Tag: observations

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The oldest thing we had was a tree called the Methuselah tree

Can’t deny feeling my age these days

Me: Should I wear my wedding ring or will you keep the women away from me?
Her: (putting on shoes) Yeah Logan, I’ll swat them away like flies.

The weather’s finally turned from summer to fall so the wife and I went out for a walk. Had to stretch my legs.

Pinus longaeva, Methuselah Walk - Methuselah G...
Methuselah Grove (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Work’s been slow because judges are usually away for the summer, as are most of my clients.

But just this week, several of them called me out of the blue so I assume that we’re back to the grind.

I did want to take advantage of the slow week to hit the gym but my old injuries acted up again. The buddy I train with had some useful insight:

Him: I think I know what the problem is.
Me: Really, what?
Him: You’re seriously old, man. I mean, really, really, really…
Me: (interrupting) That’s just mean, man.

It’s funny, I look in the mirror and I don’t think I look all that different. But I had to take most of last week off from the gym because something. went wonky in my knee.

Suppose there’s no two ways around being 40.

For years, the oldest thing on the planet was a tree called the Methuselah tree; records put it at 4,845 years. But they just found an older tree nearby at 5,062 years old.

Me? I’d like to make it to three digits if at all possible.

It doesn’t actually feel that far off for me any more. After all, the last decade seemed to go by in a heartbeat.

I figure I’ll blink and it’ll be 2073. Wonder if I’ll be able to teleport to California by then.

In any case, there’s a line from the song below that goes, I want to be the best I can. For me, for you, for every man, But I can slip, I lose my place.

But then there’s not much to do but get up and get back up and try again.

After my knee stops aching, that is.

Location: the Duane Reade on 72nd Street and the upper west side
Mood: hopeful
Music: I might ignore, just close the door before you have your fun
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Core belief 4: There’s no such thing as willpower

There’s only varying degrees of what you actually want

Just wrote two large checks to the government. It’s because, those that live in an eat-what-you-kill life here in the US, have to send in what they think are going to be the taxes every three months.

It’s a bit annoying and sometimes stressful because (a) you have to make educated guesses and (b) you have to be ready to write those checks.

Mentioned this to a buddy the other day and he said that I must have a lot of willpower to not spend the money. Likewise, when I mentioned to someone else that I was once super fat, she too remarked that I must have a lot of willpower

So, I figured now was a good time to present another core belief of mine to you: There’s no such thing as willpower.

It doesn’t exist.

What does exist are value judgments as to the relative worth of things.

For example, when I was a fat kid – whether I realized it or not – I was making a choice of choosing the pleasure of chocolate cake over the discomfort of being teased; the pleasure of sitting on a couch watching television versus the discomfort of exercise.

In other words, I was getting something out of being fat that was worth more to me than not being fat.

It was only when I went to junior high school, where there was a pretty girl named Eve, that it flipped. Suddenly, it being fat wasn’t worth the cost to me.

Isn’t it always about a girl?

In any case, had a co-worker of mine, years ago, who just complained about the work he did all the time.

He was offered a promotion and he declined, saying that he was worried no one else could do the job as well as he could. Everyone else thought this was so noble, but I realized that he was getting something out of his current job that was worth more than the higher title, more than the additional income, more than the additional responsibilities.

He liked to complain.

He was getting more out of being able to complain than he would have gotten out of all the other things.

Should note that I never did summon the courage to ask Eve out. Just as well.

There are few people who can actually put up with my idiosyncrasies.

Me: (dropping something) CRASH!
Her: I’m really worried about your ability, as a rational person, to hold onto things.

 

Core belief 3: You are what you decide to be
Core belief 2: You’re not who you could be because of the lies you tell yourself<
Core belief 1: I’ll judge you for what you do but never for what you are

Location: the start of a new week in an old chair
Mood: sore
Music: like a dream, make me feel crazy
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Everyone believes very easily whatever he fears or desires

There’s a difference between real knowledge and junk food knowledge

I find Facebook and other social media to be a really enlightening look into the lives and workings of people I kinda know.

Not a day goes by when I don’t think about a quote from poet Jean De la Fontaine, who said that Everyone believes very easily whatever he fears or desires.

Every morning, I know that there will be a conspiracy theory from at least a dozen people on my list about how the NSA is trying to read my email to my mom, Monsanto secretly controls the world, or we’re all about to die from ______.

There’s also going to be the conservative rant from someone that says that Obama is ready to take all our guns and force us into hospitals next Thursday and the liberal rant that says that if we ignore the world’s problems, the world’s problems will ignore us.

More interesting to me is how often people mistake junk food intelligence for actual intelligence. They mistake some kernel of data for a self-proving fact, knowledge for intelligence.

The issue for me isn’t the spread of seriously questionable “knowledge.” It isn’t the childish simplification of seriously complex situations. It isn’t even the almost pathological willful ignorance.

It’s the fact that these people are bores.

Good god, stop being such a bore. It’s exhausting.

And it’s akin to walking around with spinach in your teeth and refusing to get rid of it. See the video below.

So why do I bother keeping them on? Because the danger is becoming one of them. To exclude opinions not in line with my own because I find them so ridiculous. It’s ignoring the balanced meal for the Happy Meal. After all, convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

Moreover, who am I to say anything?

Me: (putting on shoes) I’m heading up to Harlem.
Her: Why?
Me: It’s the only place with a KFC.
Her: You’re going all the way to Harlem to go to KFC?
Me: (thinking) Yes.

Location: heading to the gym shortly
Mood: enjoying the fall-like temps again
Music: Sometimes I wish I could Calm the storm
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From the Archives: Doing well in school and speaking a foreign language

Two older posts about academia for this holiday weekend


Since it’s the start of a new school year and Labor Day Weekend, I thought I’d take a cue from Jocelyn Eikenburg in Speaking of China and pull out some stuff from the ole archives.

Public Service Announcement
I had a specific way to take notes in college, which I think helped me out greatly. It might help you. This is what I did.

 

How to learn a foreign language as an adult
Learning a foreign language as an adult is different than how you do it as a child. Here’s how I try to do it – with advice my wrassln coach gave me.

Workmen fixing an escalator in a metro station in Washington DC

 

Back to the usual nuthin on Wednesday.

Location: my very clean apartment room
Mood: impatient
Music: Du fric en masse que tu caches dans tes gants
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More than the applause of the multitude

The respect of those you respect is worth more than the applause of the multitude


I write mainly because I have things in my head that I need to put somewhere.

But the reason I write publicly is because of three people: Mrs. Meltzer, Dr. Shapiro, and Stewart O’Nan.

The first two were my grade school and high school English teachers. They thought I was good but considering that my classmates weren’t exactly Hemingway, this was flattering but only so much so.

Stewart O’Nan was my college English teacher and he said I was good also – not great, but good. That meant a little more. But it wasn’t until I saw him on talk shows and read book reviews from him it became a source of pride for me.

Stewart O'Nan Read
Stewart O’Nan (Photo credit: Literary Gal)

I’d tell everyone. Like I’m telling you now.

Perhaps he said it to all his students. I like to think he just said it to me.

This fellow named Arnold Glasow once said that The respect of those you respect is worth more than the applause of the multitude.

Man, isn’t that the truth?

On a related note, my wrasslin coach Rene invented and perfected a move called The Rat Guard. It’s the go-to move in our gym.

And this absolutely brilliant and eccentric coach named Eddie Bravo actually made note of it – and my coach – recently on his podcast. Eddie Bravo’s a guy that changed everything about the game of fighting and mixed-martial arts. In fact, in my coach’s video below, which he did years ago, he specifically mentions him by name.

I’ve won a number of awards in my life and have done many things of which I am proud.

But the throwaway line O’Nan said to me as he hurriedly grabbed his stuff and ran out the door 22 years ago at the close of the year, is perhaps one of my most cherished.

It works in reverse too, doesn’t it?

Everyone may say that you’re the best at this or great at that, but if the one person that you value more than all the others says something unkind, the rest falls on deaf ears.

When parents say something to a child that’s cruel, it cuts the deepest.

That’s when you remind yourself that someone else’s opinion of you is none of your business.

Signal versus noise; it’s always signal versus noise.

Location: back from the gym
Mood: proud
Music: there’s certain things in life you cannot change
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I’d rather have a king or emperor than a Weiner or a Palin

In praise of kings

Town Crier for William and Kate's baby

My brother went to London a little while back and it turned out to be during the Queen’s Jubilee celebration and he wrote the following: Celebrating 60 years of non-merit-based ultra-lavish living by hereditary entitlement.

Now, if you’ve ever met my brother, you know that he’s far smarter than me. But I think that there’s more to royalty than simply that.

When I was a kid, I remember reading once that Alexander Hamilton, and to a lesser degree, John Adams, argued for an American king. Hamilton envisioned that George Washington would be made king for life with the ability to veto all congressional bills.

For those of you that don’t know much about Hamilton beyond him being the dude on the $10 bill the guy that was killed by Burr, he’s a fascinating – rum-drinking – fella.

The current arguments now about states rights (Republican/Jefferson) versus federal rights (Democrat/Hamilton) were essentially started between him and Jefferson and continue to this day.

I’ve always believed as my brother has, which is that non-merit based leadership is wrong. But Hamilton was a brilliant man, so I wondered how he could have stumbled so much on this topic.

Now that I’m older, I see things differently.

You see, Hamilton was a founder of the Society of the Cincinnati, which honored Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus – a man who did not want to lead Rome, but did in one of its darkest hours, and then immediately abdicated after he had done what he needed to do.

Yes, there are centuries of stories about rulers that simply took from the population, but in modern times, are the people that have nothing but naked ambition any better?

Are Anthony Wiener or Sarah Palin any better to rule just because they have over-sized egos and ambition? Are they really any better than two exceptionally educated men that lost their mother in youth and put themselves in harms way like Princes William and Harry?

I’m not advocating a return to a monarchy. But if there’s one thing I know to be true – and that history has shown over and over again – it’s that power corrupts.

And some of the best leadership humanity ever had was had by people like Washington, Cincinnatus, and Gandi; people who never really wanted power in the first place but did it because it was their duty. What was the film The King’s Speech about if not about a man who did not want to lead but had to?

Baby Prince George VII will never lead in the pure sense of the word, but I hope that he “leads” as King George VI did, and as his grandmother Diana did, through service, grace, and a sense of duty.

In fact, King George VI’s wife, when asked why the family didn’t go to Canada during the Axis bombings said, “The children won’t go without me. I won’t leave the King. And the King will never leave.”

I suppose what I’m really saying is that good souls come from all parts. By extension, good leaders.

A friend on Facebook once wrote scathingly of Alice Walton – who essentially gives away much of her fortune – purely because she was born a Walton, as if she had any control over that.

In other words, she detests Alice because of original sin; that she was even born.

I say we judge people on what they’ve done with the life they’re given not on the life their given.

To do otherwise makes about as much as sense as being super proud that one is right-handed.

Location: enjoying the weather finally
Mood: stuffed
Music: My life’s become as vapid as a night out in Los Angeles
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Everyone has their thing

Here’s what I think of the royal baby being born

Town Crier for William and Kate's baby

I don’t like football. Considering that – amongst other things – a professional player gets between 900 to 1,500 blows to the head in a single season it strikes me as the closest modern analogy to gladiator battles.

Of course, I love MMA/UFC matches and I make excuses for it all the time: the amount of blows are different, the ability for someone to defend himself properly is different, the fact that a participant is encouraged to “give up” when in danger add to the safety, etc.

But I realize that, while it makes sense to me, it makes little sense to someone else.

For that reason, while I don’t like football, I wouldn’t go online and bash it just to bash it. Everyone’s got their thing, yeah?

Which brings me to this royal baby business.

My Facebook feed is exploding with people that are just angered by how much coverage it’s receiving. Almost none of them realize how much money this kid is going to inject into the British economy – up to $400 million according to some estimates.

Now, I don’t get it. Not even a little. BUT I don’t begrudge anyone their joy. If someone finds joy in watching grown men hurl themselves at each other while chasing a leather ball or cheering the birth of a singularly lucky (lucky) child, so be it.

Also, I realize that people have their fates tied up to odd things.

Like that dude in the picture above – for all I know, this is his shining moment, the greatest thing he’s ever done: Announce the birth of the next king in a funny hat. I don’t know, nor do I really care that much.

But someone does and that’s all fine and good. I’ll turn the channel just like I do when football is on.

We all have our weird things and we should let others have their weird thing too.

Speaking of weird things, I believe I’m due for some more chili for a midday snack.

Location: off to the gym
Mood: praying for rain
Music: Is there room for one more son
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Picasso and his napkin art

Effortless things take years of effort to accomplish

Female client: This bill is outrageous! Who do you think you are?
Me: I think I’m someone that needs to get paid for the work I do.
Her: For four pages of work?
Me: Let me tell you a story: Picasso was sitting in a cafe one day when someone asked him to draw something on a napkin. He did and asked for $12,000. Like you, the man said that it was outrageous because it only took him a minute, to which Picasso said, “Actually, that took me 40 years.”
Her: So you think you’re Picasso?
Me: No, but I did spend the 15 years learning how to write that four page document you’re holding in your hand. If you could have done it, you would’ve. You came to me, not the other way around. You don’t work for free, why do you expect me to?

It’s a never-ending thing in the service industry: explaining the difference between value and price.

Igor Stravinsky and Pablo Picasso collaborated...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Location: back from the gym
Mood: irritated
Music: my brush would take me there But only If I were a painter
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Jaws or Poetry is in the limitations

Jaws was the world’s first blockbuster because of what it couldn’t do


Me: What about Wednesday?
Her: (looking at calendar) I think I’m free Wednesday night.
Me: Cool, it’s a date. (laughing) This is like when we were first dating.

Planning out a date night with the wife, we discussed what film to see.

Years ago, summer was when Hollywood put out its shlock. Their very best films they brought out in wintertime – the holidays – and the dregs of what they had was reserved for the summer.

That is until Jaws.

famous poster
famous poster (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jaws was such a massive success that it actually created the modern meaning of the word, “blockbuster” as well as the entire summer movie season.

And the reason why it was a blockbuster was because of a mechanical shark named “Bruce” (after his lawyer!)

Bruce was built specifically for the film but the problem was that it was so experimental that it broke down constantly. All these scenes that Spielberg had envisioned in his head, Bruce couldn’t do.

And a pivotal scene was when a girl is attacked by the monster.

So Spielberg decided to not show the the shark/the monster/Bruce at all. Instead, you see the girl being yanked under and dragged about.

If you’ve seen the film, you’re seeing this scene in your head as you read this. I saw the film 25 years ago and still remember it vividly.

Partly because of that scene, and a number of other changes Spielberg made because Bruce was so persnickety, Jaws became that first blockbuster.

Art is in the limitations.

When I wrassle, there are a number of things I can’t do because of my injuries. And there are some things my fencing students can’t do because of injuries or physical limitations. So we find other things to do. Cool things. Artful things.

I’ve reached a point in my life where, when things don’t go my way, I think, OK, what can we do differently here? And more times than not, it’s better.

I suppose it’s a plus of being older. Which is good, because there are a lot of negatives.

Barber: You know, you should wear a hat.
Me: I do in the winter.
Her: Good. Hats make older people like you look distinguished. Plus you can hide your bald spot.

 

Location: looking for air conditioned rooms
Mood: steamy
Music: Well, might as well give it another day
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Why are Poison Dart Frogs posionous in the first place?

We become what we consume

Poison dart frogs are well known for their bri...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The most poisonous thing on the planet is a frog; more specifically, it’s the Golden Poison Frog with enough venom to kill between 10-20 humans or two elephants.

But the interesting thing with the Golden Poison Frog – or any poison frog for that matter – is that they aren’t inherently poisonous. They become poisonous from the specific things they eat; if you took baby frogs and fed them things that didn’t have the poison, they wouldn’t be poisonous.

They become poisonous because of what they consume.

On a related note, I’ve come to realize that I know people that consume a steady diet of outrage, and because of that they’re outraged all the time. Or perhaps it’s reversed and they’re outraged all the time and then consume a steady diet of more outrage.

Still others have a steady diet of stupidity, and they’re stupid all the time. And it goes on.

Young, broken people grow up to be old, broken people and after a while you can tell who’s going to end up which.

And I’m finding out that they’re every bit as poisonous to me as those frogs. So I keep my distance.

After all, a frog in a well knows nothing of the ocean and I like to know of oceans.

Conversely, however, I’m also finding that I have more optimistic, worldly, and ambitious people in my life than I might have otherwise expected. And these people consume those things that make them more optimistic, more worldly, and more ambitious.

These people I don’t keep at a distance.

Finally, I’ve been dreaming of the other side again. Just this past weekend, had a dream I lived in Gibraltar.

I’ll tell you about it someday.

Location: the start of a NYC heat wave
Mood: relaxed
Music: again, and again, I think I will break but I mend
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