glad that the roads weren't that terrible. So carry on with the plowing and shoveling and general cleanup I say. I even like that weird machine they have they use on the side of the highways that cleans up the areas around the guard rails.

I couldn't come up with a name though.