Selective Intra-cultural Relativism

Cultural Relativism is the idea that you should not judge the actions, ideas, and norms of one culture based on the actions, ideas, and norms of another culture. Cultural relativism is crap. I don't care what your culture is but stoning a woman to death for adultery is wrong...whatever the culture. Here in the United States I am starting to see a strange new way of judging one another that I am going to call intra-cultural relativism or the idea that we judge people selectively on their cultural habits based on our habits within the same culture. This is also crap. Not judging someone for doing something stupid because culturally many do the stupid thing and its accepted is a bad idea. We should judge...more often, just base your judgments in sound knowledge.

The Last Lesson

Graduation Speech – The Last Lesson

Good evening ladies and gentlemen.

Seniors - Its is only fitting that I stand up here with you tonight. When Emily came to ask me to speak in a way that only Emily can, laced with profanities and a smile, I was reminded back to my first days at Profile 4 years ago. You were a gangly bunch of pubescent, wide-eyed freshmen and I was the long term sub with 9 and ½ fingers.

I remember when I arrived in April of your freshmen year Ms. Vashaw said to me, “they have had a tough year, just teach them something....” I am not sure if I did but I am guessing that at least a few of you remember what happen in 1066 or what market equilibrium is or at least what it wants to be.

Tonight, you are a not so gangly bunch of wide eyed seniors on the exciting and frightening precipice of true adulthood. For me, I have a lot more gray hair and I will be back to Profile on Monday. Yes, this is a COMMENCEMENT: the beginning of something new. But it is important to remember that this is also an end for some and an end worth celebrating. And since you are more attentive right now than you ever were in my classroom , it certainly helps to have 300 people staring at you, I am going to take the opportunity to teach you one LAST LESSON:

Today is your day, now June 7^th, 2013 your veritable “born-on” date, a certified, gentrified, product packaged and ready to go off into the market of the “real-world” as they say. You have been deemed ready. Everyone in this room hopes that you have the will and the skill to make something of yourselves. Some of you will succeed and some might not. And if you feel like you are not prepared, don't worry about it. Because despite what we have been telling you during your high school career and what we are certifying tonight, the content of our curriculum matters little tomorrow.

Tomorrow, it is the content of your characters that will be the measure of your success.

You see, in a lot of ways we have prepared you for a life of “getting.” You have gotten grades and awards. You have gotten in trouble and gotten second chances. You have gotten hurt and you have gotten help. And in just a few minutes your are going to get your diplomas. Clearly, you are well prepared to “get” things. This is easily measurable process of accumulation under the false pretense that if you have MORE you are better.

Well, there is an old Zen story about a brilliant University Professor, with all the awards and accolades, who travels to Japan to “get” the truth about Zen from a master. When he arrives the master pours him a cup of tea. Once the cup is full the master continues to pour until the Professor can't take it and blurts out, “old man, the cup is overfull, no more will go in!” The master responds, “Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you the truth unless you first empty your cup?”

So seniors, the truth is tonight your cups are full. You have proven your competency and passed your tests. We have filled you with knowledge and you have developed opinions and speculations.

My last assignment for you is tomorrow you need to begin to empty your cups. Focus your energy on the process of giving rather than getting. Only by emptying your cups will you be open to the ways and the wonders of the world outside of the protective nest of Profile and that will unleash the unbelievable power within yourselves.

The great Winston Churchill put it best when he said, “we make a living by what we get, we make a life but what we give.”

So seniors, It is GIVING that measures the content of our characters and in the end that is all that matters. So good luck, give fully, thank you.  

The Tyranny of Expectations

I try not to have huge expectations.  I know its next to impossible unless you devote yourself to a life of transcendental medication in some far off mountain with the sound of rivers and wind blowing through your mind but I try.  The hard part, is that they are there...insidiously puncturing your thoughts.  Maybe expectations are good and the failure to meet those expectations are part of the long march of suffering that we call life.  I am not exactly sure.  Letting go of expectations certainly brings an element of freedom but the fear is that freedom leads to a dull, not quite fulfilling life.  I am not exactly sure but its something I will continue to think on.  I am leaning towards some expectations are good and others are bad.  Choosing which ones to have is the answer...anyone have the answer?

Broken Holiday

I have never eaten fruit cake.  I have been called one on numerous occasions and I certainly have seen or read about many an infamous fruit cake but I have never actually tasted one.  As my holiday season commences this week I have been thinking a lot about that terrible looking, more than likely terrible tasting, concoction that seems to only bear its ugly self during these times of joy, kind of like egg nog which no really likes but its an appropriate way to start drinking rum long before the noon societal standard.  I have read that the fruit cake is a traditional holiday dessert that really no one likes.  Some interesting facts are that you can mail order them and if the fruit and nuts are soaked in alcohol the cake can last for years.  Sweet...jesus.  It certainly plays a role in the holidays but no one really knows what that role is and how necessary its existence is.  It sits in the on the edge of the festivities, creating an atmosphere of comfort but not really taking part in the party.  This year, I am a fruit cake.  Here I am, one year removed from tragedy and divorce, feeling compelled to fake a happy holiday face for my kids but really wanting to burry myself in a whole until the first sunrise on 2014. I have considered soaking myself in alcohol so that I can "last" another year or so in that form but really I have to figure out how to re-imagine these holidays.  Like fruit cake I am compelled to sit on the periphery of the festivities and apply myself to complete and utter nothing.  On Thursday, I am going to my ex-wife's house, who cheated on me and then left me, to have dinner with her and her dad, who cheated on his wife and left her, married a woman 20 years his junior, who was tragically gunned down one year ago at Sandy Hook.  Also there will be my ex-wife's mother, who was cheated on and left but is now remarried to a man 10 years her senior who is on his third wife and a methodist man of the cloth...He has a pent chance for long winded stories and the inability to recognize that no one is listening. Also there will be my parents, who as of a week ago were not around for Thanksgiving and thus I committed to the treachery I am about to embark on.  Now, they will join the cocktail of familial anarchy.  My mother, I love her, has the inability to see what is around her and creates a "story of her life" that doesn't actually match up to what is real and my broken stepfather who dedicated his life to a dream that didn't pan out and is slowly deconstructing that dream with each passing day.  And me, the once driven, put together, "I will do it different" vanguard of the future...now broken as well.  There was a time when the biggest issue of the season was deciding which parents house we were going to for which holiday.  My ex-wife and I would begin those conversations as early as September.  Then, as the holidays rolled in they were filled with excitement and cheer.  There was the Thanksgiving at her dad and step moms house where we found out our lovely daughter Isabel was on the way.  There was the Christmas' in Pennsylvania with her mother with a house filled with kids and constant smell of warm cookies and other culinary delights.  Thanksgivings at my parents with crowds of people, football on the big screen, and our kids in their best clothes.  There was the anticipation of games and laughter with brothers in law and nieces and nephews.  Coffee after dinner and Carlo and Rossi at 11am.  Candy cane walks in the snow and slumber parties in the basement.  Rosy cheeks, the smell of pine, and piles of wet clothing in the entryway.  I know there was the bad stuff; the inevitable stress with family coming together filled with expectation but at least it was family.  And then it all ended.  A year ago we all came together in a destroyed house that smelled like cat piss.  We gathered to bury one of our own between Thanksgiving and Christmas...and they were not mine anymore.  My marriage was over.  The past the past...just memories that we erase the darkness from.  Just a piece of the two young ones I helped create remains.  And that is all that is left.  I know someday there will be new stories and new family adventures...but today I think it's ok to be stuck, even just for a moment, here. Where is the eggnog?

Set sail.

In college I remember a speech by one of my favorite professors called Landfalls and Departures. The premise of the speech was that life is really like sailing a tall ship; just a series of landfalls and departures. We depart on journeys, some short, some long but inevitably we have to make landfall to refuel, resupply, remake, take stock. I have thought a lot about that speech lately. There is something about the departures and the immensity of the journeys at sea that seem eternal. The ever expanding horizon and thoughts of distant lands lay a timeless path and direction.....but inevitably we have to make landfall again. No ship can sail forever. The last year of my life has been landfall after landfall....or maybe it has been the same landfall but I was unaware of how much baggage, tackle, and clingy barnacles my ship had on it and thus I'm on an extended stop in port. It seems as if just when I thought I would set sail again, something else, sometimes good and other times bad has held me in port...my landfall was not complete. A year ago an affair ripped my life apart, creating a turbulent storm in that vast horizon. An eventual divorce, an untimely death, and the emotions wrapped in both kept me on shore for longer. Finally, this week, the house I built is being offloaded from my ship. Somewhat unexpected because I thought it was an integral part of the ship...even the bridge itself. The place that the captain would retreat to, despite the storm or scandals at landfalls and find comfort in the familiarity of his instruments, his log book, his bunk. But what seems to be the case is that my house is just something else to be unloaded. It appears to be something else that was picked up on the journey. It served a purpose, even became woven into the fabric of the day to day life on the ship. But on land, I guess it is time for it to go as well. I am left with my hull and hopefully some sails that will catch the wind and depart again. There are times when I am not sure if that is the case. How can this ship sail without all of those “important” things? How can I guide the ship without the things that have helped me guide it for years?

In the end, how many captains actually own their ships? Very few. I just sail this thing....and that is my job. I must trust the wind and that the next departure will bring another horizon, another journey, adventure, stories, and idols woven into the fabric of a remade ship. I get to keep a few of the best crew members but when it does depart it will be mostly new. I am not sure where we are going and quite frankly I am scared to death of not knowing....but, we will depart because despite what is loaded and unloaded, ships are meant to sail and I have to trust that that is what I will do.   

Sucks.

Me and my dogs...music, fire...seven years less of my children.  Moments of freedom and happiness.  Moments of the future...faith.  Moments of deep sadness, loss, anger, and everything in between.  The pity party is not in my game but it's hard to not go down that dark and lonely road.  Maybe some spice from Speyside helps but not really.  Often simply sleep, distraction, and a new sunrise is the key.  Juggling...this is life.  Where did you get the idea that if you "do everything right" you will be free from hardship and pain.  Why me?  It is the test of extreme silence...breath.  Times when the normal grey sky of the New England spring feels more like a suffocating pillow on the face....the mud..beneath is spring flowers I am told.  Trust.  Getting tired of being strong.  Want to be weak but can't.  Smile, work, play, sun.  The weight of my tiny tiny world on my shoulders...let it go.  I miss my kids.  When I have them it is so tiring and hard but I miss them.  I want to feel stable.  I want to know but I do know wanting to know is holding onto something I cannot hold on to.  Let it go. Breath.  Surrounded by goodness and opportunity but sometimes it just feels ok to say.... THIS SUCKS.

The Time

The time to step can be any step.  Finding the right moment to step into the dark or into the light is the wrong way to think of it.  Is is finding anything at all?  Is it that active or should we trust that we step without looking?  Faith in your core is true faith.  Faith that your entire being guides you without outside instant influence.  Your being is the combination of experience, knowledge, love, and laughter bottled up and swirling in this body of ours.  The time is perfect.