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Everybody knows, but no one really believes it

Look for the red things

Me: The thing is, there’s a difference between seeing and noticing. Noticing is when you consciously become aware of something. For example, if I said right now, Look for everything that’s red. You’d see a lot more red things.
Him: (looking around) Great, now all I see are the red things.
Me: (laughing) That’s what happens. You can’t un-notice something you’ve noticed. It’s called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.

Updating this blog a bit late because I’ve been trying to finish up a few assignments for clients.

Been watching the news about the three women they found; obviously it reminds me of the Jaycee Dugard story. Just like with her, compounding the basic horror of it all is also the fact that they were cheated out of those years.

Life is so short as it is.

I blinked and I’m 40.

Spalding Gray once said that Everybody knows they are going to die, but no one really believes it. Late at night, when I can’t sleep, I realize what it means and it keeps me up the rest of the night. Like last night.

Doubt you ever noticed, but for the past few years every time I write about dying, I put up a picture of a clock.

As I get older, I see notice more clocks and think about how short it all is.

And you can’t un-notice something you’ve noticed.

 

Location: in the basement of my brain again
Mood: nostalgic
Music: I don’t mind waiting in line
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The difference between Knowledge and Wisdom

Understanding what it really means/Seeing the grey

10th Avenue in Manhattan, NYC

Worked pretty much this entire weekend. Beat tired.

Life was simpler when you’re young. There was ever only black and white, good and evil, heroes and villains.

As you get older you realize there’s a lot of grey. Unless you never grow up. If you never grow up, then the world remains black and white. You don’t see the grey. Or all of the luck, stupid luck, and stupid involved in life.

If you see the grey, you see that there’s a lot of stupid involved in life.

Have you ever noticed that it’s the least educated, least traveled, least read of the people you know that have conspiracy theories? Because they have no background on which to base a logical conclusion, they make their own out of bits and pieces of trivia and fact.

They can’t discern the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

There’s this example in one of Malcolm Gladwell’s books where a writing teacher says to a buncha students that the election is the next day.

They’re to write about what it means.

And most of the kids write about the democratic process, the history of nation, the candidates, etc. Information, data, knowledge.

But one student understands what this really means. It means: No school tomorrow.

That’s wisdom. Understanding what things mean.

There’re people with the ability to see the grey and everyone else.

Stranger: How do they know they got the right guy? I mean, besides the shootout, the cop they shot, and the pictures, what evidence do they have these guys did anything?
Me: That’s true, besides the shootout, the cop they shot, the pictures – and the chase, the video, the ATM pics, the multiple eye-witnesses – besides those things, I suppose you’re right, they don’t have anything.

Location: in front of more papers
Mood: weary
Music: giving the academy a rain check
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The greatest trick the devil ever pulled

On evil: Nothing is ever anyone’s fault

Incandescent light bulb

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. And like that, poof. He’s gone.
Verbal Kint, The Usual Suspects (film)

The insomnia’s been pretty bad lately. I should just stop wasting your time and my time and just write, “insomnia” and move on.

Insomnia.

Being awake at night, thought about Boston, Newtown, and Aurora and the nature of evil. Something about the dark turns one’s thoughts dark, I suppose.

People wonder if there is evil even actually exists.

I believe it does.

People are always surprised by that. They think I’m naive, but I submit that I think you’re naive if you don’t.

I think some people are evil not because of how they were brought up, or what happened to them. Theyr’e just twisted with no other explanation for it. Not biology, not upbringing, not society.

Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can’t reduce me to a set of influences. You have given up good and evil for behaviorism, Officer Starling. You’ve got everybody in moral dignity pants – nothing is ever anybody’s fault. Look at me, Officer Starling. Can you stand to say I’m evil?
Hannibal Lecter, The Silence of the Lambs (novel)

Put a little less eloquently, some people are just born ______-up.

Don’t believe it when people try and convince you that there’s no such thing as evil. It’s there. And the sad thing is that you don’t need to go far to see it.

As I wrote the above, I got a news alert on my computer that five people were dead in a shooting. This just happened.

Which just makes me wonder if evil is a self-destruct sequence for our kind. Then again, all this is just my opinion. What do you think?

Me: Do you know why I hate things like the Disney films?
Him: No, why?
Me: Because the monsters all look like monsters. But Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Mao – these guys were just normal, plain-looking dudes. No one would have looked at them and thought, “Monster.” But that’s what they were. (later) Thanks for not choking me until I passed out.
Him: (laughing) Anytime, man.

Location: about to run to Chelsea
Mood: pensive
Music: I saw Satan laughing with delight the day the music died
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I’m all for marriage, gay or otherwise

Marriage is not just a piece of paper because we’re not teenagers

Black and white dinner setting

I wrote the below a long time ago to a friend who told me she loved her boyfriend but wouldn’t marry him because marriage was “just a piece of paper.”

———-

Let’s put aside all these teenage ideas of love and romance and talk about this like realistic adults, ok?

This fella named Pericles once said, Just because you do not take an interest in politics, doesn’t mean that politics won’t take an interest in you.

Hold that thought.

Yes, you can live without a piece of paper that says you’re married. But you’re gonna need a lot more papers without that marriage license.

  • Have a bank account together? You’ll need a piece of paper that says you have access to all monies in each of those accounts.
  • Have a car? You’ll need a piece of paper that says you’re allowed to drive it.
  • You live in his house? You’ll need a piece of paper that says you’re allowed to stay in it if something happens to him.
  • He’s in an accident? You’ll need a piece of paper that says you’re allowed to see him.

You see where I’m going with this, yeah?

We’re talking thousands of different documents – and you’ll also need to predict the future.

Can you predict that you two will be on vacation one day, you’ll both be riding motorcycles, a mudslide comes, kills him, and your passports are in your hotel room lockbox that only he knows the combo for and he put the room on his credit card, so you cannot say goodbye to him at all?

That’s an actual case!

So, without that license – that “piece of paper” you so casually dismiss – each time you two do anything together, you’ll need a different piece of paper.

You also need those papers notarized because the mom/dad/brother/former kid will fight you on it. You need to go to court to prove it’s real. This happens constantly.

Google “stieg larsson girlfriend.” Constantly.

I’m working on something where my client has spent $60,000 to disprove a SINGLE signature on a single doc.

Another true example (and why I’m for gay marriage) an insurance company disallowed a man from collecting the $1 million for insurance for his mate for cancer treatment. He went to court and eventually won – but his mate died in that time.

He didn’t have the right to get the legal grace of marriage. You do.

Look, if you don’t want to get married because of the cost, or because you don’t really love him, or whatever, say that. But don’t say it’s because you don’t need a piece of paper that says you two love each other. We’re not teenagers.

Just because you do not take an interest in politics, the government, doesn’t mean that politics the government won’t take an interest in you.

My legal $0.02,

LL

———-

They broke up not that long ago

I wrote once that attraction is not a choice. Integrity forces me to say that it’s not a qualified statement: Attraction is not a choice for straight people only.

As for me, I find marriage comforting. It’s nice to know that someone is on your side.

Life is hard enough without someone on your side. Everyone needs someone on their side.

Me: (to wife) Can you help me with something?
Her: Sure.

Location: getting dressed to see my pop (again)
Mood: hopeful
Music: You’ve got your home of the brave and I’ve got my land of the free
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Goldfish are limited to the size of their bowl

Your surroundings determine your growth

The title of this post is a bit misleading; it’s only partly true that it’s the size of a bowl that limits the size of a goldfish. It’s more accurate to say that:

A goldfish in a small bowl, that’s fed just a little bit, will grow slowly and most likely die as a small goldfish. A lot has to do with the nitrate concentration of the bowl whereby the smaller the bowl, the higher the relative concentration.

But for the sake of not boring you more than I normally do, let’s just say it’s (a) the size of the bowl, (b) the type of fish, and (c) how much crap that fish ingests.

I have an interesting cross section of friends. One group is made up of my college friends, the other is made up of my business/legal friends, the other is made up by my fencing/wrasslin/fighting friends.

If there is a plus with being almost 40, it’s that I can choose exactly what to do with my time, and with whom I spend it. I get to choose my bowl, if you will.

Another thing I do is try to minimize the amount of crap I take in, both literally and figuratively. Literally, I try to eat well and minimize my intake of processed foods whenever possible. Gyros not withstanding. Pureprovender helps me out with this.

Figuratively, try to minimize my intake of crap beliefs whenever possible too. I’m regularly surprised who I find on one end of a spectrum or another.

The hopelessly liberal that believe that every person of wealth is evil (type of fish) and the intransigent conservative that ignores environment (size of bowl).

The feverishly religious is as difficult to stand as the ardently atheist. The list goes on.

I recognize my own prejudices but, because of social media, have to put up all these shrill – unsourced – beliefs.

Luckily, I can block them out but I set up a reminder for myself to check in with them every so often. But it’s ever the same. They’re in their same bowls, ingesting the same nitrogen. A frog in a well knows nothing of the ocean.

It’s disappointing but living your own life is hard enough so I just let be and swim away.

As for me, I seek bigger bowls whenever possible.

Mood: upbeat
Music: I’m just a normal boy that sank when I fell overboard
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If you don’t know history, you don’t know anything

These are two people who don’t know the definition of “Great”

Hitler, I am beginning to feel, is a very great man, like an inspired religious leader…not scheming, not selfish, not greedy for power, but a mystic, a visionary who really wants the best for his country….

— Charles Lindbergh on meeting Adolf Hitler (1936)

He’s a great guy.

— Dennis Rodman on meeting Kim Jong Un (2013)

Idiots.

Imagine for a moment that you remembered everything you ever learned. Ever high school lesson, every cooking recipe, everything. You would probably be the smartest person on earth.

But the opposite is also true; if you don’t learn anything from the past, you may end up the dumbest person on earth.

While we’re all stupid on different subjects, the universally stupid seem to be those people that refuse to learn anything about history. Because history is nuthin if not repetitive.

Michael Crichton once said that, If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.

Unfortunately, if Facebook has taught me anything, it’s that people have zero sense of history. Yet they’re part of a greater collective, a greater tree of stupid.

This worries me.

Then again, I can hardly count myself amongst the truly smart.

Her: Didn’t you just say those chips were making you feel sick?
Me: Yes.
Her: They why are you continuing to eat them?!
Me: (mouthful of chips) I’m not.

———-

My buddy Ji just started a blog too so here’s a little plug for him – Better Pickled.

And while I’m at it, please check out artist Dana Burns, who left NYC to be an artist in France and posts in both English and French! Grenobloise

Mood: busy
Music: He’s so simple minded he can’t drive his module
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People used to say “And the winner is…” not “And the Oscar goes to…”

All men are created equal; we don’t stay that way

Didn’t watch the Oscars last night. Just not my thing. But I did manage to catch the very end of it where they’re singing a song to the “losers.” Found that interesting.

Because, I don’t know if you noticed, but they never say: And the winner is… like they used to; now they only say: And the Oscar goes to… .

The reason is obvious, they don’t want anyone’s feelings to get hurt. But that doesn’t change the fact that there are, indeed, winners and losers in life.

Which brings me to a friend of mine. Like most people, he only knows part of a saying and not the whole thing: It’s not just that “Curiosity killed the cat,” the saying finishes: “Satisfaction brought him back.”

That means the saying is exactly the opposite of what most people think it is.

It’s only after the cat’s curiosity is satisfied that he’s made whole again. Without satisfaction, curiosity was killing him.

As for my friend. He thinks the saying is, Everyone is equal. That is not the saying. People are decidedly not equal.

99.99% of the course of your life depends on the parents to whom you are born.

All men/people are created equal, but time, tide, and effort means that no one stays that way.

I have been wrasslin for over a decade now, on and off. I’m terrible.

However, I’m a pretty good fencer. Certainly not the best, but definitely not the worst. And the reasons for the two are the same: time, tide, and effort.

Put in much more time at being a good fencer than I did at being a good wrestler and my injuries mean that I can still fence but not wrassle.

Getting back to my friend, he’s also my fencing student but refuses to show me the proper respect as his instructor. That’s forgivable to an extent because he’s my friend.

But the moment he even hinted at disrespect for my instructor, I had to ask him to stop coming.

He had an easy out: apologize, pay a fine, and we could all move on with our lives.

And yet, he refused.

He only knows me as his drinking buddy Logan, his equal. And when we drink, we are. But put a weapon in my hand and I’m far and away not his equal.

And the reason is simple: I earned it, I worked for it.

The problem is the same with the Oscars, with the the soccer trophies everyone wins for just showing up, and him.

They confuse equality to equality of effort. They are not the same.

The other issue is that the other students have been part of other schools, and teams with coaches. They understand that they submit to the will of the instructor for two reasons: (a) safety and (b) to get better.

He does not understand this. At some point, one earns the right to be treated as an equal but he has not – not yet in this arena at least. I’m disappointed in both him and the situation.

To excel in something, one must bend. The winners in life are not the ones that futility fight everything but the ones that bend, learn, and come back for more.

If I had to rename this blog from On (or close to) Schedule, it would be to: If you can be anything, be bendy. I’ve said it a million times to him and everyone else.

We face a choice daily to be broken or be bendy; those that consistently choose the latter are the ones that survive and excel.

The door is always open for him, if he’s willing to pay the price of admission.

And a major part of the price is to shut up and learn from someone that did just that.

Mood: disappointed
Music: I won’t be coming this way again. Burn them bridges down
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Hedy: King of two, Jack of four

Hedy Lamarr is one of my heroes; she should be yours too

Heady Lamarr - not my copyright, obviously

Met up with this nice fella who congratulated me on some of the work in one of my professions.

Him: At some point, you’ll have to pick one. You can’t be a Jack-of-all-Trades.
Me: I’m not, I’m King of two, Jack of four.

Hedy Lamarr was this major actress back in the day. If you said her name round the 30s/40s, everyone knew her like we know Angelina.

She was also a major spy for the allies against the Nazis, which is pretty cool.

But that’s not even the coolest thing about her. The coolest thing about her is that she changed my life; and yours. In fact, she changed the world.

She came up with the underpinning of Wifi and secure cellular/mobile calls.

In other words, I couldn’t write this sitting in bed if not for this actress.

  • The fellas I fence with probably only know me as the best fencer in the class.
  • The fellas I wrestle with probably only know me as the worst wrestler in the class.
  • My clients probably only know me as a tech lawyer.
  • My other clients know me as the guy with that fancy new designation.
  • You folks probably only know me as a NYC insomniac with an incredibly nerdtastic blog.

Funny thing’s that I’m none of these things in my head.

People always wanna peg you as one thing or another; makes it easier for them to know how to treat you. And when y’re young, you don’t know what you are yet so you try on different things as you figure it out – the bow-tie wearing conservative, the flower-power girl, etc. That’s fine when you’re a kid.

But at some point you gotta be something more than a cliche.

Be anything you wanna be; but I hope you aspire to be more than a cliche. Hope you aspire to have more than a big screen TV.

May be a dork, yeah, but I’m the only dork of my kind.

Location: no place special
Mood: conflicted
Music: my tears don’t show, but oh honey, they flow

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Make it alright

We only realize too late

The unlucky are nothing more than a frame of reference for the lucky, Mr. Fisher. You are unlucky so I may know that I am not. Unfortunately, the lucky never realize they are lucky until it’s too late. Take yourself for instance. Yesterday you were better off than you are today, but it took today for you to realize it. But… today has arrived, and it’s too late, you see?

Lucky Number Slevin

So, another kid – a girl – killed herself because of cyberbullying.

Do you know about Lori Drew, the 47-woman that convinced this 13 year old girl to hang herself? She got off cause the laws never thought that a bored housewife’d torment a kid to death just for kicks over wire.

Always wondered what kinda douchebag you gotta be to torment someone just cause you wanna and then hide behind a computer screen or cell phone.

It’s a bitter thing to read cause I’ve lived almost three times longer than her and still feel like I’m a kid.

Wish you waited. Cause you grow up and wonder why people you barely remember ever affected you so much. Then they find you on some social-networking site and you think, “Man, they look terrible!” and start to believe in karma but then change your mind.

Maybe that’s just me.

Honestly wonder what people like Lori Drew tell themselves to make it alright for them to sleep at night.

I’d like to know, because, man, I could use the rest.

———-

On a positive tech note, pretty jazzed that as many people gave as much as they did to Haiti via text – something like $30 million in just a few weeks.

Didja know that Americans gave $1.8 billion to the Asian tsuanmi? I say the measure of a society’s humanity’s how they take carea those not as lucky.

Yet another reason I love this joint.

Location: a light green couch
Mood: wired
Music: Same birds that followed me to school When I was young (Spotify)

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Bully/I remember you

Me 25 years ago

Was recently mocked for being a 36 year-old man that carries the baggage of his 17 year-old self. Probably true.

Heard on the news that the woman that Roman Polanski raped when she was a child forgives him. Wonder what the child version of her would’ve thought.

There’s this line in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn that says of kids tormenting other kids, exactly as they themselves were, They learned no compassion from their own anguish. Thus their suffering was wasted.

To paraphrase my friend Somena, the hard part of life’s knowing much of your past to bring with you into your future. Enough so that you’re better for it, not so much that it hollows you out.

Finally realized why I detest Heartgirl’s creepy friend, Shawn.

Cause he’s a minority and, I suspect, probably a geek as a kid. And we minority geeks are bullied in the most spectacular fashion. Emmy award winning. Yet he’s learned nothing from it.

Never did tell you what happened, did I?

Without her knowing, he picked up HG’s phone and randomly dialed numbers to make them think that HG was calling. And when they’d pick up, he’d essentially just laugh at them for thinking a pretty girl would call them.

Recall saying to him, Not sure y’know who I am.

Guessing he didn’t think I’d end up her boyfriend.

He’s awfully brave for someone on the phone. Told him I hoped that he’d get the opportunity to say to my face what he said on the phone. And of course, he’ll say what they all say, I was drunk, I was kidding, blah-blah-blah.

Funny – been hammered enough times, and yet not once did I turn into a lout.

Still, just to refresh his memory – and cause he just happened to move a block from me – he’s said I’m not a man. And he’d show me what a real man’s like. OK, I’m in.

Cause an old bully’s the worst kind; the kind that’s taken none of his torment with him.

Evidently, the socially correct way to deal with this type of situation is to just let it slide. Not mention it again. As luck would have it, never had many friends growing up so I never learned that.

Look, can’t let it slide. Cause I owe that fat kid y’see up there. Call it stupid or insane, but I owe it to him to remember what it was like to be tormented. I owe it to him to remember him.

So yes, Shawn. Show me what a real man’s like.

Without a hint of sarcasm or irony, I’d like to see that.

ME now

Location: a block away
Mood: indignant
Music: Somewhere inside my childhood I missed