Caleb Joshua.
You were born on February 16, 2012.
You are certainly not a supermarket tomato.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Life is a toilet
He'll pee in it. He just won't poo. He's even pooed in it before! Why won't he do it again? Even with promises of a poo poo pizza party, copious chocolate, Monkey Treehouse, and a trip to the toy store, he wants his nasty ole diaper.
Unbeknownst to Levi, I get frustrated with him, but have learned not to push him too hard. Then, just this morning, I said to him, "Hey man, you can do it. And it's much better, you'll see. Much easier. You just need to trust us," but I surrendered to his request for a diaper. I sat down with my coffee and let him go get some "Pwi-cee" (privacy), so I had the rare occasion to be alone with a thought or two. Then it occurred to me.
I'm the little stinker who'd rather sit in his poop than let it go, quite simply and freely, down the pipes.
This can be the technical end of the blog, so that writing purists won't get onto me for insulting their intelligence. So pardon the ensuing commentary... in fact, I'll put some spaces below so you guys won't think of me as the writing amateur that I am.
(is this enough?)
God is always there, giving us that inner voice that we've been taught and socialized to suppress. He knows what's best for us, and can encourage us and lead us directly to the potty, but he's set things up so that we have (at least) the illusion of choice. Like a faithful parent, he will continue to encourage us toward the goal, but like a defiant toddler, we continually choose to separate ourselves from that encouragement. This might be why I'm still wearing a diaper at 31 years old.
Unbeknownst to Levi, I get frustrated with him, but have learned not to push him too hard. Then, just this morning, I said to him, "Hey man, you can do it. And it's much better, you'll see. Much easier. You just need to trust us," but I surrendered to his request for a diaper. I sat down with my coffee and let him go get some "Pwi-cee" (privacy), so I had the rare occasion to be alone with a thought or two. Then it occurred to me.
I'm the little stinker who'd rather sit in his poop than let it go, quite simply and freely, down the pipes.
This can be the technical end of the blog, so that writing purists won't get onto me for insulting their intelligence. So pardon the ensuing commentary... in fact, I'll put some spaces below so you guys won't think of me as the writing amateur that I am.
(is this enough?)
God is always there, giving us that inner voice that we've been taught and socialized to suppress. He knows what's best for us, and can encourage us and lead us directly to the potty, but he's set things up so that we have (at least) the illusion of choice. Like a faithful parent, he will continue to encourage us toward the goal, but like a defiant toddler, we continually choose to separate ourselves from that encouragement. This might be why I'm still wearing a diaper at 31 years old.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Simplicity and the beach, or the mountains perhaps?
I've lived in Nashville off-and-on since I was born. The "off" parts had to do with education, and the "on" parts largely had to do with my family here and with the prospects of a job in Bellevue at Dixon Center.
My first career endeavor didn't work out, and the family part is an issue concentrated deep within my heart that really only my wife fully understands. That's a subject for a future blog entry... or maybe not. :-)
I've been ruminating for some time on whether Nashville is the place for us permanently. It seems like job prospects have run thin, and the idea of starting a new biz in Nashville, or buying a practice, simply all sounds "blah," most likely for the reasons contained within the tomato blog. Nearly every healthcare business I've come into contact with here has fallen into a trap of ever-increasing overhead and pressure, and a resultant ever-increasing atmosphere of a demand of intensity and stress that, in some cases, has lead to money; and in a few others, lead to debt. There have been one or two that have not fallen to such a fate, and I find it amusing that these couple of business owners made sure to put God first, family second, and the business, well, like fifth or sixth. And those couple of businesses were financially successful, but, distinguished from some of the others, the ultimate harvested fruit was happiness.
As for our house, we're isolated in Pasquo, which is near Bellevue, a has-been suburb of Nashville. It takes 15 minutes to get on the interstate from our house, and 25 to get anywhere fun to eat (one of our favorite things to do) or really to do anything out of the ordinary walk in the park. On the positive side, my parents live about 7 miles down the road and have a nice farm that I grew up on, with lots of land when we feel smothered. Willow can run free there without worrying about meeting a Park Ranger who'd give us a ticket for letting her off leash, or worrying about her biting the head off some yippy dog with a Napoleon complex. Plus, my brother and his family live 25 minutes away. It would surely be tough to give up the convenience of the farm, and the wonderful close-by support of my family.
But then I start thinking...
Colorado has always had that "zing" in my heart, in winter and in summer. It's a pull that's always there, like gravity, that's like a compass with its arrow hopelessly seduced by the Rockies. The mountains... ahh, allow me to pause for a moment... to be able to revisit my whitewater kayaking days... the canyons, the rivers, the meadows, the hiking, the camping... the air... the laid-back people... that feeling that makes you want to stretch, or take off sprinting through some huge field in a valley at the foot of a snowcapped range. Snowball fights in July. The whole gig.
And Florida... the sun, the waves (East coast), the beaches. That gritty feeling in your mouth that makes you wonder how sand got in there, or when you see sand in your car and see it as a friend, not a mess. That's what's got my attention of late.
I dream of living in a smaller sandy house, probably a block or two from the beach, with a downstairs concreted area that triples as ping-pong room, theater room, and hurricane shelter area (and maybe quadruple as kid nap room). Much like the one mama Ruth has rented for us twice-- once for Thanksgiving and once for Christmas-- in the New Smyrna area, right smack dab on the beach. Yeah.
And then comes the idea of a 3-day-per-week chiropractic practice, at maximum, and a good shortboard/longboard combo, with a bicycle and a board attachment on it for easy transport to the beach. And a friend or two on-call for whenever the waves are just right.
For a slam dunk, there'd be a decent public school area for the kids, and maybe a bigger town or city nearby when we feel crazy, and to provide perspective about how awesome our simple life is, when we start to get used to it.
Forget complexity and intensity and blood pressure and stress and cardiovascular disease and absence from family participation, all for the sake of a few extra dollars to waste on family/marital/health problems that have all arisen from all the complexity and intensity and blood pressure and stress and cardiovascular disease and absence from family participation. I choose a relaxed life of family, fun, friends, and time to spend on enjoying the world we're so privileged to interact with.
We have been blessed with day after day of being a human, the animal with the most extensive ability to feel and appreciate our experience, whether for better or worse. And like it or not, we are, by-and-large, responsible for whether the outcome is better or worse, unless astronomical amounts of suffering have unfortunately entered our lives (for which I believe God will atone).
I often think of how infinitesimal the chance of becoming human must have been. Really, think: how many other living beings are there on Earth (including bacteria)?! A gazookaschmillion? Billions and billions and billions... thousands and thousands or millions of billions... How wonderful that, by God's grace, our consciousness happens to be that of a human who has all his or her needs provided for? Imagine a gargantuan die, with a gazookaschmillion sides on it, and only .000000000000001% of the die is devoted to being human. It is rolled, and only if it lands on a "human" tile, then we are blessed with human consciousness. If not, you have the thoughts of a bug. If you're lucky. Would you take that chance? The truth is that you did.
Why allow our complex brain cortex to be wired such that the reward neurotransmitters are released only when we see our paycheck? Almost every single one of us can be rich, right now.
Louis Armstrong said it so well:
__________________________
My first career endeavor didn't work out, and the family part is an issue concentrated deep within my heart that really only my wife fully understands. That's a subject for a future blog entry... or maybe not. :-)
I've been ruminating for some time on whether Nashville is the place for us permanently. It seems like job prospects have run thin, and the idea of starting a new biz in Nashville, or buying a practice, simply all sounds "blah," most likely for the reasons contained within the tomato blog. Nearly every healthcare business I've come into contact with here has fallen into a trap of ever-increasing overhead and pressure, and a resultant ever-increasing atmosphere of a demand of intensity and stress that, in some cases, has lead to money; and in a few others, lead to debt. There have been one or two that have not fallen to such a fate, and I find it amusing that these couple of business owners made sure to put God first, family second, and the business, well, like fifth or sixth. And those couple of businesses were financially successful, but, distinguished from some of the others, the ultimate harvested fruit was happiness.
As for our house, we're isolated in Pasquo, which is near Bellevue, a has-been suburb of Nashville. It takes 15 minutes to get on the interstate from our house, and 25 to get anywhere fun to eat (one of our favorite things to do) or really to do anything out of the ordinary walk in the park. On the positive side, my parents live about 7 miles down the road and have a nice farm that I grew up on, with lots of land when we feel smothered. Willow can run free there without worrying about meeting a Park Ranger who'd give us a ticket for letting her off leash, or worrying about her biting the head off some yippy dog with a Napoleon complex. Plus, my brother and his family live 25 minutes away. It would surely be tough to give up the convenience of the farm, and the wonderful close-by support of my family.
But then I start thinking...
Colorado has always had that "zing" in my heart, in winter and in summer. It's a pull that's always there, like gravity, that's like a compass with its arrow hopelessly seduced by the Rockies. The mountains... ahh, allow me to pause for a moment... to be able to revisit my whitewater kayaking days... the canyons, the rivers, the meadows, the hiking, the camping... the air... the laid-back people... that feeling that makes you want to stretch, or take off sprinting through some huge field in a valley at the foot of a snowcapped range. Snowball fights in July. The whole gig.
And Florida... the sun, the waves (East coast), the beaches. That gritty feeling in your mouth that makes you wonder how sand got in there, or when you see sand in your car and see it as a friend, not a mess. That's what's got my attention of late.
I dream of living in a smaller sandy house, probably a block or two from the beach, with a downstairs concreted area that triples as ping-pong room, theater room, and hurricane shelter area (and maybe quadruple as kid nap room). Much like the one mama Ruth has rented for us twice-- once for Thanksgiving and once for Christmas-- in the New Smyrna area, right smack dab on the beach. Yeah.
And then comes the idea of a 3-day-per-week chiropractic practice, at maximum, and a good shortboard/longboard combo, with a bicycle and a board attachment on it for easy transport to the beach. And a friend or two on-call for whenever the waves are just right.
For a slam dunk, there'd be a decent public school area for the kids, and maybe a bigger town or city nearby when we feel crazy, and to provide perspective about how awesome our simple life is, when we start to get used to it.
Forget complexity and intensity and blood pressure and stress and cardiovascular disease and absence from family participation, all for the sake of a few extra dollars to waste on family/marital/health problems that have all arisen from all the complexity and intensity and blood pressure and stress and cardiovascular disease and absence from family participation. I choose a relaxed life of family, fun, friends, and time to spend on enjoying the world we're so privileged to interact with.
We have been blessed with day after day of being a human, the animal with the most extensive ability to feel and appreciate our experience, whether for better or worse. And like it or not, we are, by-and-large, responsible for whether the outcome is better or worse, unless astronomical amounts of suffering have unfortunately entered our lives (for which I believe God will atone).
I often think of how infinitesimal the chance of becoming human must have been. Really, think: how many other living beings are there on Earth (including bacteria)?! A gazookaschmillion? Billions and billions and billions... thousands and thousands or millions of billions... How wonderful that, by God's grace, our consciousness happens to be that of a human who has all his or her needs provided for? Imagine a gargantuan die, with a gazookaschmillion sides on it, and only .000000000000001% of the die is devoted to being human. It is rolled, and only if it lands on a "human" tile, then we are blessed with human consciousness. If not, you have the thoughts of a bug. If you're lucky. Would you take that chance? The truth is that you did.
Why allow our complex brain cortex to be wired such that the reward neurotransmitters are released only when we see our paycheck? Almost every single one of us can be rich, right now.
Louis Armstrong said it so well:
__________________________
"Grab your coat and get your hat
Leave your worries on the
doorstep
Life can be so sweet
On the sunny side of the
street
Can't you hear the pitter-pat
And that happy tune is your
step
Life can be complete
On the sunny side of the street
Can't you hear the pitter-pat
And
that happy tune is your step
Life can be complete
On the sunny side
of the street
If I never had a cent
I'd be rich as rockefeller
Gold dust
at my feet
On the sunny side of the street"
__________________________
And to top it off, even more pertinent, from the same, the legend Louis:
__________________________
"Sittin' in the sun, countin' my money
Fanned
by a summer breeze
Sweeter than the honey is countin' my money
Those greenbacks
on the trees
Comes a summer shower, drops o' rain falling
Sweeter than
Christmas chimes
Hearing those jingles upon the roof shingles
Like pennies,
nickels and dimes
Tho' it's known that what I own is not a large amount
Fields
of gold that I behold are in my bank account
Yeah, sittin' in the sun,
countin' my money
Happy as I can be
And to top it all
When shadows fall
I look
to heaven and I see
There's a silver dollar in the sky
Shining down on me"
__________________________
Nuff said. Hello, riches. Hello, life.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
The American Dream
The American Dream. Take a moment or two to think of these words. What comes to mind?
The pursuit of happiness, perhaps? What does this mean?
Most will say following that inspiration that lies deep within every single heart. It means defying the odds. Believing in yourself. Contributing to humanity. Making a mark.
My experience though? It's less about making a mark, and more about making money. Of course, I've only experienced America. And in America, if a person can reach that platform of power, they've conquered the American Dream. If that truly makes you happy, then by all means, go for it!
Hopefully I can still see you up there on that platform from the hammock I'm kicking back in, in the shade of an evergreen tree in the Rockies or a palm tree in the Caribbean, smoking my Cuban when I'm that old fart, and sipping on the best margarita I've formulated yet. If I can't see you, maybe I can afford some cheap binoculars to keep in touch. If you're still out of sight, I might put the binoculars down and work on my next book, write you a letter, or help some folks live and feel better. Or I'll just take a nap with my lovely wife of 30+ years. But I can tell you one thing. I'll be happy.
:-)
Thursday, July 26, 2012
A tomato changed my life
"I used to not like tomatoes, but I made myself eat 'em, now I like 'em."
One of the first conversations that I've had with my sister-in-law's boyfriend John was the product of an awkward effort to fill the air with anything other than the sound of forks and knives on plates at Dixie Crossroads in Florida. I like to speak for myself, preferring to refrain from making any judgment about people's personalities, abilities, intentions, or beliefs, but I can say with at least 50% certainty (100% if you remove the other party) that both John and I hardly meet the criteria for an aptitude of social graces. In fact, I've come to concede that the specific amino acid chain that codes for that gene is painfully absent in my DNA, or that I've failed in my heretofore lifelong quest to homeschool myself in the art.
"Yes. I wish I did. They're so healthy. It's weird because I like a lot of tomato products: marinara, ketchup, pico de gallo, restaurant salsa ... not the thick-and-chunky kind-- have you ever noticed that every single salsa offered at grocery stores are thick-and-chunky? You know, down the aisles?"
"Yeah."
Forks and knives.
Any human might label this conversation as a quintessential model of insignificant smalltalk, assuming that I could force a human to humor me long enough to label it at all, but I didn't foresee until quite recently that this conversation would begin a sequence of events leading to a complete transformation from my submission to a bland, ball-and-chain existence of "should-do" into a mysterious, slightly frightening, yet irreversible inclination toward "want-to-do."
When reflecting on our memories of events past, we tend to place emphasis, possibly undue, on the memories that come readily to mind. I'm certain, however, that this particular exchange sparked an endeavor to "like" tomatoes, and a quest whose consequences, I hope, will not completely wreck my life.
Foolishly, I visited my local grocery store. I've bought so many good-looking tomatoes that I could have had another boring-yet-reasonable bond yielding 5% interest in their place, and afforded perhaps a few Cubans in my later years when I decide I'm enough of an old fart to enjoy tobacco and not worry about the health risks, or perhaps even welcome them; but instead, I've bit into oodles of vapid vessels of acidic goop while unsuccessfully attempting to rewire my cortex to judge the slimy experience as gratifying.
Then one day, my addiction to NPR became... fruitful, if you'll excuse the pun. They had a special (I can't help it; I call programs specials) about a guy who spent a year or so tasting tomatoes, and his disdain for supermarket tomatoes pulled the chain on the lightbulb over my head that's been disconnected since majoring in philosophy in college. For the first time, I was grateful for my otherwise-dreaded hour-long commute to a job in a demanding, sometimes inglorious career field that I had thought was God-ordained. I listened to this guy spout off about how these tomatoes are so cheap to grow, and have such ridiculous shelf life, that they have lost their poor tomato souls and have become a fake, mummified, tasteless version of what was once a staple of life experience. We've given up so much, just so that corporations, and a small percent of the already rich, can make a few more bucks.
I went to a local fruit stand in Lebanon and asked for their best tomato. It happened to be an heirloom tomato, completely asymmetrical in shape and color, and my brainwashed state refused to allow its appearance to stimulate any sense of palatability. It was over a dollar more than the last one I'd bought, but desperation and curiosity prevailed. I shrugged, took a bite, and lost myself...
A carrot clearly tastes like a carrot. A strawberry, a strawberry. But a tomato: it's impossible to "name that flavor" without writing a book. I'd been missing out on what makes life interesting: variety, new experiences, following passions, not worrying about the money. The true pursuit of happiness.
One of the first conversations that I've had with my sister-in-law's boyfriend John was the product of an awkward effort to fill the air with anything other than the sound of forks and knives on plates at Dixie Crossroads in Florida. I like to speak for myself, preferring to refrain from making any judgment about people's personalities, abilities, intentions, or beliefs, but I can say with at least 50% certainty (100% if you remove the other party) that both John and I hardly meet the criteria for an aptitude of social graces. In fact, I've come to concede that the specific amino acid chain that codes for that gene is painfully absent in my DNA, or that I've failed in my heretofore lifelong quest to homeschool myself in the art.
"Yes. I wish I did. They're so healthy. It's weird because I like a lot of tomato products: marinara, ketchup, pico de gallo, restaurant salsa ... not the thick-and-chunky kind-- have you ever noticed that every single salsa offered at grocery stores are thick-and-chunky? You know, down the aisles?"
"Yeah."
Forks and knives.
Any human might label this conversation as a quintessential model of insignificant smalltalk, assuming that I could force a human to humor me long enough to label it at all, but I didn't foresee until quite recently that this conversation would begin a sequence of events leading to a complete transformation from my submission to a bland, ball-and-chain existence of "should-do" into a mysterious, slightly frightening, yet irreversible inclination toward "want-to-do."
When reflecting on our memories of events past, we tend to place emphasis, possibly undue, on the memories that come readily to mind. I'm certain, however, that this particular exchange sparked an endeavor to "like" tomatoes, and a quest whose consequences, I hope, will not completely wreck my life.
Foolishly, I visited my local grocery store. I've bought so many good-looking tomatoes that I could have had another boring-yet-reasonable bond yielding 5% interest in their place, and afforded perhaps a few Cubans in my later years when I decide I'm enough of an old fart to enjoy tobacco and not worry about the health risks, or perhaps even welcome them; but instead, I've bit into oodles of vapid vessels of acidic goop while unsuccessfully attempting to rewire my cortex to judge the slimy experience as gratifying.
Then one day, my addiction to NPR became... fruitful, if you'll excuse the pun. They had a special (I can't help it; I call programs specials) about a guy who spent a year or so tasting tomatoes, and his disdain for supermarket tomatoes pulled the chain on the lightbulb over my head that's been disconnected since majoring in philosophy in college. For the first time, I was grateful for my otherwise-dreaded hour-long commute to a job in a demanding, sometimes inglorious career field that I had thought was God-ordained. I listened to this guy spout off about how these tomatoes are so cheap to grow, and have such ridiculous shelf life, that they have lost their poor tomato souls and have become a fake, mummified, tasteless version of what was once a staple of life experience. We've given up so much, just so that corporations, and a small percent of the already rich, can make a few more bucks.
I went to a local fruit stand in Lebanon and asked for their best tomato. It happened to be an heirloom tomato, completely asymmetrical in shape and color, and my brainwashed state refused to allow its appearance to stimulate any sense of palatability. It was over a dollar more than the last one I'd bought, but desperation and curiosity prevailed. I shrugged, took a bite, and lost myself...
A carrot clearly tastes like a carrot. A strawberry, a strawberry. But a tomato: it's impossible to "name that flavor" without writing a book. I'd been missing out on what makes life interesting: variety, new experiences, following passions, not worrying about the money. The true pursuit of happiness.
Monday, July 23, 2012
This is a test blog.
I'm soon going to write about my newfound love of tomatoes and its organic ability to sum up my life as it now stands.
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