I have launched my second blog! You can find it at philmartin.blog. My writing there will be centered on religion, social issues, and my intersection with both. If those sorts of topics interest you, perhaps go over there and give me a follow. Otherwise, feel free to stay here and read about pop-culture, baseball, poetry, and whatever else I choose to write about.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!
My lava lamp slowly blumphs away, against the wall beneath the television. One dog lays snoring a few feet away, another lays atop a footstool and sighs, looking at me, and then looking away.
The night crawls towards midnight, but before it gets there, I wanted to gather a few thoughts and toss them into the void of cyberspace. This week has been both full of activity, and also full of rest. My wife and I returned on Sunday from a long, two-week trip, driving from Texas to Pennsylvania to North Carolina and back to Texas. We drove a total of 3,681 miles.
The trip was ostensibly a work trip for my wife, she being one who earns a living by raising support in the form of monetary donations from individuals, churches, and other organizations. She works in distance education for a non-profit university, but her salary is comprised of these donations. It is necessary, time to time, to visit those who send in donations. I accompanied her because since we got married in 2019, and there was/is a pandemic in the intervening years, I had yet to meet some of these people.
The time exhausted both of us, not just in the car driving and traveling, but in always being “on” in presentations in front of churches an in one-on-one interactions, or in small groups. We are very glad to be back home, in the quiet of our upstairs studio, with our dogs (who did not accompany us on the trip).
The beginning of the week was spent just re-acclimating back to life at home, and tending to the yard which had grown into a jungle while we were gone. I got the oil changed in the car and the tires rotated (a good bit of maintenance, considering the miles put on the car in just two weeks). We’ve also been looking after one of our dogs who will undergo surgery early next week. He needed a blood draw and a check-up prior to being put under anesthesia. I also spent a day with my mother and nieces seeing the bluebonnet fields, the ubiquitous spring flower of Texas. Today was laundry day, among other chores.
*deep breath*
While Friday, and the week, draws to a close I reflect back. It has been a good three weeks in total. The trip was paid for through one-time donations from churches and individuals, and others may begin, increase, or merely continue regular support. This most recent few days of performing tasks was productive. Going into the weekend, I feel ready to rest, relax, and spend more time with family. I don’t want to accomplish anything other than fun and frivolity. I believe I’ve earned a little of both.
This is also a breath before a plunge into work. No, I haven’t regained gainful employment. Rather, the opposite: I am going to try being gainfully unemployed for the time being. I am going to pursue full-time writing for the summer (at least). I have many topics and ideas of things to write about, and to that end I have registered a new domain through WordPress where I will be setting up another blog to handle most of that writing. It isn’t directly related to this blog’s topics and interests, so it felt natural to give it a new space in which to flourish (hopefully). More on that later.
I also want to pursue higher education. Formally, I have only acquired a bachelor’s degree (of Arts in English) and would like to add to that a Master of Fine Arts in Writing or a related field. I need to do serious research into schools, financial aid, and other things. I’ve been out of the education game for a while and need to reacclimatize my mind and body to being studious. To this end I think I want to register for two fall semester classes at my wife’s university (where as spouse I receive a 33% discount already) just to see if I can still do the whole scholastic Thing.
Work lies before me. I seriously want to devote about 6 hours a day towards writing, and a few hours each week towards getting geared up for the fall semester. I don’t want to do this halfway. I am serious about taking my loss of job as an opportunity to try something different. I can’t say “new” because I’ve been writing since I was a kid, and I’ve been in school since I was six, but to a new and different degree, perhaps.
As Friday ends I realize that while I have been busy recently, a whole new kind of busy is about to begin, one mostly unknown to me, and more than a little scary. I don’t want to fail, I don’t want to put the financial burden of my family squarely on my wife, and I don’t know how to alleviate that and be a writer/student at the same time. But one step at a time, as I’ve always done. First, a good night’s rest, then the weekend, then: Monday.
*breathe*
I can do this.
I sit typing while listening to clothes tumble in the dryer. I look out my brother-in-law’s North Carolina window at a tall pine tree and the dappled light shining through needles far above. I miss this part of the United States: the east coast. I grew up not far from here, in Virginia, about 20 minutes from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.
I miss the pine trees, the smell of the ocean, and the climate. Most of all, I miss my childhood home and the wonderful times spent there. Oh, there was plenty of angst, bad times, and drudgery, but most of that is lost to memory. I usually only remember the good times, the specialness, and my family.
While driving south from Pennsylvania, where I have been the past week and a half supporting my wife’s work, it took all my effort to keep right on the highway towards my destination in Charlotte, North Carolina, and not go left to my home city of Norfolk, Virginia. I had just visited my cousin in Richmond, and remembered well the drive south from there, highway lined with tall evergreens and green grass. While I drove, memories flooded back to me in a rush, like the cars passing in the left lane.
My sister was born a bit before we moved to my favorite home on Sheppard Avenue, 30 years ago today. They tell me that when she was announced, still ensconced within my mother, that five-year-old me jumped on my bicycle and rode away upset. I remember wanting a little brother at the time, and not being happy that I was, in fact, going to receive a little sister, but I don’t remember anything about an angry bike ride. (Truth be told, I wanted a little brother so I could beat up on him and I knew I wouldn’t be able to do that to a sister. I was not always treated well by my older brother, and thought turn about would be fair play. What can I say? I was five. I’ve matured since then.)
Anyway, a few months later, just after I turned six, my beautiful sister was born on the 29th of March. I remember being at school when my mother went into labor, and being called in to an office with my brothers and told that my mom had given birth. There is a photograph of my dad in the hospital holding newborn sister and the three of us crowding around to catch a look at her. I don’t know if the school memory is real, but I suppose it could be. I’d have to check with my brothers and see if either of them remembers.
Someone else lives in the home we were in then, and in the home on Sheppard. It is no longer “mine” though I still dream of purchasing it and moving in someday. I have no idea what renovations or upgrades have been made since then, but in the ever present realm of memory, it still looks as it did. I would probably be disappointed if they had cut down any trees or uprooted any bushes, or changed a room or something, so it may be best if that house stays in memory. I don’t know.
My sister and I grew up in that home on Sheppard. For ten or so years, we lived, played, loved, fought (don’t be fooled, we fought a lot), made up, and matured (I told you I did!) in that home. Like I said, bad memories and good memories. Then my dad took us to Orlando, Florida, and then the island nation of Papua New Guinea (but that is another long story). I did most of my growing up in Norfolk, and there my sister started her life journey.
Another memory invades my recollections, of hanging out on the Gettysburg battlefield while I was in college. My parents and sister had come to visit, and we went out to the fields and forests of that old war ground to spend the day. (I think we would have been around twenty-two and sixteen?) I remember, too, longer ago, my mother taking us on field trips to Fredericksburg, Yorktown, Williamsburg, Jamestown, and many other historical places in Virginia, as it is a state littered with the memories of dead soldiers. That day in central Pennsylvania, a chill wind blew through the trees and shade, though the sun was warm as we walked from place to monument and old fortification.
Today we live over a thousand miles away from Norfolk in Texas, near Dallas, but we are fortunate to be close, both geographically and emotionally. I love my sister dearly, and now her two daughters, the eldest of which is the same age I was when I found out my sister was on her way. They are precious souls that I cannot wait to see in a few days when my time here is completed.
I wonder what the next thirty years will bring to me, and my forever little sister. What joys, sorrows, hard times, and celebrations will we face together? I obviously have no idea, though I can imagine some: birthdays, holidays, the growing up of her children, and our adulthoods spent pursing careers, hobbies, and togetherness. I can’t wait for all of it, even the darker times, because I know she will be there with me, as she has been for thirty years past, through long plane rides, foreign lands, university, sadness, and happiness. Thanks, sis, for being there for me.
As I write, it is the quiet of pre-dawn in the mountains of Pennsylvania. The only noise, aside from the muted thunking of my keyboard, is the hum of the refrigerator. The skies are grey-blue through the window, and the budding-yet-still-naked tree limbs, outside. I now hear one faint bird, off in the distance.
I awoke this morning from a deep sleep to ponder my future. I am here in the Appalachian woods with my wife while she is on a business trip of sorts. She is a missionary, and part of that job is raising funds to continue to work, mostly from churches and the individuals within them. I am here to support her in any way I can, usually emotionally, but also to meet people important to her work and life that I haven’t met yet. Living in Texas as we do, we don’t get up this way very often.
But my own work position is no less precarious. I was laid off, as I’ve written before, from my Human Resources position, and have yet to secure another job. I have been thinking about what to do, and in which direction to go, ever since. I don’t have any direct answers, but I have a few feelings about what to do.
I graduated university with a degree in English Literature and Writing (it was a dual focus). Mostly that is an unemployable degree, as I have found. Even were I to teach, I would need either a higher degree, or a certificate to go with it. On it’s own, it isn’t quite useful to be an English Major. Oh it awarded me several useful skills, such as the ability to write coherently and well, how to research and compile information, and how to be organized in the presentation of that research. But directly hirable? Not as much.
But lately a worm has been burrowing into my brain, a bookworm, if you’ll allow the conceit. This worm I cannot dig out without causing harm to my cerebral grey and white brain cells. This worm says to stop looking for a job and pursue the one I have: writing. I have many pent-up words just waiting to spill out, and this worm seems intent on excavating them and letting them out into the world.
But this new thought terrifies me. My wife and I are dependent already on the generosity of others. My employment was shoring that up; supplementing her support. Without my income, how will we survive? The bills still want to be paid, especially the mortgage, and the grocer, and those that hold the title to my car, among others no less important. So what am I do? Can I cease looking for outside employment and sit down at my desk to write full time, with no guarantee of publication or income? How could I ask my wife to shoulder that burden? I have already been working part time, and had no left over mental energy for writing, so I doubt I could do both.
But still the worm burrows, ever deeper, ever more entwined within the tendrils of my cerebral cellular network. I don’t know what do to, and I certainly don’t have an answer at this time. Only questions, desires, and a thought that won’t perish.
What I will do, for now, is branch off of this blog a new one in which to collect the beginnings of some of these thoughts. I’ve recently been reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, a book on writing and life. I read parts of it in university, and it is partially responsible for planting the worm in my brain (along with a conversation with one of my wife’s supporters). Anne strongly suggests a daily writing habit, terrible first drafts, and small windows through which to peer at the world. This second blog will be all those things. I hope. I don’t know. So much about this is unknown, and that, too, is frightening.
One thought I cannot stop is that this job loss is an opportunity to try something new, something different, and put everything I have into it. I don’t know if it will work, I am no prognosticator, but it is exciting to contemplate. So here’s a call: if you want to support my wife, send me an email and we can talk, but beyond that, if you want to support my efforts, be on the lookout for a new blog announcement coming soon, where you can read my terrible first drafts of thoughts and give me feedback.
For now, I have a few more days in Pennsylvania before heading back to Texas in which to deal with this little bookworm burrowed deep in my brain.
I don’t want to wake up in metal capsule, in a cold, dark warehouse fifty years outside my time, only to suddenly age and become an old man. While that’s the basic plot of the 90’s film Forever Young, I wish for a different kind of perpetual youth: the kind that never grows up.
I am starting my thirty-sixth journey around the sun, hosted by the earth (my deepest gratitude, you are a wonderful home!), and as I begin this newest trip, my social media is filling up with good wishes. However, I wanted to express some wishes for myself. The first and foremost is to never grow up.
Life can make me older, and experience can make more more mature, but I never wish to lose the joy and mirth that comes with being a kid. I see my youngest nieces, Rae and Cassia, and the vigor with which Cassia in particular attacks life. Rae does as well, but with less tenacity it seems. She is somewhat more reserved about things, but Cassia can’t spell reserved (or, well, anything, she is only 3). My point is, I want to be more like them going forward.
I still play with action figures; I am reminded how I used to stage endless battles with my GI Joes with my childhood friend Luke. Nowadays it is more customizing and photography, but I yet like to collect and display my figures. I just finished painting an action figure last night, and can’t wait to reassemble its disparate parts and see what the entire paint job looks like all together. I also am into building dioramas in which to pose the figures, and have much fun with that.
I am not into LEGO as much anymore, a surprising turn of events if one considered my later childhood and teenage years, in which the building blocks were ubiquitous for me. But I still enjoy constructing the odd set, and have a few I don’t wish to part with, that I enjoy seeing displayed in my bedroom.
Every time I am in Walmart, or Target, I inevitably head for the toy isle, looking over the Hot Wheels, Hasbro, and LEGO. I don’t often buy anything, expect for the drain cleaner or toilet paper or whatnot that I am actually there for, but I wish and dream and covet just as I did when I was a child. I never want to lose that excitement for the endless possibilities in play.
I want play and playthings to be around me the rest of my life. I want to be a fun and good uncle to my nieces and nephews. I want to always be odd and rambunctious and unpredictable in the delight I bring with me for the world and life. Even as a tottering, old man, I want a twinkle in my eye and a smile on my lips, and laughter in my mouth. If I ever become crotchety and misanthropic, something will have gone terribly wrong inside. I hope to never walk that path.
Beyond that, I want to be wise and understanding. I want to be able to judge things rightly, and to be fair and even in my dealings with other people. I would like to be full of love, not just for the kids around me and my family, but to all I meet, those like and un-like myself. The world is full of interesting and unique and different individuals and I would hope I have the capacity to love them all. Some, I know, are intent on being unloveable and hateful, but even then I would wish to bear no malice towards them, only hope for their healing and a better life.
I work as much as I can on acquiring these goals, and renew myself to them once more as I turn thirty-six, a still young age at that. I do the math, and if the world is kind, I will have more time than has already passed to yet be alive, and I welcome every second and year. I have come a long ways from the kid playing in the grass with action figures, or on the living room rug with LEGO, or on the sandlot with a baseball, and I think of all the growth I have achieved in that time. I hope I can make as much progress in another thirty-six years.
So here’s to me, and my many happy returns, and to remaining forever young, yet perpetually wise and full of love. I truly wish that to be said of me all my days on this planet, and after I am mouldering in my grave. For now, the sun is shining, it is a bright and glorious start to March the 12th, and I can’t wait to celebrate with my family, and my littlest nieces. Rock on!
Seventeen days have passed since I was laid off from my job. I admit, I am bitter about it. I try to be gracious in my opinions and attitudes related to my past employment, but that will only get me so far. I must say that my heart is souring towards my previous workplace, and the way it all ended. I am grateful for the opportunity to learn what I did there, and for the time spent, but I cannot go back.
Struggling with “proper” emotions and feelings is a difficult thing. Culture and expectations tell me that a “high road” is there to be taken, but damn, if it isn’t an arduous, uphill journey. Michelle Obama makes taking the high road sound easy, but I know she would say that it is anything but easy. I am certainly feeling the burn right about now.
I received a phone call from my former colleague the other day. He had a question about a job function that I handed off to him that he didn’t know how to do. I did make myself available for such questions, but all it really did to me was turn the knife in my back. I want to be helpful, but the reality is that I don’t work there anymore and wasn’t given adequate time to prepare to leave. I miss the work and the people, but I cannot go back. I am not sure I would want to at this point.
I don’t know what I will end up doing next. I have sent out several job applications already. Though I am not collecting unemployment pay, I am trying to act as if I were under the state’s requirements to apply to several prospective employers each week. I have more or less met those standards, but have received either static or rejections in reply. It is truly disheartening.
I am complaining, and I feel that is natural, and even healthy, at this time. I don’t intend to stay here, in this dismal place, but I need to get this out there into the universe and out of my head. That is part of why I write here on my blog: to exorcise the daemons in my soul and force them out into the aether.
As I am writing, here early on a Saturday morning, the skies are lightening from black to grey. I hear a myriad of birds in the trees around my home heralding the dawn. I have always loved the sound of the avian denizens of the suburban environment. It reminds me that we humans but impose our so-called dominance on a planet of living creatures that co-habit with us on this world. We are but one of many species to live here. Even myself, with all my current work troubles and despair – I am but a green thing growing, only needing to be alive and strange as the birds are strange, singing to the rising of the sun. I require nothing else to be worthy of life.
Life will continue; I will find a way to support my living; this is but a passing time. Sure, that doesn’t make it feel any better right now. That is to be expected, after all. Low times are low times for a reason. But better things are coming, somehow I feel that. I can’t explain it or rationalize it, but emotionally, I believe in a better world past the brightening horizon. Today may be grey and depressing, but a bright sunny tomorrow is waiting to wake. I’ll take solace in that, for now, and move forward to what is next.
The house is quiet this morning, and bit chilled. Laundry spins in the washing machine, and one of my dogs, Duncan, naps in his open crate. He likes to recline there when I’m downstairs. I am home this morning, by myself, and will be for the foreseeable future. I’ve been laid off from my job.
I was working for a small linguistics university in the Human Resources department. The school has been having some budgetary problems which turned into cash flow problems which turned into budget cuts: in the form of layoffs, not just myself, but three others were let go as well. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but then the school has less than 200 staff and faculty combined. A few less, now.
I will miss that job. For the first time in my life, I had somewhere I belonged, with a group of co-workers I liked. Not everything was perfect, and there was plenty I didn’t like, but I really felt comfortable there, and felt like I was making a difference. The hours were just enough without being too much, the pay was the most I’d ever had (albeit with no benefits – like I said, not everything was perfect) – it was a good job. And now it’s gone.
I woke up last week, when Dallas was still under ice and snow, and checked my work email from home. Sitting in my inbox was an invitation to a Zoom meeting with my boss and the school president. Unusual, but not unprecedented. While I was intrigued, I didn’t think much of it. I figured it was a meeting to talk about some new duty or responsibility. Headed into my 9th month there, I had just had a meeting with the president to ask about committees or other areas in which I could be useful, and to present my skills to him formally. We had known each other a little bit, but I wanted to get on his radar. I asked my boss “What is this?”, about the meeting, and she replied “He has the details” meaning the president. I went about my day.
That afternoon, the Zoom meeting commenced and within minutes I got the news of my involuntary departure from the university. The president spoke about budget concerns and endowments and whatnot, but there was nothing to be done. I had to go to save the school money. I am not a fighter anymore, so I didn’t even try to get angry or to negotiate for my job. It was a done deal, and my indignation wouldn’t have made the slightest difference anyway.
Now, a week later, I finally have a chance to sit down and process. I have had a weekend, and three days to get my work affairs in order and handed off to the rest of the HR department for picking up. My wife has left for her work for the day, so has our roommate, so it is just me and the dogs. And I have feelings: Sadness. Despair. Curiosity. Dread. Calm (strangely). A little anger. Some sense of loss. I don’t fully know what I think. I have no idea, though a few leads, of what to do next.
I have been stuck in an existential quandary for a while regarding my life and what I want to do, and to be handed unemployment and loads of time, at least right now, strikes me as ironic. “Wondering what to do with your life and what is worth living? Have some absolutely free time to ponder all your life choices!” I wonder if the universe is having some fun at my expense, were the universe to be a being that could do such things. More likely, it is just the unfeeling “wheel of fate” that turns for everyone. The Good Book says that “it rains on the just and the unjust alike”. My time to get rained on I guess.
Outside, the sun is rising above the crest of the house, and my car’s windshield is defrosting in the warming air. Jeans are tumbling in the dryer, socks are churning in the washer, and the dog sighs in his sleep. My sock-less toes are a little cold, and my mind is awash with thoughts. What will I do now? Where will I work next? How will my wife and I make ends meet? I don’t know, yet, the answers to those questions. Hopefully by April, or sooner, I will. For now, I am content to take more time to let things be, and maybe do a few chores that have been put off, now that I have more time to tackle them.
I am reminded that the twittering birds outside don’t question their existence (that I know of) and seem to do just fine, but then, they don’t have to pay taxes or hold down a job either. The universe gives and takes. I’d rather be human than a bird anyway, at least, from my current perspective. I may feel differently later.
My iPad is running low on battery, down to 6%, and so is my emotional reserve. I don’t have much else to say, anyway. I’ve talked this situation over with wife, friends, and family in the past week and the fact is: I am not my job. It is how I gather income to pay for the life I enjoy, and no employer cares to show loyalty to any employee, so I always expected to have to move on, sooner or later. It is just sooner, and I have to find a new source of income. Maybe it really is that simple, in the end. For now, I remain in the quiet, and looking forward, as always, to what the day will bring.
A dear friend of mine shared a thing on social media, and without speaking to its factual veracity, I want to discuss the truth of the thing.
Some cultures believe we must be alive for a purpose: to work, to make money, etc. Some indigenous cultures believe we’re alive just as nature is alive: to be here, to be beautiful, and to be strange. We don’t need to achieve anything to be valid in our humanness.”
@ melatoninlau
My entire worldview, and my thoughts and feelings about it, are a construct. I’ve known this in other areas of my life, but I have not had the framing to understand my quest for meaning in this way: that my entire culture was predicated on my needing to be alive for a Reason. But that another culture held that I was alive simply to be Alive is a radical thought to me. Maybe I need to adjust my personal culture, my worldview, and my thoughts and feelings in the way that I consider myself.
Western, capitalistic society created me. From an early age, I understood that my value would come from what job I held, what I did for a living, and how I contributed to society. Those thoughts have eaten at my soul for decades now. As a tween, and teenager, I had no idea what I wanted to “do”. I didn’t know how I could contribute. Those thoughts worsened as I approached my eighteenth birthday and questions of what college to go to, and ultimately what to do with my life, became more pronounced.
I don’t know how to adequately convey the dread, the feeling of being lost, and of uncertainty that threatened to overwhelm me during my early years. It was a potent, ever-present layer of feelings. Maybe this is part of what sparked my descent into depression at this time; I don’t know for certain. I do know that I hated how I was feeling and had no idea what to do about it.
To get to today, I have survived much, and grown and matured, but if you’ve been reading my blog, you know I’ve been tortured over contributing to society, of finding meaning for my life, and knowing what I am to Do. Now, I may not need be conflicted about any of that! I don’t even need to Do anything at all!
I am “alive just as nature is alive.” I am connected to this planet, to humanity, and to the universe simply in existence. A plant, or a beaver, or a star does not worry about contribution. They simply grow and be green, or build a dam, or twinkle through the cosmos, and are Alive and are Enough. I am Alive; I grow; I have the ability to build; I am “star-stuff” as the great scientist Carl Sagan once said. I am Enough!
Just as I could not accurately convey the negativity surrounding my need to contribute, or what I would do in life, I cannot justly convey the positivity of how I am feeling now: the liberation, the joy, the weightlessness of being Alive and of that being Enough. I don’t have to take the best pictures, or create the best artwork, or have a meaningful job, or conform to Western culture at all in order to have worth. I have intrinsic value in Life Itself.
I don’t think I’ve even fully processed what this means in and to me. But I know that I will explore this idea fully, and adapt as much of this philosophy to myself that I can. Something this potent must needs transform me completely. What happens around me, or to me, or because of me is not what gives me meaning. Sure, I want to add to people’s lives; I want to preserve the life of this planet; I want to exist well – but that does not inform my worth. I am worthy! What I do is but an extension of who I am: a green thing, rooted deep, and nourished by the energy of all things.
He fell to the ground, the bolt being pulled from the ceiling under his weight. In the wake of his failed suicide attempt, Otto noticed that the newspaper was advertising a sale on flowers, so he bought two bouquets and took them to his wife’s graveside. This episode perfectly captures the absurdity of a suicidal life.
I am not suicidal, but lately I have been finding it difficult to find the joy and fun in life. I wrote previously about my current existential crisis. Then a curious thing happened: I went to see a film with my mother. The film was A Man Called Otto starring Tom Hanks as Otto. You see, my mother and I have a habit of seeing Hanks’ films in the theater, having seen quite a few together. We did not expect such an intense and heavy subject matter as suicide from Tom Hanks, who (with rare exception) usually plays things a little lighter.
But Otto, who recently lost his wife to cancer, and endured other personal tragedy during their marriage, was eager, not to die, but to join his wife in the afterlife. He tried, and failed, to die three times, but was always interrupted by neighbors in need. Indeed, the only other thing that kept Otto living was his daily routine as de facto head of the home owner’s association. He quite simply didn’t know what else to do other than what he had been doing.
That felt quite a bit like me. I have no wife to join in death, and as I said, I am not suicidal. I passed that bridge a long time ago when I, too, survived a suicide attempt, but no longer. The questions I need answered are “why do I live?” and “what do I do with life?” That I don’t quite know. But Otto taught me something that perhaps will answer my questions.
From Otto I learned that life’s chief end is to care for others. Whether new or old, Otto’s neighbors needed his help, his love, and his care: whether as a place to crash, as a hand fighting the evil development company, or as a driving teacher, among other things. Without Otto, their lives would have played out much differently. Not to say this film was some update of It’s A Wonderful Life, as it wasn’t that chintzy, but the importance of human connection cannot be overlooked.
Second, a life’s pursuits are suitable for themselves. Otto, as a younger man, was fascinated by engineering, particularly the inner workings of automobile engines. He didn’t know what to do with his passion until his wife encouraged him to attend, and graduate from, university. He then procured employment and lived a full life. Art and other interests are reasonable things to indulge and follow after, if for no other purpose than the joy they bring. Otto found pleasure in cars throughout his entire life, for example.
Finally, Otto demonstrated that until death does arrive, life is to be lived. No effort to bring or delay death will ultimately be successful. Otto tried several times to die, and the tragedy was that once he found a reason for living again, he only was able to live for a few more years. But they were full years, of fun and happiness.
I have family and friends around me that I need to continue to invest in, and invest I shall. I want to see my youngest nieces grow up into young women in all the zest and color that they currently possess. I want to be a companion for my parents, and sister. My wife and I should live a good, long life together and be fulfilled in many things.
I want to continue to pursue my art and creative passions. Not for any grand end, but for the pleasure and delight they bring me. That is a perfectly good thing, and those are not to be diminished.
I want to live. I haven’t wanted to die in a very long time, and never wish to inhabit that mental space again, but I do want to live. That is no small thing to me.
I know I’ve said much of this before, and while the previous post about the bleakness of life stands true, it isn’t always true. I will continue to fight my mental illness’ lies and hold true to the lessons Otto taught me. Truly the experience of that film was unexpected, but exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it. I don’t particularly believe in fate, choosing instead to find serendipity in the randomness of the universe, but that was a heck of a serendipitous moment yesterday afternoon, and one for which I am grateful.
I hesitate to recommend A Man Called Otto for general viewing, as it’s themes and images can be triggering to some, but it was a powerful film for me; I will carry Otto for a while in my mind and in my heart.
I just found a LEGO minifigure in the pocket of my shirt. I haven’t worn this shirt in a long time, and I have no idea where this little person came from. I don’t recognize it, so I don’t think it is from my childhood. Starting off the new year with a mystery that cannot be solved is a fascinating way to begin. Here’s to discovering new things and adding new friends to our lives!
I ended last year talking about my favorite things, and I’d like to begin 2023 discussing a few hopes and dreams. People that know me know I don’t exactly like to do New Year’s Resolutions, but call them what you will, it’s hard not to look at a fresh calendar year and not then think about what you’d like to accomplish.
I’ve probably said this many times before, but I really want to get back into a habit of reading. Of late, it has become really difficult for me, and I am not entirely sure why. Long-covid? Depression? Latent ADHD? Who knows, but as a child/teenager/young adult, I read voraciously. Lately? Hardly at all. This hasn’t stopped me from collecting many books that I would love to read, but I just don’t read them. I have a reading journal to keep track of pages and time read, and that did help to finish reading Dune last year, a book I really enjoy. I hope to take journal and fill it up with pages read, even if for only a short time each day.
This year is wide open, and I’ve already begun a few making projects. I am a follower of Adam Savage’s Tested, and the former Mythbuster consistently inspires me to want to make things, both physically and digitally. Last year I was trying to complete a 52 Week Photography project that I did not finish, but this year I want to be a lot more free and open with my toy photography. I have many figures, and want to shoot what appeals to me when I am inspired. Towards the end of last year, I was getting bogged down in my restrictions (one a week/Star Wars figures only) and I think that hindered. I am hoping freedom of choice will mean more expression.
I also want to paint more. I like to customize my action figures, and have already started a new one, a NED-B droid from the Star Wars: Kenobi show. I bought two last year, one to keep pristine, and one to customize. I pulled all the arms and legs and things apart to hopefully make painting easier, and can’t want to get started turning him from yellow to another-color-yet-to-be-determined.
A few years back, I bought a tiny X-Wing Bandai model kit and built a tiny diorama of a crashed X-Wing, and for Christmas I acquired a slightly larger X-Wing and a TIE fighter. I want to build two dioramas of crashed (?) ships, and have purchased 10-inch turntables to build them on. I am still working out the details and designs in my head, but I think those will be fun projects.
I have built an excellent habit of writing at least twice a month on my blog here, and I think I will be able to continue that. To all my faithful and occasional readers: thank you! I appreciate your time spent hearing what I have to say. It is cathartic and focusing for me to write out occasional thoughts, or to elaborate on what interests me, and I welcome friends along for the ride. If ever you have thoughts, suggestions, questions, or anything you want to send to me, email to PhilRedbeard AT gmail DOT com. I will always welcome interaction.
I want to continue to grow as a good human being. I want to spread love and joy to those who know me, and those I encounter in life. I want to be better than I am now, and improve on what I am building in my life. Some of that includes what I’ve already mentioned, but that also means listening to other voices, and challenging my biases and privileges and my own status quo. That won’t be easy or comfortable, but I think it is necessary to create real improvement as a person. Staying stagnant is never a good thing, and I don’t think I will ever reach a state of being that can’t be improved upon.
That is all I can think of for now. I am sure that 2023 will present challenges and difficulties I can’t anticipate, and already has some curveballs it is winding up to throw. My self-awareness and memory of the past informs me that this will happen, and the only thing I can do is try to be prepared. As Adam Savage says: “It’s a not a problem to solve; it’s a process to manage” and I really take that to heart. Like unexpected LEGO, I can take what I meet and make new things from it, and always try to build something positive from whatever may come.
I hope your 2023 is all you want it to be and more, and may you have strength and creativity to meet all that comes your way.
a simple man 