Love, the Stupid & Crazy Kind

I went to see "Crazy Stupid Love" this weekend.  Yes, I know, most guys born during the "Mad Men" decade would sooner drive their cars off a cliff than admit to watching a chick flick.  But we would be jumping to conclusions.  First of all, the movie was more of a comedy than a chick flick.  And second of all, I lost my man card a long time ago anyway.  Literally.  I tend to misplace things, or so I've been told by the people who find them.  I once misplaced the entire city of Florence, much to the surprise of the ticket inspector aboard the train.  It was a good thing that my faithful traveling companion was a good sport, as she followed me on my Chinese fire drill around Italian train stations from one end of the country to the other.  Ah yes, pazzo stupido amore indeed...

But back to the movie.  The story actually reminded me of what happened to me three years ago, when I found myself home alone for the first time in twenty years.  Just like Steve Carell’s character in the movie, I hit a neighborhood bar to drown myself in something that could knock out a small hippo.  Except, in my case, I did not run into Ryan Gosling, and therefore I did not have an instant wingman to introduce me to a bevy of beauties.  Nooo, that only happens in Hollywood movies.

So after downing a couple of shots of tequila, I finally looked around to see where I was.  What I saw was straight out of the “Twelve Days of Christmas”:  6 geezers drinking, 5 golden girls, 4 jail birds, 3 french fries, 2 turtle necks, and… well, me.  But, as fate would have it, there was something “different” in store for me.  Yes, maybe it was Christmas in July after all… 

I'll spare you the details on what happened next, though I will say it involved a cute 25 year blonde, who was celebrating her birthday with what surely seemed like a shot of tequila for every year of her life.   So at one point blondie and I went outside to get some fresh air.  Just a few minutes into our outdoor break, blondie turns to me and informs that she has to pee.  So I tell her, not sure why, "Okie-dokie.  I'll wait right here."  Great line there, Steve Carell.  But before I could even kick myself for my  line, blondie begins to take the much announced pee within two feet of me.   Of course all I could think to say was, "So… I wait right here then??"

Love is crazy. And Stupid. But it's the only love we've got. Figure it out.

Independence Day

I have been noticing for a few years now that national holidays tend to bring out the best in people - and sometimes the worst.  July 4^th seems to be no exception.  And I think it leaves us all scratching our heads, wondering how that’s possible.  After all, there are really not that many significant holidays throughout the year, and they all tend to focus mostly on the positive: celebrating our nation’s birthday, celebrating the lives of those who do the real work and those that fight for freedom, giving thanks, and celebrating a handful of religious events.

Now it seems to me that all of those holidays have one thing in common: the countless of references to a handful of powerful abstracts, such as Freedom, Peace, Respect, and Love.   That’s all well and good, except that no two people I know can agree on the definition of much more mundane words, like, say, “Burrito” or “ Hanging Chad”.   So how are we supposed to unanimously agree on concepts that are a thousand times more complex?

Maybe if we found a more balanced middle ground we would stand a fighting chance to finally and truly grasp these few but significant annual milestones.  I mean, surely the answer lies somewhere between Love and a Burrito.  Between Freedom and a Hanging Chad (OK I admit there’s a little irony in that last random comparison, but I swear it was unintentional.)

Let’s take Memorial Day and Independence Day for a moment, appropriately so on this sunny July 4^th (if it’s not sunny where you are, just use your imagination.)  Every year, on these two days, you can hear the same two awkward extremes from a very loud yet thankfully small minority of people: on the one hand you hear one of these extremes proclaiming that this is the time when we celebrate our freedom as the free-est freedom fighters in the history of freedom.  And then there’s the other extreme, people that are angry about the senseless killing that takes place during unnecessary wars.

So on this beautiful July 4^th, I would like to proclaim independence from both of these groups.  These two very vocal minorities are clearly missing a point that, thankfully, the silent majority seems to grasp rather well: if you are not truly independent, a part of you is already dead.  This unalienable right knows no borders, it is a universal truth.  America did not invent this concept, but it sure did improve on it.

Happy birthday America.  The world is a better place, thanks in great part to you.  And you are also a better place, thanks in great part to the world.

Party Time

I'm a Republican.  Yes, I know: a lot of my views seem too "worldly", or worse, dare I use the "e" word... too euro-friendly.   To be fair, I did live in Europe many years, and in recent years I've been traveling there for work.  So it should not come as a surprise that I'm impressed with a lot of Europe's accomplishments over the centuries.

But enough about those eccentric Europeans.   If I had to point to that one thing that drives the fundamental genius of the United States, I would say it is the two-party system.  In a planet that had only known a my-way-or-the-highway party system for thousands of years, the two-party system has to be that paradigm shift that evolution was looking for.  Nice try Italy, by the way, for trying to come up with a 16-party system.  I love my home away from home, but seriously.  On the other extreme, you have to love Yacov Smirnoff’s famous quote: “America, what a country!  In America you can always find a party.  In Russia, party always finds you!”

But back to my Republican ways.  My opening statement will certainly come as a surprise to my close friends, who have often heard me describe myself as an Independent when it comes to politics.  I can almost hear them exclaim: huh?

My reply is simple: did you really understand what I meant when I said I was an Independent?  When somebody proclaims to be an Independent, there’s a lot of eyeball rolling and “go away” arm gesturing in disappointment.  Apparently all that is heard is “I’m not going to tell you how I really feel, but you can file me under ‘waffler’”.  Or just as bad, they’ll simply “file” you under the other guys’ party.  Not that I’m willing to cater to the over-simplistic knee-jerk reactions, but I thought I would try something different: every time I talk about my political views, I will do so in context to what I feel is important at that precise moment.

But let me be even more precise:  I don’t believe that the drama of single-party convictions is what we need to continue to be a world leader.  I understand that to be a true two-party system some people actually have to have some type of single-party convictions.  And that may very well hold true indefinitely, IF we were talking about the same handful of values that were important 200 years ago.  Sure, most of them still apply today in one way or another, but some don’t.  Slavery comes to mind.  Women’s roles is another one.  And then there’s the newer realities that didn’t apply then at all (the environment, space exploration, abortion, health care, to name a few).    Well, this may come as a shocker to most of my bleeding-heart conservative AND liberal friends (you know I love you ALL :) but: we are not living in the world of 200 years ago.  And when it comes to values, I’m sorry, but one size does not fit all.

So I will borrow from the “Serenity Prayer” to make my final point here: “God grant me the serenity 
to accept the things that are best handled by Republicans; 
the courage to let Democrats change the things they can;
 and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Dad

I remember when I first met my dad.  I think I was  five or six. I remember acting a little like Nikolai, my Scooby Doo-like Husky, when there’s a strange man in the house.  What makes it even more noteworthy is the fact that I was almost 3,000 miles from where I was born, in a strange country where people spoke funny.  It turns out of course that it was I who spoke funny.  And thus begun the story of my life.

It’s not that my dad was “absent” in the bad sense of the term.  It was just a classic case of a dad who didn’t have a lot of interaction with his own dad, and so on all the way back to the first Homo Sapiens.  Yet my dad spoke highly of his own father:  it turns out I come from a traceable line of hard-working dads who, emotionally speaking only, put work ahead of family.  My dad was the first one to go to college in his family, and he certainly challenged the old saying that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  About 7,000 miles in his case.

Since I grew up feeling that my dad was emotionally distant, we got off to a fairly cold start.  Nothing dramatic, but it wasn’t Leave it To Beaver either.  Regardless of where my relationship with him fell in the big picture, I chose early on in life to do what every confused teenager does best: blame a parent.

Yes, I had children of my own soon enough, which is when I automatically entered the I will do better than my parents stage.  That’s all well and good, but I realized soon enough that trying to beat your parents at parenting is a sure way to set yourself up for a shallow victory. Never put yourself in the shoes of people who walked this earth before you were even born.

I had the good fortune to work alongside my father for a brief but very productive period of my life.  It was five years to be precise.  Five years that were to forever change the way I look at life.

My dad may have been different in some ways, but I‘ll let you be the judge of that.  For whatever it’s worth, here are some things he taught me: I learned that being right, by itself, is worthless.  If you cannot follow through what you believe with actions, your righteousness is empty.  He taught me that hard work is indeed its own reward, as long as you value and respect what you are doing.  He taught me that consistency will always be important, even while we are bombarded with change at an overwhelming pace.

These are just a few of the great things that my dad taught me.  I am quite aware that some people never met their father, never mind when they were five or six years old. And I am also sadly aware some people have had a terrible experience with their fathers. On a day like today, I hope those folks find a way for forgiveness, and closure. Perhaps to look up to someone else who may have been as close as a father. 

For me, as he grew old, and I realized perfectly well that he and I were on borrowed time, he managed to still deal one more lesson for me… the last time I said goodbye during a visit, as he hugged me at the airport and then walked away, I couldn’t help but notice what was written on the back of his t-shirt:

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” 

Happy Father’s Day.

Hey Joe...

“My name is Joe, and I'm an angerholic."  Yes, I admit it.  I spent many years being angry at someone or something.  I could never go too long without saying something that was not critical or judgmental.  Even my sense of humor strayed in the direction of making fun of someone else, rather than of myself.

I discovered soon enough that I was not alone.  In fact, I now believe I was in the majority.  It all felt very safe, I must say.  You quickly become aware that a lot of people share your anger, and you get to be cuttingly negative all the time.  Who the hell is going to get near you and try to hurt you?  Not me: I'm a survivor.

Billy Joel wrote a song back in the 70's called "Angry Young Man".  I remember getting hooked on it for a while, always feeling sorry for whoever that angry guy was.  There is a line in the song that goes, "I found that just surviving was a noble fight", and I particularly liked that line.  I wasn't quite sure why, I guess it just sounded cool.  Hell, I was a teenager, "Cat Scratch Fever" sounded cool to me then.

But I digress: fast forward to today, and I can't help but think how ironic that line is now.  Sure, surviving may sometimes be a noble fight, but engage in it too long and you're right back where you started: an angry survivor.  With grey hair. 

Which, in my opinion, is what William Faulkner had in mind in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech when he said (paraphrasing), "I believe the human race will not merely endure: it will prevail."  Survival mode is certainly a noble fight, but if we don't figure a way out of that labyrinth, we cannot possibly prevail.  If the trailer to the final story of our planet began with, "In a world stuck in survival mode to the very end..." it would not give me the impression that we ever really made it as a species.  I guess on that stage, Mr. Faulkner would have to concede to James Cameron for his more accurate depiction of our destiny in "The Terminator".  Good times.

Unless we figure out a way to transcend anger, I believe it will be impossible for us to prevail.  But until we find a more powerful replacement for anger, it’s tough to let it go.  The sheer power of the universe itself seems too overwhelming at times for us not to have some type of crutch that we can swing around, hoping to knock some heads off and dodge a bullet or two.  It’s almost like there is a voice inside our heads whose sole purpose is to taunt us about the shame of being weak.  Anger promotes fear, and being feared is anything but weak, right??

Not quite.  But hey, I know what you're thinking: "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself.  But being as these are angry words, the most powerful weapon in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?”

Well, do ya, punk??

Bueller?

Yes, I know.... a blog, especially one called "The Daily Presence" cannot become known for its absence.  The irony is way too much.  I have a long, boring story about why so much time went by before publishing something since my debut a couple of months ago, but as I value all nine of my followers, I will spare you all the details.  Let's just say it involves a stolen laptop, and moving from one house to another.  There, I spared you the details.

On the plus side, I have a new entry that I will post this weekend, I hope I will keep all nine of you entertained, maybe add a follower or two to the crowd.  As for publishing dates going forward, I'm not sure yet but I'm leaning towards semi-monthly (every two weeks).  Eventually I would like to make it a weekly blog, but I think I need the practice first.

Have a good one now.

One Hundred Ninety-Five

So I woke up this sunny Sunday morning, logged in to the world wide web and I asked it for some happy news. Alas, what I saw was the same old story. Lunatic leaders oppressing their own people, environmental abuse, economic corruption. And worse.

I've been around the globe enough to know that it's not all bad. But if you're looking to hear something other than quacking, then listening to a duck over and over is what's know as the definition of insanity.

Which prompted me to log off the web and think in quiet peace for a few moments. I thought about political power, and our obsession with it. I thought about individual anxieties, from survival to meaning, that elusive purpose of our presence on this planet. So I grabbed my laptop and started typing away, like a journalist on a tight deadline.  Please indulge me on a philosophical parenthesis here for a moment, I hope you'll find it thought-provoking.

Our basic instincts drive us more than we care to admit. I believe humans crave just a handful of things, a list not as extensive as we sometimes feel it is. We all crave love, wealth, direction and meaning. Unfortunately for reasons that still elude us, we fear pretty much everything else. Leaders promise to fulfill our cravings and protect us from our fears. Followers demand their share of wealth and deliverance from evil.

Generally speaking we have very little control over our basic instincts, unless we make it our mission in life to tame them.  Whether we believe in evolution or not, I think we can all agree that there has to be a purpose for our basic instincts. We can observe that those who succeed in rising above our raw nature, beyond the average mortal, find a special place in this thing we call life. That promised land is where all humans dare to march toward, as they attempt to rise above their own basic instincts. A number of raw traits that may boil down to just a handful, but I believe there is a precise count that reflects our collective primitiveness: one hundred ninety-five.

One hundred ninety-five is the number of countries we have today. That's not a lot of countries when you consider there are around seven billion of us and counting. But for a species that barely inhabits ten percent of the surface of our planet, we have sure made quite a pomp and circumstance out of claiming every piece of land surface as if it actually belonged to someone. An unfortunate exercise, as our first space travelers tell us that from up there, our political borders don't show up or add up. 

To be fair, some of our political boundaries are practical at best. Like the subdivisions of states and provinces within some countries. Private ownership of land, within reason, can be functionally productive. But study your history, read your news long enough and reality sets in: our national borders are what deeply divides us on this planet. Literally, figuratively, and unsustainably. 

Call me crazy but as long as we don't go from one hundred ninety-five to one, through democratic and free will preferably, we better hope a large wandering rock does not fade it all to black for us (what Arthur C. Clarke called The Hammer of God). We better hope our own blazing star does not prematurely reach the climax of its own story, exploding into a red giant. Ending any opportunity we had to proudly plant the flag of actual intelligent life in our little corner of the universe. I mean that in the sense that it would be a pity to have had over three billion years, give or take a billion, and not be able to get it. Our lease can expire anytime after that, but our moral satisfaction would be a flare seen by other intelligent life across the universe.

It would be unfair to claim that most humans are not, in their own way and even in a very small measure, working towards the ultimate lofty goal for humanity. But going forward, can we try a little harder? That very small measure may just be what makes our collective existence in a mighty universe a failed attempt at intelligent life.

***

"An International Space Oddity"

Our planet as seen through the eyes of the ISS. A 990,000 lb (450,000 kg) bird, with a wingspan of 354 ft. 

(108 meters), traveling at 4.8 miles per second (7.7 km/s).

Main video courtesy of NASA

Edited and with soundtrack arrangement by Joe Yanes

Music by:

David Bowie

Richard Strauss

Ludwig van Beethoven