Nouveau Scarecrow

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Zombies

There is much in the world that horrifies.

Many people consciously seek out those things that frighten them most. It can be cathartic to face down these fears in order to work out the wrinkles in our emotional fabric. Witness the accelerated enthusiasm of late for the horror genre.

Still the most horrifying things are those outside the realm of fiction and film.

I know that in Japan there is a reverence for the elderly. This Asian culture relies on a deep and abiding respect for the mature and the aged.  Not so much here in the west.

I know any number of older people — energetic, vital, personable people — who have told me time and again that when they walk down the street they are invisible. People look right through them as though they didn’t exist. In the busy-ness of my own day, I have been guilty of this as well.

The same is especially true of the homeless and indigent who humbly implore us for help. Or food. Or work. Even a bit of acknowledgement or recognition. We have become quite practiced at avoiding these animated walkers, shufflers and stumblers — the breathing dead.

Many years back, my daughter was being annoyed at school by a boy who simply wouldn’t leave her alone. When she asked for my advice, I told her to ignore him. She said that wouldn’t work because he never stopped. And then I told her something I probably shouldn’t have.

“Sweetheart, there’s something you need to know about boys — and men, for that matter. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is more humiliating and soul-crushing than to be utterly and completely ignored. Trust me, this boy is pestering you to get a reaction. Deny him that reaction, and there’s no payoff. No payoff, he’ll go elsewhere and annoy someone else.”

She took the advice to heart and it worked. She can be a fine actress and she simply behaved as though he truly was completely invisible. She looked right through him. Cut him off mid-sentence to laugh and talk with her friends. Total and complete blackout. The kid ended up feeling so foolish he avoided her for the rest of his school life.

The problem — once we realize we actually have the ability to make people invisible, it opens the door to abuse.

The saddest part is that we all possess the power to deny another human being the precious acknowledgement that they exist. As a socially-dependent culture, this crucial connection to other human beings is a lifeline. This fearsome power we hold over others is abused all too often.

The sluggish, dispirited shuffle of a homeless person reaching out to us on the street can feel zombie-ish and may be one of the reasons zombie films have become so outrageously popular in the last 40 years. Our secret, subliminal wish to do away with this broadly expanding portion of the populace could easily have manifested itself in a fever to erase a similarly unattractive group of creatures in horror stories and film.

Have we really become so disconnected with our fellow beings that our blank stares and dismissive behavior of them has turned us into some of the walking dead as well?

As we navigate our lives in the world each day, there are heartbeats and heartbreaks moving among us. A simple and inexpensive antidote to this epidemic of apathy is a bit of a smile to a face that clearly needs it. Lest we forget that the smile we force for another originates on a face that likely needs it most.

Zombies are real enough. I see them everywhere. And the best way to end the epidemic is to kill them with kindness.

I have always found genuine humanity to be quite infectious.

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Yet

Up ahead, through the forest, behind the mist, and beyond the darkness… is the future.

It is very much in the province of optimism to believe that whatever comes along, it will come with opportunity. It’s as natural to rely on that certainty as it is to trust that when we draw breath there will be air to fill our lungs.

We count on opportunity, otherwise we would have no reason to live. And yet…

I love the word “yet”. It is utterly aromatic with possibility. It can turn a conversation in any number of directions.

The simple use of it twists the intent of a commonplace remark toward the dark abode of disappointment or the luminous realm of noble intent. There is no tedious middle ground with “yet”. It’s a conversation turner.

Literally taken, it can mean so far, despite, up to now, eventually, or in time. While it has been employed with negative connotations, my favorite use of the word “yet” represents an optimistic outlook:

“He wrecked his car, and yet he walked away without a scratch.” Or “Healing is a matter of time, yet it can also be a matter of opportunity.”

“Yet” is no mere literary device — it is the magical moment when steel meets flint and a single microscopic spark ignites a conflagration. It introduces a turn of fortune or lends a positive spin to any situation. There’s a promise of emotion built into it. Grammatically speaking, I can think of no single syllable brimming with more promise and more hope to fuel the drama of our imaginations, which are always inspired by challenge.

Were it not for our challenges, there would be no opportunity for us to overcome them. Exceptional innovations have sprouted from the nastiest of difficulties. To me the word “yet” will always represent opportunity — the door still unopened, the adventure not quite begun.

In its best usage it can be the sunny signpost on the path to everything hopeful.

The fine Russian novelist Boris Pasternak touched on the subject most eloquently — “When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, yet it is very easy to miss it.”

Too many times have I reacted to that heartbeat of opportunity with trepidation. I try to remind myself that every uplifting consequence in my life blossomed from a decision to go for love instead of fear. Fear is the scoundrel here. Always will be. How much in my life have I missed out on simply because of the fear of missing out?

“Yet” is the briefest of adverbs. A very small word. There is real power, yearning, and magic it its grasp when utilized by a master raconteur or writer.

Without the shining optimism and promise of expectation this little word adds to my work, I think it would be an effortless thing to drift into despair.

And yet, …

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X Marks the Spot

Left center breast, heart thudding in a panic.

However many saddened souls decry its effect, there is no defying the truth of its power when love comes to call.

Whatever I say here is high grade, raw and unretouched experience. And still I know not a damned thing about it. I’ve come close to love a couple of times but not like the advertising promotes.

The negatarians push their crusty philosophy that it’s not a lack of affection, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. While both are quite necessary for pheromones to play power politics with the heart, they remain two halves of the same whole. To imply that either friendship or affection alone is responsible for a happy outcome is to discount a vast combination of additional variables. It’s like saying carbon and hydrogen alone make up the earth. But there are 102 other elements involved here, guys. And those are just the ones we know about.

In other words, it’s way more complicated than just two emotional elements — I’m talkin’ to you, Mr. Nietzsche.

There is as much charm as foolishness required for love. As much reason as whimsy, stupidity as sex appeal, grandeur as groveling, and as much patience as rage. Every single blessed one of these gestures of insecure pride are mandatory for the fully realized romantic encounter to take flight.

And what a glorious defiance of gravity it can be. The first blush of love is the thunderous and showy confidence of a roman candle responding to a single desperate flare gun sending a stream of sparks through the night.

Love defies reasonability itself. That’s why the term “romantic comedy” is itself the redundancy of the ages.

I personally am nothing special. I am a singular, unattached mass of intuition who bears no more evidence of these beliefs than the tightly clenched knot of scar tissue in my torso.

And yet it beats.

With hope.

Hope that one day very soon these throbbing little beats of expectation will be met with a perfectly reflective drumming — the sympathetic pulse of another. Yes, dear ones, unlike love, optimism is a more definable, defendable virtue but I’m not prepared to get into that here. Let us simply agree that hope is a happy, healthy puppy and love is a multi-tentacled mythical creature that would confuse the hell out of Medusa.

As Robert Fulghum asserted, “We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness — and call it love — true love.”

Scripture speaks of love being patient and kind. I believe this is true but also radically truncated. For love is many, many more indefinable things. It is cruelly timid, embraceably wicked, fearless, cunning and vain. Love is the substance of so many contradictions that it is impossible to define it singularly for any two people. But for each of us we know too well its powers over us personally.

As the years accumulate I hear more and more loudly the ticking of my watch. I readily wish for complete vulnerability and the absolute fabrication that is romantic alchemy. I secretly seek the unreasonably impossible, with much the same confidence that a six-year-old child trusts in the truth of buried pirate treasure. Fool that I am, I will always invest myself in the mystical belief that X marks the spot.

Now if only I could find a reliable compass.

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Wit

I love it when people speak of things about which they know nothing. My heartiest laughter comes from the commentary of those who are most hilariously mistaken.

It’s rather like looking in a mirror.

In 1984 when I was working in radio, I had the great good fortune to spend one illuminating hour interviewing the acclaimed author of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” Douglas Adams. He was a supremely tall, large-boned, baby-faced gentleman with a quiet sort of unassuming demeanor who spoke in a tone of comradely mischief. He thoroughly enjoyed the lies he told for a living and relished that so many held them dear.

He was kindly tolerant of me in that, at the time, I was wholly unfamiliar with his work but not his reputation. Once again, it was I who was speaking of things I knew not and, as it turned out, I was doing so in the company of a man who felt very much the same about himself, the difference between us being Mr. Adams made a handsome living doing so, and with confidence.

We hit it off well.

We found kinship in our mutual backgrounds in radio. It was his original work with BBC Radio 4 that led to the “Hitchhiker” books. He agreed to turn his original radio series into a book . And then another, and another, and another. And, after being hounded by his publisher for many months to deliver his latest volume, was finally commanded to “Just send what you have.”

Adams described how he had been writing this last manuscript on his Mac computer and had laid it out himself with a font and format of his own devising. In total compliance he simply stopped typing in mid chapter and shipped the little floppy disc off to his publisher. This fellow promptly and unceremoniously sent it straight away to the printer who set, bound, and shipped the book without so much as a how-do-you-do or a spell-check. “And that’s why the book ends so abruptly”, he said almost apologetically.

Apparently Mr. Adams had set down enough of the story to warrant the continued adulation of his followers, who are no doubt still legion. This being the fourth “Hitchhiker” book in his series, and another two-book series behind him, he vowed, “One day I shall try to write a three-book trilogy.”

Although he did manage a few years later to add a fifth volume to the “Hitchhiker” series.

He possessed a delightful even-tempered confidence that comes only from success mixed with shrugs of genuine humility. A more pleasant, personable, and good natured fellow one could never hope to meet — at least I never hoped to.

Here was a person of immense popularity, upon whom his considerable celebrity appeared to have little or no import. Rather his most sincere interest seemed to reside in people. The man simply wanted to share your company and had more questions about you than you might muster about him. He treated me as more than an equal; in fact I was almost as a guest. What a charming and amiable host he became.

When I am offered definitions of the word “wit”, to this day I cannot summon any image before that of this dearly deft Englishman who happily welcomed me under his umbrella of celebrity that day some twenty-nine years ago.

I have read the works of many pithy writers, and some with nary any pith at all, but none holds so fond a place in my heart as the wit of Douglas Adams.

Guided solely by prejudice, I am only left to offer you the wit and whimsy of the great man himself in the form of his considerable quotations:

“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” (Douglas Adams)

“He hoped and prayed that there wasn’t an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn’t an afterlife.”  (Douglas Adams)

“He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” (Douglas Adams)

“Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.” (Douglas Adams)

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” (Douglas Adams)

“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.” (Douglas Adams)

“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.” (Douglas Adams)

“You live and learn. At any rate, you live.” (Douglas Adams)

And finally, a quote I am happy to say he unleashed on me during the course of our interview:

“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don’t know the answer.” (Douglas Adams)

At the conclusion of our 60 minutes together I declared that this had been the most delightful six hours I’d ever spent and Mr. Adams laughed out loud. He gave me his home address in London and asked me to write. I regret that I never did since I always felt I would have nothing noteworthy to report.

In 2000 I moved to Los Angeles and had no idea Douglas Adams had moved stateside and was just an hour and half north of me in Santa Barbara. On May 11th the next year I cried when I heard he had died.

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Voice

That which is inside the soul must find its way out. For every one of us, expression is a dire and deep desire.

Some constrain it, allowing it to become anger or disappointment, while others cannot contain themselves and sing like nobody’s business.  Many dread to express themselves for fear of being thought the fool. And just as many loose their feelings on the world, embracing foolishness in all its cockeyed glory.

With age our voice finds reason in a variety of forms. But to me the voices of children are the most beautiful of all. To speak out with innocence, candor, and the spontaneous purity of expression is a gift I wish we could all have held onto into our adult years. Never were we more genuine than when we spoke in our youth.

I cringe still when I think back on all the archaic utterances of grown ups who snapped, “Children should be seen and not heard.”

Beyond being callously dismissive, there is hardened cruelty in such a remark. The damage it does to children is immeasurable.

Our voice finds expression in behavior as well as words. Some of the most beautifully eloquent people I have ever known made the very best use of their silence to demonstrate the finest emotions.

For the most part, as true human beings, we need the nuance, warmth, tenor and tone of another person’s voice.

Finally there are the little voices. The whispers that are privy to none but you. Sometimes they terrify and fill you with doubt. But if you listen to the sound of your own voice, your inner voice, you can rise above doubt and judgment.

A few years back, a very dear friend who was a raconteur, singer and performer was about to undergo throat surgery. His vocal cords were his life and there was a distinct probability that this procedure might well leave him mute. In sympathy for his terror and anguish at going under the surgeon’s knife, I composed a bit of verse for him. It goes like this:

A VOICE
(© 2013 Michael J. Cahill)

A voice —
A fertile, fragile thing
It makes to laugh
It makes to sing

It calls the dog
It greets a friend
Its tone can brighten
Or offend

It brings to life
The charm, the wit
Occasionally
The idiot

It makes mistakes
It makes amends
It gets a face slapped
Now and then

But what’s important
In he end
One’s truest voice
Comes from within

A clownish dance
A comic pose
Your underwear
Outside your clothes

An understanding
Nod or stare
A sparkling smile
A poem, a prayer

So fear not
To be absent of
That voice I have
Come best to love

The voice that best
A friend defines
Is found between
The spoken lines
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By the way, my friend survived the surgery handsomely.

And now he won’t shut up. C’est la vie.

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Useful

A year ago a close friend was lamenting the suicide of her 16-year-old nephew. In his crushing despair, the boy had hanged himself. “What a waste”, my friend said. “When my time comes, I hope that my death isn’t in vain.”

No one among us was ever meant to experience a merely commonplace life. Just getting by is not being alive — it is poverty.

I agree it is difficult to identify what we’re intended to do. But I do know in my bones that every living thing needs a sense of purpose or it cannot survive.

I am reminded of some Native American cultures where an elder who has been identified as someone beyond their purpose simply wills themselves to die. And when I worked for the railroad many years ago, I recall countless older engineers who simply lived for their work. But, one after another, when they were forced into retirement at 65, within a week or two of leaving their service, these perfectly healthy men were dead.

For human beings, purpose is everything.

And just making money, kids, is not a purpose and has precious little to do with the quality of any life. I laugh at the bumper stickers that read, “Whoever dies with the most toys wins.” Just try taking those toys with you or cashing them in for a family that loves you.

Monetary gain is the ideal deceiver of a person’s true worth. The sticker should read: “Whoever dies with the most toys is still dead.”

So what’s the secret? How do we discover our true north? Well, ask yourself this one question: “What would I do if I wasn’t afraid?”

When you finally arrive at an answer that makes sense of this question, then you will have found your life’s purpose.

While that discovery is no easy feat, of course, that new information becomes your jumping off point to greater things. Ralph Waldo Emerson held that, “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”

Examining the fears that hold us back is key to identifying our purpose. Personally I have known the pain of loss. Without that knowledge I’d have no compassion for others.

All of us have a place in history. Whatever happens to even the smallest among us becomes a resource. Our humiliations, misfortunes, losses and gains — these are our contributions to a history of mankind.

When people tell me they’re unhappy, my first reaction is that only people with no purpose are unhappy.

I contend that what I am living for and what I would die for are really the same question. When I reach the end of my days and look back, I will know if my life had purpose by one simple measurement — whether I have lived in despair or not. If I have followed my heart, then I trust that I will have found and fulfilled a purpose. Hopefully a noteworthy one.

The final measure of a person’s sense of purpose hasn’t so much to do with where we are but rather in what direction we are headed. One of my favorite definitions of devotion is this: Love is not two people looking into each other’s eyes. It is two people traveling in the same direction.

That communal sense of forward momentum holds in itself a glorious sense of purpose. If we are only meant to just be there for one other person — for some that is purpose enough. I know personally many folks who are worth it.

Passion is your finest barometer for your purpose. Whatever it is in this life that excites you to do your best work, let it lead you to your purpose.

My friend’s lament that her nephew may have died in vain made me wonder about the absence of purpose in his life.

For me the greater sin would be to have lived in vain.

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Restraint

In our youth the best of our teachers encourage us to reach for the stars. Still others caution that a man’s reach should not exceed his grasp. Personally I am all for star reaching, otherwise heaven no longer seems possible.

I believe we should be guided by our goals, to be strong and push ourselves into the world with enterprise and audacity.

But all ambition aside, where is the wisdom in relying solely on the forceful thrust of unbridled drive and forward momentum? None of us wants to come across as the proverbial 800 pounds of angry pot roast gracelessly slamming through a china shop. A degree of restraint is wise in every endeavor, professional and personal.

Police actions have much to learn from the tragedy at Kent State. Anyone in a position of power owes as much of their leadership ability to strength as they do to a coolness of temperament. When strength is moderated with restraint, civility invariably prevails.

My daughter has remarked that she is drawn to bad boys, though it hasn’t always worked out to her advantage. I would offer the best kind of bad boy attitude would be one of potential. If the potential were the dominant factor, then perhaps the restraint behind it would carry the sex appeal. There’s something alluring in the awareness of someone’s danger and intensity while trusting they have the self-possession not to act on it.

It breaks my heart that few of her bad boys have possessed that restraint.

I agree that balance is very much the fundamental factor in deciding between discretion and zeal. A charitable organization asks why we do not give in all directions? Might it be for fear of losing ourselves? As Henry Miller noted, “Until we lose ourselves, there is no hope of finding ourselves.”

On the other hand, I have to smile at Mae West’s observation that, “I like restraint — if it doesn’t go too far.”

Of course the old adage still applies — that the secret to being a colossal bore is to tell everything. One of my favorite authors, Orson Scott Card, said, “Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken.”

Though a sparing tongue will serve you well, the human heart has only so much wisdom when it comes to what to say — or more importantly, whether to say it at all.

I hesitate to offer advice to anyone when it comes to matters of the heart. But I did write this poem as a cautionary tale to myself that restraint is a scalpel and a sword with the power to both heal and harm.

UNSAID
(© 2013 Michael J. Cahill)

Benny Beluga
Thought brevity nice
If he queried you once
He would never ask twice

Bonnie Belinda
Was painfully shy
Though she wanted to speak
She would let it go by

When Benny met Bonnie
They both felt the same
That Beluga-Belinda
Would make a nice name

But Bonnie and Benny
Were never to wed
Though they both loved each other
It was always… unsaid

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Quintessence

Art is merely perception that challenges existing concepts in a novel fashion.

Okay, then.

Now, I don’t really know what that means but it sounds vaguely artsy. I find it difficult to engage in such broad generalizations. If you want to sell me on a concept I much prefer specifics. Details.

And context. Context carries with it all the importance in the world.

For example, if you were to say to me, “It is better to create than to learn. Creating is the essence of life”, I’d probably think that was an okay bumper sticker.

However, if you then told me that particular quote is by Julius Caesar — well, stop the presses, kids!

This from the guy who created tens of thousands of corpses and oppressed entire nations to build a massive empire, but never learned not to kill people in the process?

Okay, he did give us aqueducts. Hats off for the aqueducts. But otherwise the ludicrous nature of this quote makes it hilarious once you know who said it.

Giving it context makes all the difference.

Einstein was more pithy and succinct: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Now that’s a bumper sticker. Knowing its author really adds gravitas to the words, especially if his picture is on it.

For me the essence of the creative act is a dismissal of all rules save one: Integrity. We are drawn to the creative act because it is so telling of our deepest and most hidden truths.

It is monumentally difficult to create. Most people are stifled by the intimidation of it all. And for those who try and fail, it can be more dispiriting than mere defeat. It is a theft of all enthusiasm that amounts to a wringing out of the soul.

And yet those are the people I admire most. Because they tried.

The ones who continue to try, and then try again and again — those with longing in their bones who open their veins and investigate the depths and still seem to come up dry. Their expression may not discover an audience but it makes their effort no less valuable and their art no less sincere.

I have a weakness for the tryers because I’m of the same cloth. Nothing takes more time or effort or blood or madness or bouts of screaming frustration than trying. No other crushing of the spirit can match the deadening heartbreak of standing in the shadow of true creativity and feeling empty handed.

And still the tryers try.

I do admire them.

They move among us. They’re our neighbors, friends, and dear ones, ever longing for fruitful expression.

That very hunger is the quintessence of art and it drives every creative soul.

Though we may rarely recognize the bloom they have labored to produce, I take heart in the words of A. A. Milne who noted,… “Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.”

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Pray

It is commonly presumed that only people of faith have a deep connection with prayer. But the act of meditative communication should not be shoehorned into the box of religion. Our minds needn’t be spiritually inclined to benefit from the thoughtful act of one human being reaching out to the universe in some indefinable manner that brings ease and comfort in a weary world.

Exercise and traditional meditation may adhere to structure, posture and discipline, which are wonderful in and of themselves. But to be by oneself and settle the mind into a hopeful state, simply asking for a bit of relief, a sliver of help – this requires no training or association with anyone other than oneself.

I have had my doubts about God, like everyone who is honest about their faith. It’s actually an important part of wrestling with that whole human-and-deity relationship. It’s healthy to question in search of reason. Some of the most devoted, loving and spiritually inclined folks I’ve ever met are simply not convinced there’s anything out there. On occasion I can be one of them.

And still, whether you believe in God or not, praying is one of the finest things we can do for ourselves. Because as people we are not meant to handle everything alone. My pastor says that a Christian life is a life lived in community. I agree it’s important for us to rely on others, not only for social interaction but for a frame of reference to whether what we’re doing in our lives is the best we can manage for ourselves. Another person can comfort you, hold you responsible to yourself, or offer some insight that guides you back to where you wanted to go in the first place.

Community is good. Relying on others is good. But when we’re feeling wounded and in need of peace and solace, there are few things within our grasp that can top a bit of prayerful time alone. 

One of the very coolest things about praying is you can do it anywhere and without adult supervision. There is no wrong way to pray.

For me the most important thing about it is this — prayer is no more dependent on religion than our need to eat is dependent upon where we dine. One is a need – the other a convenience. The thing that facilitates a need should never be confused with the need itself.

There’s an old saying that goes, “Religion is for those who don’t want to go to hell. Faith is for those who have been there.”

Isolation is never good. Reaching out is one of the most human things we do. If there is nobody around when this need arises, I never feel I am alone. Somewhere in the spiraling void around us is a heart that will listen.

And isn’t that all any of us really wants anyway — to know that we’ve been listened to?

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Outlook

“How the hell do you stay so optimistic?”

When a comment like that hits you from out of left field, it takes a few minutes to get your bearings.

“Damn, I didn’t realize I was.”

I’ve always pictured myself as having a somewhat pissy attitude. I tend to become irritated at the smallest things, something I’ve always known about myself and never liked. Since I’m still recovering from years of abusive Catholic guilt, I suppose my awareness of it has me constantly checking myself to be sure I’m not offending anyone. Who wants to be around someone in a constant sour mood? I certainly don’t.

Maybe it’s not optimism people notice in me but rather an overcompensation for my guilt at being a jerk and then masking the behavior before anyone notices. Jesus, whose brain works that fast just to not be noticed?

Damned Catholic school.

My mother’s experience with the nuns back in the 1930’s and 40’s was idyllic so it’s understandable that she would want the same for her children.

My father was exceedingly good at his job and every couple of years was promoted and transferred so we moved a lot. We never had money but my parents worked extra hard to provide the best they could manage and always scraped together money to make sure my five sisters, two brothers and I had a superior education.  We went to Catholic school.

Or rather they went — I did time.

I’m not saying all Catholic schools are bad — just the five I went to.

I can only blame so much of my angst on school though. When I was 22 and out on my own, I was complaining, as always, to a dear friend about the fact that I was so bad with money, always bouncing checks, because my parents never taught me how to balance a checkbook. My friend, Skip, told me I was an idiot.

“If they didn’t provide you a skill you need, okay, maybe they’re at fault a little. But once you realize you’re deficient in that skill and you take no action to change that situation then your parents are no longer guilty of that sin. You are the only one responsible for your own shortcomings. So shut the hell up and quit blaming them.”

Boy, I sure got told. He said it with love of course. But the truth really stings when you’re left with no recourse other than to admit, “Yup. I’m an idiot.”

I’m still not that great with finances. But I know now it’s not my parent’s fault.

If you don’t like your experience, it’s up to you to change it. So I insinuated myself into the company of people whom I most admired. Those I wanted to be like.

Nice people. Good people. People who don’t hit you. People who don’t spend their resources recklessly.

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve heard lately is that, to be happy, don’t spend your money on things — spend it on experiences. They enrich the soul.

I firmly believe we are all a product of our experience. If you want to be rich, hang out with rich folks. If you want to be funny, hang out with comedians. If you want to be a writer, spend time with other writers. And if you want to be happy, seek out the pleasant folks who aren’t so busy trying to be rich or funny.

One day eight years ago my wife, in a hail of tears, stated it was unfair that I seemed happy when she was so miserable. And her misery was my fault because it was my job to make her happy and I wasn’t doing my job.

You must understand that I’m a pleaser. I derive great enjoyment from doing for others and putting them at ease. It’s my fun in life. But this was the first time anyone ever told me that it was my job.

I don’t care at all for confrontation but I told her, “Sweetheart, it’s not my job or anyone’s job to make you happy. You are the only person in this world who can make you happy. It’s a conscious choice. It isn’t visited on you like a gift or something you can find. You must decide to be happy, despite all the anger and misery. If you don’t know how to do that for yourself, then I can’t help you.”

I’d never talked to her like that before. I stood up for myself. It was one of the best days of my life.

Also one of the very worst. Six weeks later we were divorced.

I suppose I internalize my frustrations too much. I was raised to put on a good front. And for the most part, I guess I end up buying into the act. I choose happiness. Which means I simply focus on good things, hang out with good people, read good books and listen to good music.

I don’t watch things like reality TV — watching angry people verbally bitch-slap their fellow man on national television is not my idea of entertainment. And it certainly makes me anything but happy.

So yeah, it’s an effort to choose to be happy. But given the alternatives, I will always find it worth the effort.

I guess I can see how people think of me as optimistic. We all get pissy now and then. But if you want something bad enough, like happiness, you create an environment within which a happy attitude is likely to grow.

Okay. Today I’m an optimist.

Now to make it come true.

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