Captain’s Log – Page 8

Best of 2022: Sundry

I wrote a few days ago about my best things from 2022. That post covered media that I was particularly enthralled by or enjoyed from this past year. Now, I thought I would discuss my best things from 2022 that are tangible.

Apple

I am going to round up the first few into a category of Apple devices. I began my past few Best Of’s writing about an iPad. First it was an iPad Air that I inherited from my father. Then I upgraded that to an iPad Air in green. This year I upgraded that iPad to an iPad Pro, for several reasons. First: FaceID. I can’t overstate how buggy TouchID has been for me, and what a frustrating user experience it is when it doesn’t work properly. Second: USB-C. This is apparently the connector of the future, and it charges much faster than Lightning. Third: external display. While I have yet to use this feature, having just now been enabled in a software update, I am eager to get an external display and use it with my iPad. Fourth: the Smart Connector. This leads into another best thing, the Magic Keyboard. Being able to connect a keyboard without using Bluetooth, that also gives me a trackpad? Genius! I have used my used Magic Keyboard for many months and I use no other iPad stand or keyboard. It is perfect for my needs. And, when I need to truly go mobile, I can just disconnect from the magnets and go.

Next up, still in the Apple category, are my AirPods Pro. I got these in the spring of ‘22 because my wife and I were taking a trip via aircraft, and I hate dealing with jet noise in the airplane. Enter active noise cancelation! I know there are a plethora of other headphones that have that feature, but the ability to effortlessly connect to my iPad or iPhone just by picking up the device is magical. For me, a huge part of technology is the user experience. I am an Apple customer for exactly that reason. Any other tech I have used has been overly frustrating or clunky. AirPods Pro have other features I love, but the ANC is my top feature.

Action Figures

If you follow me elsewhere, you know I dabble in toy photography. I started with LEGO, but since have moved almost exclusively into traditional action figures, and specifically the Black Series Star Wars from Hasbro. This year I collected quite a few of those figures to bolster my collection, but one of my favorites actually was the most expensive I have ever purchased and it wasn’t a Hasbro. This was a Tamashii Nations Ronin Mandalorian and Grogu.

Lone Wolf and Cub, a Samurai Mandalorian and Grogu

This figure reimagines the Mandalorian as a wandering samurai warrior, complete in Japanese samurai armor. Little Grogu sports a top-knot and is pushed in a wooden cart. The Mandalorian Disney+ show is directly influenced by Lone Wolf and Cub, a Japanese manga from 1970, and this captures that mashup perfectly. The price of the figure is completely justified by the quality, and it is one you really need to see in real life to appreciate the level of detail and thought that went into its creation. (I did not take the above picture, it is from the marketing materials. I have yet to photograph this figure for myself.)

Other action figures I picked up include an Ant-Man figure I really want to use in some creative pictures, a George Lucas as a Stormtrooper, a Buzz Lightyear from the Pixar film Lightyear that came out this year, and a Rocketeer figure. All of these speak to me in some way, or are deep dives into my personal nerd that I appreciate on many levels.

Tools

I’ve started to collect tools for use in making and household projects. I finally got a toolbox for them all. I had a basic toolbox with the removable insert, but it was crammed full, and the plastic hinges were warping and it needed replacing. I bought a Craftsman toolbox on wheels, with multiple levels of various sizes, and a few removable inserts that fits my needs perfectly. It is portable, in that I could wheel it places or put in the back of my car, but mostly it stays in the under-stairs closet, which is fine. The top part, with my most used tools, actually separates from the wheeled portion, so that I can take it places.

For upstairs I bought a tool bag exactly like the one my dad keeps his electrical tools in (my dad being an electrician by trade) from a military surplus store, and keep a few tools I need for drawing and making there. I also have a new Lufkin tape measure I bought after seeing Adam Savage use it on Tested. It is neon green on black, and I think the numbers glow in the dark even, though why you would use a tape measure in the dark is beyond me, but hey! Why not? Anyway, it is a fantastic tape measure, and I use it to help me rearrange furniture and measure things. I mean, what else do you use a tape measure for?

In Conclusion

I am reminded that my Best Thing from 2021 was life itself, having faced real death in the hospital with Covid in January of that year. Certainly objects in space are fleeting and transient. Tech comes and is replaced with something new and better. Tools wear out or are no longer useful and are upgraded. Toys bring fun and joy, but can sit in a drawer in between uses. Even the media I love exists outside “real life”.

My true best things of 2022 remain my life, my wife, my family (including my two fur children) and those I am privileged to call friends. As my mentor-from-a-distance Adam Savage is fond of espousing, I want to collect experiences and moments of meaning. That is all I truly possess, and anything else can be lost or taken away. With that in mind, what are your Best Things from 2022, tangible or intangible? I’d love to hear about them, so send me an email or something.

Here’s to a great 2023, and may we all be blessed with many Best Things in the year to come!

Best of 2022: Media

One of my traditions on this blog at year’s end is a best of compendium of the previous year. I got the idea from Tested, it isn’t mine. I like looking back at what I am thankful for, and what has been really useful to me, or that has found a place in my life. You can find previous Best Of posts in December of previous years.

This year I thought I would break my best of into two posts, the first for media (music, books, television, movies) and the second for objects (tech, collectibles, etc). I am also doing these a little early in December because this year will end with a big family Christmas bash that will last about 10 days, and I don’t think I’ll have time to write much. So here goes with Part the First: Media.

Moon Knight

In the realm of television shows, I started with a great limited series on Disney+ called Moon Knight. It is a Marvel show set in the Cinematic Universe, starring Oscar Isaac as the titular Moon Knight, a superhero, of sorts, who must contend with dissociative identity disorder. Oscar Isaac is one my favorite contemporary actors, and I loved his portrayal of all the alternate identities of the Moon Knight. The show itself stands alone, and isn’t dependent on knowledge of the rest of the MCU, which I enjoyed for a change of pace from the myriad connections that now exist in other superhero shows or films.

Star Wars: Kenobi and Andor

Two live-action Star Wars shows premiered on Disney+ this year. The first, Kenobi, followed the washed-up former Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi ten years into his exile on Tatooine following the destruction of the Jedi Order and the Republic at the hands of Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader. I love Ewan McGregor as Kenobi, and this year was a perfect time for McGregor, at the right age and physicality, to play the defeated and broken Obi-Wan. The show took an episode or two to get going, but it delivered at the end.

Andor was helmed by Diego Luna, but also included such stars as Stellan Skarsgaard, and Andy Serkis in a surprise role. Andor follows Rebel anti-hero Cassian Andor who the Star Wars universe met in the stand-alone film Rogue One a few years ago. Season One of Andor describes the origin and rise of the Rebel operative and the beginning to the rebellion against the Galactic Empire. Razor sharp, tense, without being too overly dark, and never plodding, Andor takes Star Wars to a place it’s never really been before. Skarsgaard has one of best monologues in cinema during an episode late in the season, and it’s one I want to memorize eventually. It was that good.

Top Gun: Maverick

Sure to be on the top of many people’s lists for movies, the sequel to the 1980’s action flick Top Gun arrived with a roar, and lived up to the hype. A vehicle for the mega star Tom Cruise to reprise his role as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, NAVY aviator, this one flew off the screen. Enjoyable, nostalgic, cinematic in every way, and with a good story and great cast, Top Gun: Maverick is one I will watch again and again. Also starring Jon Hamm, Miles Teller, and Elizabeth Connelly, some of my favorite actors, this one will be a classic along with the original Top Gun.

Glass Onion

Another, well, not quite sequel, but second in an anthology, Glass Onion follows Knives Out from director Rian Johnson and actor Daniel Craig. A whodunit murder mystery in which Craig plays the hilarious southern detective Benoit Blanc once more, this time in a new mystery and setting from the previous Knives Out story. This mystery was every bit as engaging and intriguing as the first, and the conclusion I again did not see coming. My dad loves these films, and the my wife and I and my parents got to see this on a rainy Thanksgiving Day this year for a great afternoon out.

Fitch

Fitch was on my list for a while, ever since it debuted on Apple TV+. Tom Hanks stars in his first apocalyptic sci-fi role, and pretty much carries the movie alone, acting alongside a robot and a dog. It is heartwarming, tragic, and just a great little film. I compare it to the Martian, another film about a man alone in a wasteland carried by a great actor and a very real feeling setting, despite being a world we don’t quite recognize.

Spirited

A musical. A Christmas story. A comedy starring Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell retells, sort of, the Christmas classic A Christmas Carol. I was unsure of this film, and put off watching it for a while until I just sat down and turned it on a week or so ago. Instantly Spirited became my favorite musical. My favorite Christmas story. AND my favorite telling of A Christmas Carol (sorry Kermit!). The songs were immediately catching, and while I thought I knew how it would go, it surprised me at every turn. That makes a great story that I will want to watch every Yuletide from now on. Available on Apple TV+.

Music

Musically, I rediscovered The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit soundtracks, re-listening to all six this summer. Howard Shore is a masterful composer, and I loved reliving the stories through just his scores. I put it on in the car, and every day back and forth from work, I would listen. It was pretty great, actually. I found plenty of other music this year, but I won’t exhaustively list it out. Suffice to say: AppleMusic is a key part of my life, allowing me to listen via download or stream pretty much anything I want to find, for only a small monthly fee. Plus, I get to share it with my wife and parents, so that is a terrific deal for all four of us.

Books

Sadly, I didn’t read this year quite like I thought I would. I still struggle with being able to engage with and complete a book, but I still try. I did finally finish re-reading Dune by Frank Herbert, and I have enjoyed flipping through the Art of Star Wars books that have come out in recent years, covering the new trilogy, and each of the recent shows on Disney+. More illustrations and art than prose, each is a deep dive into the creative process that begins a film or show in the Star Wars universe from a design standpoint, be it environment or vehicle, costume or character. I particularly enjoyed the books for the Mandalorian, and look forward to the Kenobi and Andor books, whenever they will arrive.

Well, that rounds up my favorite media from 2022. I can’t wait for 2023 which will have a few new seasons and shows that I am very much looking forward to, both in universes new, and far, far away. Stay tuned for part two of this post in which I describe my favorite objects and tech from 2022!

Letters from Antarctica

Seven days from today, Ariel Waldman will arrive in Antarctica for two months of research and to film a documentary. She has already been to Antarctica once, to photograph microscopic life forms on the frozen continent. I can’t fathom what an adventure it must be to embark on such a journey, and experience the things that she will experience, not just once, but for the second time!

I know Ariel through a website called Tested, run by former Mythbuster Adam Savage. Mostly a YouTube channel now, Tested has several contributors besides Adam, and at the end of the year, they all share their favorite things from the year. Today, Ariel Waldman shared her favorite things, mostly gear related to her expedition to the snowy southlands.

Part of that sharing was her newsletter that will chronicle her time in Antarctica. It is incredible to me this futuristic age that I live in! I can view livestreams from the edge of space, receive high resolution photos from probes that traverse the solar system, see videos from the surface of comets, read social media from a robot on Mars – and newsletters from one of the final frontiers here on earth – the frozen landscapes of the Antarctic wilderness.

When I was a kid, a long distance phone call still cost extra money. Now, with home internet, which, to be fair, does cost something, I can receive all these things and more on any of my home devices. I am constantly reminding myself that I live in the future I once read about in my science fiction books as a child. Wrist computers, and hand held portals to the world’s knowledge, and astronomical exploration are all so commonplace now it barely moves most people’s needles, but for me, I am mind-boggled and flabbergasted and simply amazed.

I already read the current newsletter, in which Ariel Waldman wrote about being seven days out from arriving at her research station. I can’t wait to read the next. It just struck me that Ariel will spend Christmas in the ultimate winter wonderland, while I will most likely spend it in shirtsleeves here in Texas. But, while the winter months drag on in America, Ariel will be living a dream of mine. I am excited to see how her trip goes, and what challenges she faces, and how she overcomes.

Also: I’m jealous. Ever since, as a young child, I learned about an entire continent that was like the ice planets of LEGO and Star Wars, I wanted to go there. I’ve read about early explorers, and what it is currently like down there, and that has only whetted my appetite. Still, Antarctica isn’t really a tourist destination. It is dangerous, inhospitable, and only really available for researchers, as far as I know. I would love to go as an artist, but I don’t think they would let me take up a valuable spot on an expedition just to explore art where it is really, really cold. Like space, only scientists (well, and billionaires now, I suppose. Sigh.) go there.

I wish Ariel Waldman the best of luck and a terrific time while down in Antarctica. I thank her for putting out a newsletter and letting people like me in on her trek. I will wait eagerly for each new update to land in my inbox. If you would like to receive letters from Antarctica, you can sign up via this link. For myself, I will echo the best of exploratory traditions: “Godspeed, Ariel!”

It Happens

I finally snapped my streak of writing at least twice a month on this blog. In July of 2021, I wrote an incredible eight posts, and ever since have managed two or more. Last month I only wrote one. I am a little sad that I didn’t manage to keep that streak alive longer, but as they say in baseball “a new streak starts today”.

It is once again early morning while I write this, with the sun not yet awake. Why I am awake is a mystery. I wish I could ever figure out my sleeping patterns, or lack thereof, and manage good sleep in my life. Seems not to be. Mostly I do ok, but every so often, I just don’t sleep well. Conscious of bothering my wife with tossing and turning, I get out of bed and come over to the craft room to browse social media or whatnot. Sometimes, like today, I break out my keyboard and write.

What to tell you today? I recently re-watched You’ve Got Mail, the 90’s rom-com with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, and sometimes I feel like the pair of them, writing anonymously to each other. I don’t know who reads this blog, aside from my mother, so I imagine I am writing to a friend, out there in cyberspace, who is waiting to read my words once again. Hello, to you, out there.

I guess what is on my mind is this business of “failure”. Like my streak of writing on my blog, I have failed two other endeavors that I was working on, or meant to: a photography project and a writing project. I had been working through a 52 Week Challenge photographically, in which I would follow a prompt and take a picture every week. For awhile I did so consistently, but then I would fall behind and catch up a few weeks at a time. At present I am six or so weeks behind, and can’t find it within myself to catch up again. I have called time of death on that project, and have set it aside.

Second endeavor is a book that my wife started, on how to write, like a “Couch to 5k” but instead of meters, it’s words. She has wanted me to proofread and punch up the prose, and I meant to do it in the summer, but as I’ve written about, the summer got away from us, and then I meant to do it this fall, but I haven’t, and now it is December. I despair that I shall do it before the holidays, and this year the holidays will be full of family and cheer.

What do I do with failure? First, I don’t see it that way. I am certain I have touched on this before here, but failure or quitting, to me, isn’t a negative. It is simply a status, like at the beginning of a project, or a relationship. I am “it’s complicated” with my endeavors, and so I’ve decided to move from something that has served me before, and isn’t serving me now, to things that will.

There is absolutely no shame in abandoning something that no longer serves. There is all the futility, in fact, in continuing something that will not work. And futility is not something I need in life. Like trying to sleep when I am not somnolent, I go somewhere else and do something else. I may go back to bed at some point, or return to a project, but walking away when restless and finding a state of rest elsewhere is healthy.

I am happy with what I accomplished with the photography project. I took a few photos that I am really pleased with, that delight me, and a few I want to revisit at some point and retake to improve upon. Everything is inspiration to me for future creative projects. With my wife’s book, at this point, I still want to work on it, and the time will come. If she remains patient with me, I will get there, I just don’t know when right now.

I lay aside one, or a few things, and pick up something new. The blog continues today, I will always take pictures, and words flow when words flow. Sleep will embrace me once more, of this I am certain, until the forever sleep that comes for us all eventually blankets me. But I’ve not earned that, so I will stay awake and stay creative.

To you, out there, whoever you are, stay creative and stay healthy. Don’t pursue that which doesn’t serve what you need, and don’t be afraid to say “I failed” or “I quit”. Moving on is healthy, inevitable, and can be invigorating. I’m excited for what will come next for me this weekend, this December, and in the new year 2023.

The Media that Made Me

My dad had a habit of going to the public library and renting VHS tapes and we would watch them together on the weekends. On each tape? Two episodes of the Original Series Star Trek from the late 1960’s. I don’t remember a time before Trek. As I got older, my brother and I would wake up late at night (or was it early in the morning?) to secretly watch re-runs of Star Trek: The Next Generation as it aired on television in the mid-to-late 1990’s.

Star Wars, that grand dystopic space opera, is a film that I don’t remember a Time Before, at least for A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. I always remember having seen those. Return of the Jedi, on the other hand, I didn’t see until I was older, something to do with Carrie Fisher’s gold bikini, I think. The first time I did see it, it was with the first 20 minutes missing, starting as the Millennium Falcon and Luke’s X-Wing soared away from Tatooine. It would take a few years before I would see the beginning of the film. But it, with Empire and Hope, became foundational to who I am today.

Both Star Trek and Star Wars made me who I am, and I never made a conscious choice to watch either one. It is strange to me that I cannot remember a Time Before those galactic adventures. They were just always on, or available, to me. I guess I have my father to thank for a key part of my identity, because it was he who truly loved both, and must have shared them with me. It was my mother who thought them slightly ridiculous, in my memory, and would censor Jedi for the longest time (But I also remember her enjoying them, to a point, so perhaps it was her as much as my dad.)

Other films and shows would be introduced to me by my parents as they discovered them. I remember that they would watch things first, and then if they were good, or acceptable, they would watch them with my siblings and I. Some have become favorites that I, or the family, enjoys today, but none so invasive to my soul as the outer space tales. But why did they grab me so strongly?

For Star Wars, it was the story that captured me. The rise, and fall, and the eventual victory of Luke Skywalker always fired my imagination. His tragedy and triumph, the loss that he experienced, as well as the exotic side characters and locales that he encountered along the way. Star Wars is supreme story telling, in all it’s color, and grime, and reality most of all, despite the fantastic trappings of the story. Star Wars resembles my current earth.

For Star Trek, it is the utopic vision of the future. To this day, there is no world I want to live inside of more (with one exception*) than the pristine Starfleet as a part of the mighty Federation. The sheer hubris of their goodwill, good intentions, and desire to love and accept all, and shepherd all to be their better selves. That is a future I despair of seeing made reality, because, it is at once too perfect, and too distant, as my current earth is too far from becoming. But I believe that it can be, that humanity has the potential to one day not only sail the stars, but to be that good. Star Trek resembles a future earth that I want to inhabit.

There are two other franchises that became central to me, and the first, chronologically, that I encountered was The Lord of the Rings, and later The Hobbit, as helmed by visionary Peter Jackson. My mother certainly did give me JRR Tolkien’s vision of a world from a distant past, as when she heard of the films, she took me straightaway to the library to check out the books first. But simultaneous was my experience with Tolkien’s words and Jackson’s films. The themes, characters, and struggles of Middle Earth hit me when I was beginning my descent into depression, and so often the hardiness of hobbits became my own. If Bilbo could walk the goblin tunnels and spar with Smaug, if Frodo and Sam could march into Gorgoroth, while Merry and Pippin roused the Ents, then I, too, could endure the breaking of my mind. I’ve carried hobbits with me ever since, as an inner source of strength.

Finally, the microcosm that is *Firefly is the only other world I want to live in. I encountered Serenity and Malcom Reynolds when I was at college. A group of friends and I watched the film Serenity, and when I learned it was based on a show, albeit a tragically short one, I immediately found it and watched it over two days. I want to be a crew member aboard Serenity, pulling heists and sharing life, and aiming to misbehave. When I was going through dark times, away from family and friends, I would watch Firefly and it felt like being with friends who were family, and I still feel that way every time I watch through that series. I can’t think of a reason why anyone would want to leave Serenity, once they have boarded her.

I suppose it’s telling that the only prop replicas I possess are Gimli’s axe, Bilbo and Frodo’s Sting, Thorin’s Key to Erebor, Malcom’s pistol, and the Mandalorian’s camtono. I now find it astonishing that I don’t own any Star Trek props, and need to remedy that as soon as possible. But these are the media that made me who I am today: Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Firefly. Other shows and films delight me, and I enjoy them and find meaning in them, but these four are core to my being. I will always love them the most, and never tire of watching them again and again.

We are all amalgams of the media that made us, and I am so glad to have been given such rich treasures as these. After all, humanity has been telling stories from the beginnings of memory, and we all wouldn’t be who we are without stories to tell, to listen to, and to learn from. Stories are humanity’s spirit, I believe, transferred from one generation to the next, to embody the best parts of ourselves for others to take in and manifest.

It is difficult to express further how and why two tv shows and two movies have embedded themselves as strongly as these have. But I am forever who I am because of them entering my life. Two before I ever remember a time without, one because my mother insisted I take it in, and one because I searched it out for myself. I am so glad that I have this media to enjoy, and to remember most of all. For when I think I am alone, I have the familiarity of Serenity; when I think the world is too far gone, I have the hope of the Enterprise; when I struggle, I have the Fellowship; and when I want to overcome, I can jump aboard an X-Wing. A man could do for worse companions in life than Reynolds, Picard, Gamgee, and Skywalker.

Smile Time

Enduring mental health disorders isn’t for the weak. I’ve been diagnosed with at least general depression and anxiety. I’ve talked about both a lot on this blog. I probably have a few other conditions, but I’ve never talked with a psychiatrist, so I don’t know. If you regularly read my blog, or like me just re-read it, I sound a little bi-polar. Whatever is going on in my brain isn’t fun, I’ll tell you that much.

For what it’s worth, I am much better than I used to be ten years ago, or twenty. Then I was undiagnosed, and dealing with so much without the amazing help that is therapy and medication. I would say it is a wonder I made it out of those years alive, but it isn’t a wonder. Sheer force of will and a refusal to succumb to the darkness is what pulled me through. My therapist said on more than one occasion during those years that she was amazed at my fortitude. After all this time, I am finally able to accept her compliment.

Lately I have been mired in an existential quagmire. I feel that nothing will matter, does matter, or could matter. I see death smiling at me from every mirror or windowed reflection. I struggle with feeling like doing anything because nothing seems to matter. Some of this is fueled by the seemingly terrible and precarious position of the world I inhabit, but some is just me being bi-polar/depressed/anxious/whatever. Shaking the feeling is quite difficult.

I am remembering the line from Gladiator, where Maximus is talking to Commodus at the end. “I knew a man who once said ‘Death smiles at us all; all a man can do is smile back’.” I marvel at that as I haven’t much felt like smiling lately, or if I do, it is with dread looking through the smile. Maybe it is because I am thirty-five now, and getting older and more broken down every day. I admit, I know that thirty-five is still quite young, but I am older now than I have ever been – perennially true and inescapable!

Whatever is really going on – early mid-life crisis, mental illness, life – pushing through is the most on brand thing I can do. Better even than smiling back at death, I need to embrace the eventual end for what it is: a final rest. Life is exhausting, yes, but it is meant to be that way, for it is full of joy, pleasure, wonder – full of feelings. A friend recently climbed to the top of a mountain in the bitter cold to take amazing photographs of the dawn from the summit just for the fun of it! That sums up what I mean: life is fun and painful and chilling and amazing all at the same time, and if you do it right, you can walk away with memories and maybe even a photograph.

We recently crossed the thirty-fifth anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation. That show, born the same year I was, has meant a lot to me over the years. I remember a moment from the end of the first TNG film, Generations, where Captain Picard is looking for his photo album, and reflecting on life, and the trouble he has just endured. He says to Commander Riker “Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we’ve lived. After all, Number One, we’re only mortal.” What a comforting insight!

Rather than smile in defiance at death, as Maximus would, I think I will take its hand, and invite it to walk with me as Picard does, not as the Grim Reaper, but as Father Time, a companion, not an adversary. Mental struggles being what they are, it won’t be easy, or even constant, but that is what I hope to do each day. Day is dawning now as I write, and there is much to accomplish. My hope is that I can genuinely smile, full of all that life has brought, cherishing each moment. That, for me, would be living well.

Living the Questions

This feels odd to say, but: I am going to begin a Bible study this coming Tuesday.

If you know nothing of mainstream Christianity, then a lot of what I am about to write may be incomprehensible to you. If, like me, you have always lived a life surrounded and inculcated with God, then what I am about to write may sound very familiar.

I’ve undergone such a journey in my life regarding faith, and religion, and God, and the Bible: I’ve walked away from it all several times and come back a few times. Being a Christian was and was not ever a choice I made. I was born into a Christian family, and a very conservative one at that. Prayers were offered, beliefs re-affirmed, a life was dedicated and re-dedicated to following precepts and “the way one should go” more than once.

I’ve styled myself an atheist, a Jesus-follower, a Christian, and other things. Thirty-five years into living, I don’t much do labels, or even explanations, anymore. Nothing quite seems to fit, define, or include how I feel and think and, yes, believe so I tend to eschew labels altogether.

This whole business of God, of religion, of Christianity is at once simple, and so very complex. It is familiar, and very, very strange. Frightening, and comforting. Growing up, I was taught the tenants of the faith, the evangelical Christian faith, at the same time as I was taught arithmetic, reading, and history. God was so inextricably intertwined with everything that I had no hope of separating anything mean from the Divine. As an older child, and young teenager, I knew all of the answers, the stories, and the Bible back to front and back again.

But cracks began to show, at the seams, the corners, and the low levels of my life. Depression became something that I struggled with, though I did not know what to call it then. Other mental health issues became prominent in my life, manifesting as anger, and behavioral troubles. I desperately didn’t want anything to do with God or religion, but it was such a part of my identity, of everything that I knew and believed about the world, I didn’t know how to let go of it.

Then my family became uber-Christians: missionaries. We left America to travel to another country, in this case: Papua New Guinea, to spread what we believed to the people who lived there. Ironically, it was there that my life of faith exploded. I met more of my peers than I ever had before, and people from many different Christian contexts, that I had my point of view radically altered. Many of my classmates and friends had conflicts similar, or even deeper, to mine. They had Questions about God that I had never encountered before. Or they had perspectives that I didn’t know could exist. Suddenly my answers seemed small and inadequate.

Whiplash. V, a jerk or jolt (to someone or something) suddenly, typically so as to cause injury.

I experienced whiplash to an overwhelming degree when I graduated from my missionary school in Papua New Guinea and returned home to the United States. I attended a very small, very sectarian, and ultra-conservative Bible institute. For two years I fought quite hard to maintain any semblance of a Christian faith at all. Again, I was immersed in conservative religion. I breathed it, ate it, lived it, but only at night when I dreamed was I free of it. The wide horizons I had marveled at a year prior in another land were challenged hourly and almost completely condemned by this place I found myself. I never before was on the outside of something religious, but only the senior administration’s convenience kept me from being kicked out during my second and final year there. My Questions had multiplied to a level beyond reckoning, and I didn’t know what to do.

Upon graduation, I joined my girlfriend who was studying at another university, this time a liberal arts school that was Christian in name and founding, but in persuasion was much more free than anything I had experienced prior, even more so than the high school in Papua New Guinea. There, while studying one of the languages of the Bible, ancient Hebrew, I met a man who would change my life irrevocably. I don’t remember his name, but he was the former campus pastor and current Hebrew scholar. While in his class, learning to read portions of Genesis and other parts of the Bible, he taught me to Live the Questions.

What he meant by that was to develop a life that was comfortable with uncertainty, with ambiguity, and with not knowing. The complete opposite of me as an early teenager who knew everything, me as a young adult knew nothing about the Bible or God. All my answers had evaporated in the past two years. Sure, I heard them often and loudly at the institute, but they rang hollow and empty now. I didn’t know where to turn. My life was un-anchored, adrift, and tossed. Living the Questions was a philosophy that became a safe harbor. Now I could ask questions prolifically, and be ok to not have answers.

If God is everything I was taught he is as a young child, then he should be big enough to handle a few questions from me. He shouldn’t condemn me for being uncertain, unbelieving, or, for the first time in my life, unafraid. I graduated three years later and almost completely gave up God, religion, and faith. Now, twelve years after that, I’ve yet to come back to where I was even in Papua New Guinea. I am still Living the Questions, and I have even more Questions than I ever did before. Answers are what are scarce. The Bible is at once more clear and much more opaque.

Life my professor before me, I want to model a life that Lives the Questions. I would like to introduce anyone who attends my study to this concept and way of looking at the Bible and the Christian world. I am not out to destroy faith, though certainly mine resembles not what I had before leaving my home as an elder teenager. I consider that a Very Good Thing, but not everyone in my life would agree. What I would like to do is introduce a life comfortable with not knowing, and to help dispel the fear that comes from being uncertain about ideas that one has been taught to be certain about. I lived in abject religious terror for seventeen or more years. No more is that true, and most of that is due to learning to Live the Questions.

I’ve taught Sunday School, attended numerous churches, graduated from two faith based colleges, and read the Bible more times than I can count. I have a passing knowledge of Ancient Hebrew, and am well versed in doctrine, tradition, and church history. I am certainly credentialed enough to lead a Bible study, though it remains to be seen if I am qualified. But, come Tuesday, I will once again be leading a Bible study and be back to all the old familiar places, though in a completely different light and way. I will always Live the Questions, and maybe I can teach a few other people how to do that as well.

UPDATE: the Bible study was canceled after just three meetings, two of which were attended only by myself, and the other by four people on purpose. It did not go as planned.

September Sound-Off

I’ve just finished watching Apple’s fall keynote, and if I were a wilderness explorer or pro photographer on a budget, I would be ecstatic about the new Apple product lineup. As I am neither of those things, I found the announcements iterative. That is actually saying a lot, but no one seems to notice anymore.

I remember when the first ever iPhone was announced in 2007. Itself a quantum leap above handheld, and other, computing at the time, here 15 years later with the iPhone 14, the leap forward is objectively jaw-dropping but it has become so routinely predictable as to be merely “iterative”. That doesn’t stop it from being amazing, however. A combination of limited resources and no iPhone 14 Mini will keep me from upgrading (seriously, I don’t want a huge iPhone), but what they offer is still impressive.

In other Apple product news, the AirPods Pro 2 and Apple Watch 8, I have the previous generations of both, so I won’t be upgrading there either, but I do love some of the features of the Apple Watch Ultra, and hope they eventually make their way to a more affordable Apple Watch in the future. At any rate, software is the other half of the hardware picture, and while not directly announced during the keynote, new software updates will be available soon across all products, and that will bring plenty of new features and functionality for free. Color me excited. Speaking of which, put me down for an eventual Starlight iPhone. While not exactly white, it bespeaks Apple Classic to me, and when I finally upgrade my blue iPhone 12 Mini, I want something classic.

To a product I did purchase just about two months ago: my mattress. It has been a great upgrade from the old one we had (now gone in bulk trash pickup). My wife and I both enjoy sleeping and lounging on it, as does our dog Cassie. It is comfortable and supportive, and were it any more of either, it would be a fantastic therapist. Anyway, I am just happy to have something that doesn’t sag and destroy my back each night I sleep. I am ready to call it worth the funds we spent on it.

Speaking of spending money, our new water heater has been doing exactly what it should, and without complaint, and all’s well as ends well there, I suppose. The summer is becoming fall, in season if not in weather in north Texas, and with it things seem to almost be settling back down from the Week of Hell I spoke of awhile back. Football season starts on Sunday, the baseball playoffs begin in a few weeks, and I’ve already decorated for Fallowe’en. Almost. I’ve yet to create a painting I want to use for the final decoration. Fear of not fulfilling my vision keeps me from beginning that project, but it is a fear I think I will soon overcome.

Keeping a reading journal has got me reading a few nights a week now, and I’ve almost finished reading Dune (Frank Herbert) and am already contemplating starting something by JRR Tolkien or maybe Shoeless Joe (WP Kinsella). I am not sure, but am super glad that reading is once again part of my life. I’ve missed diving into a book, even if only for about 30 minutes a day. A far cry from when I could read for hours, but reading is reading and I won’t gatekeep myself.

I watched Dune the other night, the latest version by Denis Villeneuve, and with one or two quibbles, it remains a fantastic adaptation of the first part of the book. I eagerly await the next chapter in the film series. I still have other shows and films I want to view, but I’m in no rush.

What was a rush was finally buying a new LEGO set: Obi-Wan’s Jedi Starfighter from Star Wars: Episode II. I owned the first version that came out many years ago, and this updated construction is a worthy improvement in many ways. I enjoyed the build, and it looks great on my LEGO shelf next to the AT-AT Walker from Star Wars: Episode V. I realized two things: one, I didn’t have any sets representing Attack of the Clones, and two, for too long I was considering LEGO only as something I could photograph, and not something I could enjoy for its own sake. Buying this set was all of the second and none of the first, and it brought pleasure on that level. I look forward to my next builds, which should arrive tomorrow (what could they be??).

Tomorrow is another day, and I am looking forward to living it exuberantly, which may be a challenge. My wife’s income varies due to the nature of her work, and this month was lower than expected, which puts paying bills and affording necessities at a bit of puzzle to be solved. However, considering what we’ve been through and how big needs have been met this past summer, I think we will be ok. But it is still scary to look at a new month and wonder how we will, in fact, make it through. As Sam Gamgee would say “Let’s just make it down the hill, for starters.”

That catches me up from July to September in things I have been writing about. It has been an eventful few months, and the rest of the year looks to be no different, though I do hope it will be calmer overall. I am looking forward to the holiday season in 2022, and what it, too, may bring. Today has been a relatively good day, despite the bit of bad news this morning regarding income, but for now I’m settling down with a baseball game between my Cleveland Guardians and the Kansas City Royals. Go Guards!

The Years of Living Exuberantly

Oddly, after my last post, I feel energized. I discussed not being able to choose what to do, and while that problem persists, I do not want to be bogged down anymore and miss out on enjoying life. I want these to be my years of living exuberantly. I want to embrace what I have before me, and not worry about what I can’t do.

I am done with my own internal gate-keeping that says watching tv is wasting time. Lately I’ve been telling myself “I don’t want to waste this evening watching tv” but it doesn’t follow that a few hours of good television is time wasted. There is, of course, moderation, but taking time to immerse myself in good storytelling is not a waste, any more than reading a book is a waste. And the truth is, I miss watching a good tv show or movie. I think I will actually draw up a list of what I am wanting to see and plan times to watch things.

My parents and my sister recently added three new dogs, collectively, to their families. That brings their total to five in one house. At the time, my heart said “that’s so awesome” and my mind went “but…but…is that wise?” In the end, the more the merrier. Embrace the messiness of sometimes doing the unexpected, the un”wise”, and the silly, and if you want to live with five dogs, live with five dogs. Who cares? In the end, my nieces will have some furry companions and my family will have some fun. Will there be frustrations, headaches, and growing pains? Yeah, but, so what? Those pains will always be there, but now so too the sheer exuberance of pups galore. Honestly, my house and yard isn’t quite big enough, but if it was, I might get in on the fun and adopt another dog and bring my count to three.

Soon I will decorate for fall and Hallowe’en. Around north Texas, where I live, it is still hot as blazes, but enough with the noise that says it has to feel like a traditional autumn season in order to enjoy some fall decor. I will put up my fake maple leaves, my jack’o’lanterns, and some fun stuff and enjoy the season. It may be 85F-95F still, but I’ll eat a pumpkin cookie nonetheless! And then when it is time, I will decorate for Christmas and enjoy the 70Fs until it gets kinda cold in January. I won’t let the weather rob my joy.

This year, holiday plans are up in the air still. Do we stay home? Go visit family? Part of me wants to take time and go explore someplace with my wife. Just a few days and our car and the open road, then a quiet cabin and reflection. That to me sounds really relaxing and quite fun right about now.

Speaking of October and November, it will soon be time for playoff baseball. I think I will purchase a subscription to YouTubeTV or something similar so I can watch the postseason. It may cost a bit, and seem frivolous, but its my favorite part of the baseball season, and I want to enjoy the magic and see which team makes a run for the World Series.

I have this dream of visiting all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums, and this year, I won’t get to a new one, and while I am sad about that, I am not going to despair. Instead, I will plan my next trip all the more fervently. Arizona? Colorado? Atlanta? St. Louis? I don’t know where I will head next, but I am excited already to go and experience what is out there. I was taking time to visit a city or region, go to a ballgame, and also go to museums and parks and explore that team’s environment. I want to get back to that idea. There is so much to see and experience, and I don’t want to miss it!

Timidity and fear have invaded my mind and my soul. Cautious living has been my state of affairs, always worrying about what disaster might come next, like a car repair or a household appliance replacement, but in the past, those things have been handled one way or another. Life also needs living. I am not saying I will spend all my money on frivolities, but neither will I put off living to save all my pennies. In the end, that way is sadness and I will have done nothing along the way. I refuse to be someone who spends life not living.

Lately I’ve been thinking a bit nihilistically, wondering “what is the point of X if I am just going to be dead and gone in another XX years anyway” and really, what bleak universe did I jump into? Yes, death comes for us all, but spending the time I have exuberantly before it leaves me is part of the point of life itself. Get out and see the world! Paint a stormtrooper! Take a picture! Read a book; watch a movie! Live, for living’s sake!

When I’m gone, a mathom house can have my stuff, or someone else can have fun with it. It’s not like I’ll need it anymore, but I will have curated a collection for another, like Andy passing along Buzz and Woody to a new kid in Toy Story 3. I want to be Andy, enjoying my toys, and then letting the next person play with them. There is all the right in that.

So what comes next? I am not quite sure yet, but I can’t wait to see what it will be. I think I may enjoy a burrito from Chipotle and then watch a movie. Part of the fun is not quite knowing what is in the minute to follow this one. Whatever happens, I am going to try to enjoy it. Someone once said that life is dirty, and it hurts, but it also feels really, really good. I want to embrace that philosophy to the fullest. Otherwise, I really am wasting my time, and that I won’t do!

Choices

It may be a neurodivergent trait, but I often find it hard to choose what to do. I have no shortage of activities waiting for me to pick up and enjoy.

I have four television shows I want to watch: Ms Marvel, She-Hulk, Sandman, and The Orville. I have many movies on my list, including the new Prey, Grey Man, and a few others. As far as reading, I am trying to read a few books: still struggling to finish Dune by Frank Herbert, which I started over a year ago, and Still Just A Geek by Wil Wheaton. I want to re-read Every Tool’s A Hammer by Adam Savage, and have a few others on my bookshelf that I haven’t read yet.

I would like to paint a few action figures, and create some more diorama pieces for my action figure photography. Many canvases litter the craft room, waiting for paint. There is a project for my nieces I have yet to start (shh, it’s a secret). I have other ideas I haven’t even explored.

I have podcasts unlistened to; a book unfinished that needs to be edited and then completed; a blog on which to write. The trouble? I am often struck still by the choices. Which do I start? What do I do? How do I choose one over the other? What do I put off, what do I start now? Most times it seems there is too much to do, other times it seems I just don’t know which direction to go. Occasionally, I dismiss most ideas one after the other and end up with nothing left after five minutes. I sit about and play Scrabble on my iPad or just endlessly refresh social media.

If this is neurodivergency, I don’t know how to overcome it. If it is depression, I don’t know how to dispel it. Lethargy? Something else?

Adam Savage, one of my muses, has said before that when he doesn’t know what to do he cleans his shop, just to gain momentum, and then once he has started to do that, he usually has figured out what to do next, or what to work on. A few times that has actually worked for me, and tonight I simply opened the WordPress app on my iPad. I had the first line of this entry on my mind, but nothing else. I’ve just kept typing and have arrived here.

Sometimes, though, that doesn’t work at all. My craft room isn’t untidy because I haven’t used it. Nothing is out of place. If it feels as if I am making excuses, I am not trying to, but it isn’t like I can pick up a broom and start sweeping the carpet. A few times I have gone and sat down on my spinny chair and just looked at my easel, my action figures, my paints, and whatever else just to see if something strikes me. A few times something says “work with me” and sometimes I just spin in a circle.

Frustration mounts and I still don’t start anything. I don’t have a permanent solution. To reading, I have begun a reading journal. I write down the date, the time, the book, and the page numbers just to track what I read when. That has worked three out of four nights in the past week, so that may be an impetus to get me reading again. I wonder if I should create a calendar: Mondays for baseball/tv/movies, Tuesdays for writing, Wednesdays for podcasts, Thursdays for crafts and painting? But what do I do if I can’t engage in that evening’s task, just sit there? I don’t know.

What gets you going, when you don’t know which of several great choices to choose? What sparks your creativity? What gets you out of the fog and into the clear light of day? These aren’t rhetorical questions, if you have answers, do feel free to share them. Otherwise, I am going to keep contemplating what I can do to help myself out of the mire. Tonight I took a nap, something I almost never do in the evening. Well, nap is a bit of a misnomer. I reclined with my CPAP mask on and closed my eyes and let my mind drift. I could breathe easy, and just bounce from thought to thought. It ended up being refreshing, and I’ve even managed to write a little something. Tonight I’ll call good.

Which is the other little thing I’ve learned to do: celebrate the small victories. Even a diminutive accomplishment is what Adam Savage would call “forward momentum” and success really can breed success. I at least have a feeling of satisfaction at the end of the night, and that feels good. Today, I really had that sluggishness of mind. But a little, what, meditation?, and then I wrote something. Boom. A little success, a little dopamine (is that the correct brain chemical?) and I’m feeling better than I was an hour or so ago.

I’ve written about this before, but the fact is I am able to do more and more than I used to be able to, and and each time I spend less and less time in the doldrums. That itself is encouraging. So I suppose if I am saying anything with all this it is: don’t give up on yourself and find a way to move in any direction. Once you are moving, you can change directions more easily, and you’ll always end up somewhere else. If you don’t move? You’ll stay exactly where you are and grow old there. I’d rather go somewhere, and any way I can get moving I’ll take.