Stars

Since I was about 4 or 5, there have been stars on the ceiling of my bedroom.  Little, glow-in-the-dark circles that I looked up into thousands of times.  I've looked up through tears, I've looked up when I was too excited to sleep, I've looked up when I was scared, I've looked up during love, I've looked up during heartbreak.  I've looked up after Cub Scout meetings, after snow ball fights, after bike rides, after days at the lake, after baseball games, after playing in the yard, after fights, after injuries, after surgery, after the greatest days of my life.  I've probably looked at those stars, that "sky," more than just about anything in my life.

I can still remember the day that they went up, or at least the process.  True to form, my mother decided that if we were going to mark up my ceiling, it was going to be a learning experience, so she cut a scale replica of a little section of the solar system (with the big dipper right above my head) out of a huge piece of paper, taped it to my ceiling, and painstakingly filled in the holes with the glowing paint.  When I say scale, I mean everything too.  Star sizes, angles, directions, distances, they were all taken care of.  The only part I played in it was to hand up the sticky tack when she put the initial piece of paper up. 

I only have three more nights of sleeping under the stars.  Three more nights in this wonderful old house before we move.  I told a friend the other night that it feels like I'm being forced to walk away from my childhood, like the little boy that I grew up as will always be in this house, and I'll be forced to watch from the outside and reminisce.

Sure there will be reminiscing.  As the new house is only a few blocks away I'll inevitably drive by the old one.  I'll think of the summer nights and winter days in that yard.  I'll think of the dinners that I ate.  The walks home from the bus stop and piano lessons.  Parking the car in the driveway after a hard practice.  I'll think of carving pumpkins on the driveway.  I'll think of birthday parties and Christmases and coming home from vacations.  I'll think of pets and I'll think of relationships and friends.  I'll think of how my best days and my worst days all ended up under those stars.

The thing is, though, memories don't exist anywhere except for within us.  Will I be reminded of my childhood when I drive by that house?  Of course.  Will I remember what happened as happening inside of that house?  Yes.  Will I always love that house?  Without a doubt.  But can those memories live on without that house?  Yes, that will happen too.

Memories are what we make of them.  Memories are inside of us.  Memories will live on with or without the corresponding information intact.  Places disappear, experiences are once in a lifetime, but memories tell us how we came to be what we now are.  Nobody's seen anything that's looked like that little boy for years, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't exist.  He's still inside.

He's still inside and so is the dad that always managed to blow huge leads in the bottom of the last inning in the back yard.  So is the mom who made sure that I learned everything that I possibly could in every area that I possibly could, and was able to trick me into enjoying every second of it.  So is the older brother who taught me how to hate losing and how to love the feeling of victory, but also ensured that I knew the joy of playing the game.  So is the younger brother who would listen to my stupid ideas and go along with them without caring whether we looked like idiots.  So are the grandmas and grandpas and uncles and aunts and cousins and friends.

Pretty soon I won't be able to sleep under my stars anymore, but that doesn't mean that I never did, and it doesn't mean that they aren't still with me.  Just because I can't see the people that I love all the time doesn't mean they aren't there, and just because I can never re-live a moment that has already passed doesn't mean it never was.  They're all there, and just like stars, they follow me.  They're distant and sometimes the clouds pass over them, but they're always up there.  They never leave, no matter where I go, and no matter where I call home.  My best days and my worst days always end up under those same stars.

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts

This summer, I plowed my way through four seasons of Friday Night Lights on Netflix in about a month.  (I'll give you time to wonder about whether I have any friends whatsoever and how I could sit in front of the tube for that long, and rate my loserhood on a scale from Scotty Smalls in the first part of Sandlot to Steve Urkel.  Good?  Good!)  By doing this, I introduced myself to a group of characters that immediately joined my Court of Fictional Friends alongside Howard Roark, Calvin, Hobbes, Roy Hobbs, Matthias from Redwall, Mufasa, Woody and Andy, and Moonlight Graham.  The most important was Coach Eric Taylor, who led his teams into battle (and an uncanny amount of last-second wins), with his mantra of, "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose."
There's nothing sneaky about this phrase.  It can be interpreted pretty easily.  The coach is just telling the boys that being strong people is more important than being a strong football team.  That they can't lose if they are upstanding individuals.

That's fine and good, but I'd like to break it down a little bit more.

Full hearts.  If you would have told me to have a full heart five years ago, I'm not sure I would have thought that was possible.  How can you have a full heart?  Aren't there always more things to love?  Can you really fill that container up?  I now believe that I was on the right track, but I was picturing the container wrong.  There's no finite amount of space to fill up - no box or bag or bucket that can eventually be 100% full.  Instead, I'd like to reference a lecture that I received in one of my first classes at Notre Dame, a theology seminar.  The professor compared the concept of "knowing God" to that of walking backwards out of a funnel.

You start in the spout, and from that point it looks like there's a pretty clear path out.  There isn't much to the sides and you can more or less narrow everything down into a fairly well-defined, uncomplicated track.  The light at the end of the tunnel is narrow.  God is limited.

However, there's a point in time when everything clicks and you realize that God can't be that limited.  That's the transition from the spout to the bowl of the funnel.  From that point on, every step you take forwards makes the area surrounding you a little wider; the closer you get to understanding God, the more there is to understand.  This paradigm means that the funnel can never end, as every time that you do take that step and you do understand, there's that much more that's uncovered and still has to be learned.

I believe that the same type of analogy is true of the heart.  The more that we love, the more ability we have to love.  The more full the heart gets, the wider the "container" gets.  The more love we give, the more ability to love we have.

The only way to be able to do that, however, is with clear eyes.

I believe that one of the worst feelings in the world is regret.  Pain goes away, sorrow clears up, anger dissipates, but regretting something can never be undone.  What-ifs and I-wishes and could've-beens keep us awake far longer than I-miss-hers and screw-hims.  Wouldn't you rather strike out with the bases loaded than let it be completely out of your control?  If you have an open jumper at the end of the game would you really want to pass it to a teammate just to avoid the pain of missing?

Clear eyes means no regrets.  Clear eyes means looking at someone and being able to tell them that there's nothing more you could do, nothing you would rather have done, and that you're proud of yourself.  Clear eyes means that you don't have to look back at the past, but that you can see the present and the future without obstruction.  And to me, clear eyes means one more thing:

Without clear eyes, it's hard to really see what's going on.  It's easy to make judgments about people, about places, about situations.  It's easy to think that you're always right.  It's easy to overlook things. 

Clear eyes means being able to see the world with an open mind.  Clear eyes means being willing to understand people for who they are without blindly trying to classify them.  Clear eyes means wanting to know and understand the world around you, the people who live in it, and the things that happen in it.

If we can look back without regrets, if we can see the past for what it was and the present for what it is, and if we can allow ourselves to see the unknown as it comes instead of assuming what it will be, if we can fill our hearts, and continue to fill them, if we can approach the world with a loving heart instead of a bitter one, I really don't think that it's possible to lose.

!

Two nights ago, I was told by someone I know that life is a question mark, that you can never be sure what's going to happen next, that it's one big mystery.

Ehhhhhhhhhhhh...

I'll give her that you can never be totally sure of anything, but at the same time, she's making it sound like Mario Kart, where you get hit by lightning or tracked down by a turtle shell at least once every 60 seconds.  Now, I don't know all that much about what's going on with her, but I can honestly say that none of those things have ever happened to me.

Milwaukee, apparently

There are unknowns.  There are lots of unknowns.  In fact, there are very few knowns, and that's even if you count high probability assumptions, such as surviving the morning drive to work.  These things are scary, some are terrifying, some make us stay awake at night, some make us doubt ourselves, and some seem insurmountable.  In no way am I saying that there aren't question marks in life, but that doesn't automatically make life a question mark.  We give out question marks when we run out of our own options, either when we don't have any ideas left or when we don't care enough to find out by ourselves.  Is that really what we want to reduce life to?

Let's pretend that

Clay Matthews

is chasing you down.

What do you do?  Well, you, you scared little ball carrier you, have options.
1. Stand still
2. Run at him
3. Try to avoid him
That's pretty much it.  Now, there's a great chance that by doing any of these three things you're going to get clobbered, but at least in the second two you are in control of your own destiny.  If you try to avoid him, you have a chance to get away.  If you run at him and initiate contact, you have some control of where the hit's happening.  If you stand there and leave it up to him, they'll have to peel you out of the Frozen Tundra.

This isn't something that a positive attitude can solve.  This is something that only effort and passion and hope can solve. 

"Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe even the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"

A positive attitude wasn't going to get Andy DuFresne out of Shawshank.  A positive attitude won't save your teeth if Clay Matthews is running at you.  A positive attitude only works when coupled with hope, which my dictionary defines as "a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen."  Key word there?  Expectation.



If we wait to see what the scary things are going to do to us, even if we have the best of attitudes, they will inevitably do something other than what we want, and while it may never result in us face-down in the Lambeau Field turf, it could cause other things that are just as bad emotionally, if not physically.  On the other hand, if we take that fear and channel it, and decide that we're going to do something about it and keep it in our own hands, we can do absolutely no worse, and a lot of the time we can do a lot better.  If we expect to come out ahead and we act like it, if we expect to break out of that prison and do something about it, if we expect to juke out that linebacker and start making some moves, there's a chance that we will, but if we sit around and wait to get hit by the scary unknown, the best case will never happen.  Clay Matthews doesn't miss tackles.  Shawshank doesn't let guys out because they feel bad for them.

We need to be bold, we need to expect excellence in the hopes that we will only fall as low as success, and we need to live life as an exclamation point, not a question mark.  Exclamation points accomplish their purpose!  Aren't question marks just waiting to get eliminated?

Seeing the game from a new field

Whenever I tell people that I played baseball growing up, the first question most people ask is, "What position?"  Simple question, simple answer, right?  Ehhh...

The problem is that I didn't really have a position.  Since 2002, when I was 11 and when kids really start getting locked into positions, I've been all over the place.  Quick look: 2002 - SS for the Keystone Display Braves, 3B/1B for the Crystal Lake American Little League All-Stars.  2003 - SS for the Keystone Expos, 1B/C for CLALL.  2004 - 3B for the CL Cyclones.  2005 - 2B for the Cyclones.  2006 - RF for Crystal Lake Central, 2B for the Cyclones, 2007 - CF for CLC, 2B for the Cyclones.  2008 - RF for CLC, 2009 - LF for CLC.  For those of you scoring at home, that's 6-5-3-6-3-2-5-4-9-4-8-4-9-7.

Now, every time I moved, the coach would always say, "it's great that you can play so many positions," which I'm pretty sure was only the first half of a sentence that should have ended with, "because you sure as hell don't excel at any of them."

Young William not excelling in right field in 2008

So when I answer the question I always tell people that I moved around a lot, which is true, but also leaves me without a true identity and makes me sound like a tee ball player, ("Mom!  I got to play six positions and we got juice boxes!") but I also take a lot of pride in it.  Why?  Because when circumstances changed, I was able to adjust in order to change with them.

One of the toughest things to do in the real world is to keep an open mind about things.  It's much easier to entrench yourself in an opinion, a mindset, and an identity, and never give in to the concept that maybe, possibly, there are better options out there.  Humans, it seems, are proud beings, stubborn beings, and defensive beings, which combines into the perfect storm of closed-mindedness.  Why think when we can react?  Why even bother listening to other people's opinions when we could ignore them and pound our own even deeper into our brains.

Truth is, nobody is absolutely, 100% correct about everything.  Nobody knows how to solve every problem that's out there, nobody knows who God is, nobody knows how to completely stop Aaron Rodgers, nobody has written the best novel of all time, nobody has painted the best picture of all time, nobody knows why Tiger Woods betrayed Elin Steve Williams, nobody knows the meaning of life, nobody knows who Jack the Ripper was, nobody knows why LeBron James is such a gigantic douche, nobody knows how I Can't Believe It's Not Butter can't be at least a little bit butter, and nobody knows how they get so much cheese into a Cheez-It.  There are millions of theories on every topic, but not one is absolutely accepted by everyone because they're not facts.

So why do people insist that they do?

I know, I know.  Proud, stubborn, defensive.  But what do we gain from that?  It's hard to put aside our personal pride sometimes, but when things change, be it in ourselves, the people we're interacting with, or our surroundings, if we stay stagnant we're going to become irrelevant.  If I'm playing second and a better second baseman comes along, I won't play if I insist on being a second baseman.  I'll get moved to the bench, and eventually get cut.  But I can still play the game if I'm willing to move elsewhere.  A "position change" doesn't have to be a total shift in mindset, it just means that we can be willing to adjust our perspective based on additional information.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't hold onto our opinions about things.  Just because somebody disagrees doesn't mean that we should automatically change to agree with them.  I just think that we should be open-minded enough to know that, chances are, our opinion isn't the strongest or best one out there.  There are probably other things to consider, and it's okay to consider them.  It's okay to believe that there might be better options out there than the one we have.

[Note from Mom]:  "You should tie this into evolution.  The most adaptable, not the strongest, are the ones who survive."

Brilliant woman, brilliant statement.  And she's right.  Dinosaurs, if you take the extreme example, were much more powerful than apes.  A dinosaur could tear an ape to pieces.  But they couldn't adjust to shifts in the climate, so they disappeared.  They stuck to their cold-blooded, flesh-tearing guns and it didn't work, while apes were able to survive and turn into baseball players because they didn't have any one method of survival.  I'm sure that their lifestyle pre-Ice Age was much different than the one they chose during the Ice Age, and they lived to tell the tale.  The dinosaurs didn't adjust, got put on the bench, and then the Great Coach in the Sky decided that they ran out of innings.

"It seems delightful, but so unnecessary"

Three years ago this summer I was in Bloomington, IL for a baseball showcase (They told me I was a DIII level prospect, I didn't believe them, they were right) and my Dad and I stopped for dinner at the original Jimmy John's.  Pretty cool to begin with, but the even cooler part was a sign on the wall.  Anybody who's visited a Jimmy John's knows about all the funny signs (One in Milwaukee said "Hippies Not Welcome," or something to that effect) that riddle the walls, but this one was a little bit different.  It was titled "How Much Is Enough?" and went like this:

The American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
The Mexican replied, “only a little while.”
The American then asked why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish?
The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.
The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?”
The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life.”
The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this take?”
To which the American replied, “15-20 years.”
“But what then?”
The American laughed and said that’s the best part. “When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”
“Millions?” asked the fisherman, “Then what?”
The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evening, sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos!”

The moral of the story is no secret; why be stressed and miserable for years and years so that you can do what you love later if you can do what you love now?

I know, I know, it's pretty hard to eat Cheetos, drink Bud Heavy, sit on your couch, and watch the Golf Channel for your entire life without getting evicted, losing all your friends, having your parents think you're a slob, and having girls never talk to you, and that's the one thing that you truly excel at, but let me explain:

No matter what your dream job is, chances are that there are things you'd rather be doing, but those things also don't provide you with funds.  What the Mexican man did was figure out a way to get all three into his day.  He was good at fishing, loved fishing, and could get paid to fish, so he did it, and then used it to live a comfortable life with his wife and family.  Could he have made more money doing something else?  Yes.  Could he have had a nicer boat?  Yes.  A bigger house?  Yes.  But what's the use?  When our family visited friends in Australia, we were telling them about how whipped cream is sweet in the States (it's literally just "whipped cream" down under).  One of the daughters seemed a little bit perplexed when she heard this, then finally said, "It seems delightful, but so unnecessary.."

Sure, the added sweetness seems nice, but if it's whipped cream you're looking for, doesn't unsweetened get the job done?  If we really stretch the analogy, the added sugar will harm your body in the long run blah blah blah etc etc.

Unfortunately, that's a dangerous road to go down.  Settling for less is never a good thing, and even if you like something, you're good at it, and you're getting paid, it doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't a better situation out there which you like more, you're better at, and you could get paid more.  It also doesn't mean that we need to pretend that a situation is something that it isn't.  I'm all for positive attitudes, but it's never good to pretend that you love something just because you're currently doing it.  Finding the positives is a good thing, looking on the bright side is a good thing, but feigning passion always seems to lead to disaster.

One of my recent favorite songs is Doc Pomus, by Ben Folds, namely because of two wonderfully written lyrics (written by Nick Hornby).

1. "Out they pour, the hits and the misses."

2. "He could never be one of those happy cripples / The kind that smile and tell you life's okay."

Good things happen and bad things happen.  That's unavoidable, but what is totally in our control is our reaction to them.  If something comes along to cripple us, we don't have to just sit and take it.  If we're stuck doing something we don't love, we don't just have to stay with the job.  If somebody breaks our heart, we don't just have to feel sorry for ourselves.  If things aren't okay, we need to do something to fix it, to try to find that dream combination of love and skill and support.  It's always there.

The key is finding the right balance.  Just because something is delightful doesn't mean it's unnecessary and just because something is unnecessary doesn't mean we have to settle and pretend it's delightful.  Sometimes it's good to step back and say, "Why am I doing this?  What am I looking to gain?"  At age 60, the American executive and the Mexican fisherman would have had the same life, but life isn't always about destinations.  A lot of the time it's about the journey.

Brothers Need Brothers - Teammates in the Game of Life

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how happy I was that the Mavs had won the NBA Finals, and more specifically, about how cool it was to see a bunch of teams full of foxhole guys reigning on the top of the American sporting world, especially when the most recent "defining moment" of that world was The Decision.  That got me to thinking about how much I miss my teammates, and for the past three weeks I've been sitting on my couch watching videos of my Little League years, spraying cheez whiz straight into my mouth, looking at old pictures of my high school teams, and crying profusely.  However, now that it's all out of my system (but not really), I have time to do other things, like thinking constructively on the issue.

With a few exceptions, all of the friends from high school that I have actively stayed in touch with through my first two years of college are former teammates (about .4 seconds after writing that sentence I realized that there is no such thing as a former teammate).  You see, teammates have a special relationship that can't just be created through any friendship.  Teammates are stuck with each other.  They can't jump ship, they can't choose new teammates, and they can't completely ignore each other.  At least while they're on the field they have to interact in a working unit.

Over the course of a season, or, in the long term, a career, almost every team will hit both a hot streak and a slump, and on a smaller scale there will be hissy fits, incredible personal runs, game-losing screw-ups, game-winning plays, "Did you just see that?" greatness, "Did you just see that?" failures, and everything in between.  Through all of the joy, pain, crap, and mediocrity, you learn to deal with these people in about every different setting imaginable, and the most important part is that, unless you perform the ultimate sacrilege and quit, you're stuck with them for months on end.  I've stayed close with my teammates, even the ones that I wasn't super close to in high school, because I can go to them about any number of scenarios and they will know how to handle my emotional states.  After seeing me spike helmets, perform borderline-flagrant fouls, cuss, laugh, cry, jump with joy, fall to my knees in pain, get injured, hit home runs, strike batters out, give up home runs, strike out at the plate, airball shots, hang my head, stick my chest out, draw charges, argue calls, shove teammates, hug teammates, and punch lockers, it's not that tough to read my feelings after a low GPA, a breakup, or a job offer.  Sports, especially baseball, are based off of locker room chemistry more than I think anybody gives enough credit for anymore, and more than that, it's based on keeping each other even-keel.  The highs can't get too high or you'll come crashing down.  The lows can't get too low or you won't be able to rise out of it.  If one person starts riding these, other people start riding these, and sooner or later you always end up on the bottom, so it's the job of teammates to make pull each other through anything; to tell them to flush a strikeout and move on, to give them a butt-pat after a home run and remind them to move on, to keep the player balanced so the team can be balanced.

What do I miss about sports?  I miss the feel of the dirt, I miss the smell of the grass, I miss seeing curveballs snap into the strikezone, I miss stealing bases, and I miss hitting the ball on the sweet spot, I miss getting playing 32 of 32 minutes, I miss the mixture of pride and exhaustion, but most of all, I miss being on a team and I miss having teammates.

Luckily for me, I have two outstanding brothers.

Over the course of a season, or, in the long term, a career a lifetime, almost every team family will hit both a hot streak have high times and a slump tough times, and on a smaller scale there will be hissy fits, incredible personal runs, game-losing seemingly life-altering screw-ups, game-winning plays moments of personal triumph, "Did you just see that?" greatness, "Did you just see that?" failures, and everything in between.  Through all of the joy, pain, crap, and mediocrity, you learn to deal with these people in about every different setting imaginable, and the most important part is that, unless you perform the ultimate sacrilege and quit, you're stuck with them for months on end forever.  I've stayed close with my teammates, even the ones that I wasn't super close to in high school, brothers, because I can go to them about any number of scenarios and they will know how to handle my emotional states.  After seeing me spike helmets, perform borderline-flagrant fouls, cuss, laugh, cry, jump with joy, fall to my knees in pain, get injured, hit home runs, strike batters out, give up home runs, strike out at the plate, airball shots, hang my head, stick my chest out, draw charges, argue calls, shove teammates, hug teammates, punch lockers, punch them, throw temper tantrums, quit on them, bully them, tattle on them, support them, stand up for them, need them to stand up for me, after riding in cars with me, after waiting for me in the car while I puke away my carsickness, after crossing oceans with me, after insisting that I play one more inning, one more quarter, one more set of downs, after boxing with me, after singing with me, after hugging me, after watching me break down, after watching me exude cockiness, and after living with me for twenty years, it's not that tough to read my feelings after a low GPA, a breakup, or a job offer.  Sports, especially baseball, Families are based off of locker room chemistry more than I think anybody gives enough credit for anymore, and more than that, it's based on keeping each other even-keel.  The highs can't get too high or you'll come crashing down.  The lows can't get too low or you won't be able to rise out of it.  If one person starts riding these, other people start riding these, and sooner or later you always end up on the bottom, so it's the job of teammates brothers to make pull each other through anything; to tell them to flush a strikeout failure and move on, to give them a butt-pat after a home run success and remind them to move on, to keep the player brother balanced so the team family can be balanced.

As Dante Shepherd of SurvivingTheWorld.net so wonderfully states, "Life is a lot like a baseball game - You want your team to win, you want it to be a thriller, you don't want it to be called short on account of nature, and you wouldn't mind if it went into extra innings."  In this game of life, it's nice to have some good teammates.

When I was little, I spent just about every second playing with my brothers.  We'd pull out the Indians and the Orioles lineups and play series after series in the backyard; Michael always spotting me just enough runs to keep me interested but just few enough to still be able to come back.  We'd throw elbows on the cement of the basement basketball court.  We'd check each other into the drywall (the same drywall which I once threw a ping-pong paddle through).  We'd never finish a single game of football without a fight breaking out.  And it couldn't have been more perfect.

When I got to high school, it was Michael who took me under his wing.  I was known as his brother and that wasn't a problem for me.  He'd made a name for himself as hard-working, athletic, good-natured, and, as way too many of my female friends told me, a good looking dude.  He was the one who took me out to the batting cages to hit after school with his teammates.  He was the one who brought me to lift weights and play in open gyms.  He was the one that showed me how much diligence had to be put into school work.

When Stuart got to high school, I tried to do the same thing, and I hope I succeeded.  I feel like I did.  Stuart and I got very close during my senior and his freshman years.  We took care of each other.  That's important.  It's the constant that's held us together through all the years.

Michael and Stuart have been there for me through everything, and not just because they have to (at least I don't think that's why).  When I broke up with my girlfriend of two years, it was Michael who gave me a hug and walked with me, even if I had trouble saying anything.  When my baseball career ended, it was Michael and Stuart who were there to comfort me.  When I got into Notre Dame, they were the ones I wanted to talk to.  When I have philosophical issues, I go to Stuart.  When they lost (Michael coaching, Stuart playing) a mere five wins away from the Little League World Series, I felt like I'd gotten kicked in the stomach too.  They've been there for me for every single second, momentous or mundane, of my entire life, and I know that that will never change.

I brag about my brothers, I'm proud of my brothers, and I love my brothers.  They are my heroes, they are my best friends, and they are rocks that I can build off of.  When I graduate college, they'll be cheering.  When I get engaged, they'll be the first to know.  When my first kid is born, they'll be there to see.  When that kid busts into the Majors they'll be wearing his uniform in the stands next to me.  When I need someone to talk to they'll open up, when I don't want to talk they'll sit and wait with me.  When I want to celebrate they'll be the ones popping the cork and dancing with me, when I want to mourn they'll each have an arm around me.

My brothers and I are stuck together for the rest of our lives, but that doesn't really matter.  After being on the same team for so long, I don't think any of us would ever want to take our talents elsewhere.  You see, we don't even really have a choice.  Having been raised together, having learned to rely on each other, having come to trust each other and wanting to fight for each other and being ready to jump in the foxhole together, trying to operate without each other would be like trying to turn a 6-4-3 double play without two of the players.  And that's what separates brothers from any other type of friend, from any other type of teammate, from any other type of relationship.  That's what makes it special.  One of the more regular readers of this blog (of the 6 or 7 that there are) asked me to write about what it means to be a brother, and I guess that I can't really give a prescription or a recipe for what to do, but I can tell you how I feel towards my brothers and about brothers in general.

Brothers don't just love their brothers.  Brothers don't just appreciate having their brothers around.  Brothers Need Brothers, and will continue to need them for the rest of this infinite ballgame.

Championship Teams

Two things:

1.  Bill Simmons' new site, grantland.com, is excellent.  I strongly recommend reading every article.  And if you don't have time for that, just the ones by Simmons and Klosterman, and if you don't have time for that just the ones by Simmons, and if you don't have time for that, reevaluate your priorities.  Thanks to morebaseball.com for the tip.

Moving on...

2.  While being overpaid to stock shoes this morning, and still reveling in the scent of vanilla, choruses of angels (probably something having to do with Moses), soft summer breeze, and the faint sound of children laughing that have been following me (everybody?  I can't be the only one, right?) since the Mavs beat the Heat, I realized that, although my father didn't accomplish the rare Quadruple Crown of having his favorite teams in the four major sports (Packers, Giants, Bulls, Blackhawks) holding championships, we did have a situation where every title that had been won in the past twelve months was won by teams that prided themselves on their team-first mentalities.

Now, because A) I don't really know enough about hockey to start putting pen to paper on it, and B) all hockey teams seem to be pretty unselfish, we're going to skip over the Blackhawks.  I'm sorry.  That leaves us with, in chronological order, the Giants, the Pack, and the Mavs.


After years of carrying around Barry Bonds in order to score more runs than other teams, the Giants finally felt guilty and decided to make up for it by not scoring any runs in the 2010 season.

Actual Barry Bonds head to body size ratio

That's actually an exaggeration, but the Giants did finish 17th in the majors in runs scored, the lowest of any playoff team.  Instead, they rallied around their pitching, defense, a midget they found on the street named Cody Ross, a hobo living under the Golden Gate Bridge named Brian Wilson, and had a group meeting sometime in late August/early September to decide that they were the best team in the Majors and it would probably be fun to win the World Series.  Try to name a star on that team.  Sure, Wilson was good, but he could only pitch 1/9th of the innings.  Lincecum was solid, but only had a few playoff starts.  Ross hit well.  Juan Uribe had some clutch at-bats.  But get this: Edgar Renteria was the World Series MVP.


Let's let that sink in.


The man is 35, which isn't too old until you think about the fact that he abandoned his amateur status (which they should really give you a card to carry around for) at age 16, in 1992.  The man has a lot of innings under his belt.  The Giants stayed within themselves, played for themselves, believed in themselves, and won.  Outstanding.


The Packers put themselves in a similar boat by sneaking into the playoffs with must-win wins in the last three weeks of the season.  They then proceeded to blow through the playoffs like an invisible shank to Jay Cutler's knee.  They did this all with a total of 80+ missed games due to injuries to Week 1 starters, and then, just for good measure, Charles Woodson and Donald Driver got hurt mid-game.
 

At some point during the year, I'm convinced that Aaron Rodgers just decided that they weren't going to lose anymore, held a meeting, shared his opinion, and everybody cashed in on it, leading to your Super Bowl Champions list including Jordy Nelson and some guy named Brett Swain, who doesn't even have a picture on his Wikipedia page.


Coolest moment of the whole thing though? (Besides that awesome picture of Rodgers and Matthews on the podium that shows before Sportscenter)  The fact that during the post-game interviews, Greg Jennings kept referring to Donald Driver as the Packers No. 1 Receiver, even though Jennings out-received Driver by 25 receptions and 700 yards during the regular season.  Hell, Driver was 4th in yards.  Except it was his team, his receiving core, and that was fine with everybody because of all the intangibles that he had provided.

Yep, that's the one.

And then there are the Mavs.  The wonderful, wonderful Mavs.  Sure they had Dirk, but who else?  Jason Terry?  He didn't even start.  Jason Kidd?  Way past his prime.  There were exactly zero minutes in the series when Dallas had the talent on the floor advantage.  But they won because they decided they were going to win.  The popular opinion is that it happened right after Dwyane Wade knocked down the 3 in front of the Mavs' bench, but who's to say that it didn't happen the second that the tattoo artist finished putting the Larry O'Brien Trophy on Jason Terry's arm.  Everybody was watching Lebron James last summer while Dirk & Co. re-signed and got better.  I'm convinced that at some point, the Mavs were walking out of practice and somebody said, "Let's win the Finals," and that was it.  It was done.


Simmons really hit the nail on the head in his retro-diary of Game 6.  In his second-to-last paragraph he says, "When Dirk briefly disappeared under the arena after the final buzzer, presumably to cry and collect himself, it was the most genuine sports moment of the year. He barely made it, you could see him choking up. LeBron would have done it at midcourt in front of everyone, partly for effect, and maybe that's one of the biggest differences between them right now. You play basketball for you and your teammates, not for everyone else."

That last sentence really hits home with me.  There's something about being on a team, a true team, that is absolutely impossible to replace with anything else.  "You play basketball for you and your teammates, not for everyone else."

Although I didn't think about this at the time, looking back, it seems like the three teams that I talked about played without even realizing that there were people in the stands.  As anybody who has ever played on a team with real chemistry knows, there's something special about that bond.  You go through bad stuff together, you celebrate good stuff together, and you get to know each other better than you know just about anybody.  My teammates and my coaches have taught me that if you're going into a foxhole, you don't always want the most talented, but you do want people who are going to fight like hell until the bitter end.  You want people who won't let themselves lose and won't let you lose.  These teams did that.

My favorite teammates

These guys proved to themselves and to their teammates that they were the best.  There's a reason that announcers say that teams "shock the world," but nobody has ever claimed to be shocked themselves after a solid win.  They always know.  They always believe.  These three teams firmly believed that they were the greatest teams in the world, and they set out to, and did, verify it.

Reflections

Last night was frustrating for me.  Seeing the Bulls lose was tough, but in all honesty an NBA Championship was a stretch this year.  D-Rose can only do so much (especially when he stops getting the ball to Luol in the 4th), and the team still needs to mature and figure out their identity.  Yes, watching a thirteen point lead disappear in a matter of seconds was tough, but what was even worse was watching Lebron James flop, cry, bitch, and bullshit his way through that basketball game.

Before I get the "you hate him because he's the best" argument, I'll admit a few things:
1. Yes, he's the best player in the NBA.  Not the most valuable to his team, but absolutely the best.
2. He's an adult and can play wherever he wants to play.  He technically didn't owe Cleveland (home of your Major League Best Indians!) anything.

There.  That's out of the way.  Please wait a few minutes while I go confess to my sins of appreciating a douche bag.

While you wait, please notice: A. The score, B. Lebron being a baby, C. Dwyane Wade being embarrassed by Lebron's bitchiness

Thanks for waiting. 

The reason that Lebron James will never be better than Michael Jordan, will never be more valuable than Kobe Bryant, and will eventually get eclipsed by Derrick Rose and countless others is his inability to take responsibility for anything.  He is 26 years old and an 8 year NBA vet, but if you were to ask him, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to hear him claim that none of his 1,233 career NBA fouls should have been called, and that none of his teams' 249 regular season losses were his fault.

That being said, I do think that Lebron James Game 5 performance was one of the most important of all time.  Important in that every young athlete, before being allowed to compete in Little League, YMCA Basketball, Pop Warner football, or Mite hockey, must be required to watch James' reactions, his flops, and his "look at me" celebrations.  If any of those kids ever do anything similar to what he did in that game, they should be banned from all competition for the rest of their lives.

Kobe Bryant is out to beat people.  Michael Jordan went out to humiliate people.  Derrick Rose is out to prove himself, and is humble enough to realize that he hasn't accomplished anything yet.  Lebron James is out to make people watch him.  He's not a competitor, he's an entertainer.  Give him a Globetrotters uniform.

*******

On a related note, is there anything worse than watching a sporting event that you're extremely invested in with someone who is cheering for the same outcome but is less invested than you are?  "Young William," I hear you ask, "Are you talking about watching the Bulls with your mother?"

"Yes."

If you can't be with thousands of others cheering with you, sometimes the next best thing is to be absolutely alone.  I was forced to leave my lucky chair in the family room after I was reprimanded by more than one person for reacting negatively to the flagrant foul called on Carlos Boozer (his first good defensive play of the series, also, clearly not a flagrant.  He went for the ball, he made contact with the ball, he fouled in the process.  He was forced to foul due to the angle of the drive.  The NBA rulebook (No. 12, Part B, Section IV a.) states that a flagrant foul is called when there is "unnecessary" contact.  Boozer's contact to James was necessary), leaving the much lower quality basement TV, a much less comfy chair, but much more inner peace as I could watch the game as I saw fit.  This obviously wasn't ideal, so I propose the following:

We really need two separate airings of big games.  That way, the more invested fans can watch, scream, and cry in peace, and then let the more casual fans see everything (maybe even condensed into a one hour special) later on that night.  ESPN, let's talk.

Who needs elbows anyway

I don't normally just talk about sports on their own.  In fact, I don't know if I ever have, but this deserves some recognition.

Rajon Rondo just returned to a game in which the Celtics had an 18 point lead after sustaining a dislocated elbow a few minutes earlier.

I'll give you a little time to comprehend that.

More time.

Still haven't fully understood the magnitude of that?  Me neither.

This is shades of Billingsley in the Astrodome in the Texas State Championship, shades of Mary Lou Retton, shades of Paul Pierce.  My goodness.  I went through a period of not loving the NBA, not trusting the NBA, not wanting to be a fan, but that has all just disappeared.  For me, the NBA just went back into the category of "Sports My Grandfather Would Be Proud Of" along with baseball, hockey, pre-concussion rules NFL, and boxing.

I have no reason to be proud of Rajon Rondo, the Boston Celtics, or the NBA, but the fact that David Stern isn't rigging anything anymore, The Lakers losing to the Mavs Kobe losing to Dirk, and the concept of somebody doing something as gutsy as this in GAME 3 OF THE SEMIFINALS is unreal.  Last summer, the Heat LeBron James did something that everybody knew was against every rule in the masculinity book.  He pulled the ol' I'm a testicleless pussy "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" card, and took his bitchass talents to South Beach.  It was the saddest thing to happen in professional sports since Cliff Lee started against CC Sabathia in the World Series.

Except it was the greatest thing too.

Nobody else wanted to be LeBron James.  You could feel loyalty exploding from players, from fans, from coaches, from Carmelo Anthony, from GMs, from Dan Gilbert.  Derrick Rose decided that he was going to be the best player in the NBA and he did it.  Paul Pierce called out James from the start of the season, and then everybody dropped the gloves.  Pretty soon LeBron is throwing elbows at his coach, everybody realizes that Chris Bosh is a fake, GMs started trading again, the Bulls win without a single supporting castmember for Rose while Boozer and Noah are out, Blake Griffin is so good that he gets Baron Davis to play well again for a while, and everybody pretty much decides to create the best NBA season in recent memory (ever?).

We had an awesome first round.  Chris Paul balled again, Tyler Hansbrough proved that he's not a slouch (for now), Shane Battier finally beat his old Texas rivals once he got out of Texas, and the Knicks got smoked when Karma-elo finally came around.  Now this?  Down 2-0, the Celtics not only pull ahead by 10 in the third, but then EXTEND THE LEAD when their point guard goes down with a nasty injury.

AND THEN HE COMES BACK IN.

I didn't see this live, only online, but in my head I've romanticized this to follow the script from Miracle where Herb Brooks chews out Jack O'Callahan for being injured, except this time Ronjo is the one chewing out the trainer.

Rondo: "What the hell is wrong with you?? Pop it back in!"
Rondo: "I said pop it back in!!"
Trainer: "But it's dislocated.  You can't play."
Rondo: "Yeah, I know.  My bones aren't in the joints.  You know what, back off, I'll do it myself.  I've got no time for quitters."
Doc Rivers: "Come on Rajon, nobody's quitting here."
Rondo: "You worry about coaching this series.  There's plenty there to keep you busy!"

Then he pops it back in and goes and checks himself in at the scorer's table.

If you're the Heat, how do you react to this.  Not only has a Rondoless Boston team just extended the lead on you by 8 points, but now he's coming back in?  With his adrenaline raging?  In front of the one of the top two fan bases in all of sports?  Would it be okay to just forfeit and hope that Game 4 went better?

I've heard theories (that I think I believe) that LeBron James would have stayed in Cleveland if he would have had a father figure in his life.  The father's role is generally to stress hard work, loyalty, perseverance, etc, while the mother has historically been the one who comes in and makes you feel better after pops bitches you out.  They're the "do what makes you feel best, don't worry about what you're expected or relied on to do" people.  (In general).  So when LeBron was frustrated in Cleveland (home of your first place Indians!), LeMama finished with Delonte, rolled out of bed, and told BronBron to go have fun and take the easy way out as long as it would make it happy!  Yay!

Before you hit me with the "what about the Big 3 in Boston?" argument, listen to this.  Allen and Garnet were in terrible situations where they weren't going to win titles anytime soon.  They were past their primes, trying to get one last shot in.  The Cavs had been close.  LeBron was without a doubt one of the top two players in the league, without a doubt most valuable, and Dan Gilbert was bringing in talent to try to get him a title.  LeBron James was in control.  All he needed to do was stick it out, but he didn't.

If you had to pick a group of five dudes that I wouldn't want to piss off, it would be Rajon Rondo (always looks like he's going to kill somebody, scrappy as hell), Paul Pierce (survived a knife fight), Shaq (big, produced a rap album, meaning that he's probably a thug), Kevin Garnett (does anybody know what's going on in his mind?), and Ray Allen (but only because of his dad Jake Shuttlesworth).  The Heat won those first two games in Miami, but then went into the Boston Garden, House of Legends, of Bird and Parish and McHale and Havlicek, of 17 Championships.  Then, they have to mess with a just-hurt-enough-where-he-can-play-but-it-hurts-like-hell-and-he's-out-for-blood Team Engine (similar to MJ's flu game).  Uh oh.

It was clearly set up by whoever is in charge that the Celtics, everybody's least favorite team to play, were given rival New York, led by Anthony, and then huge rival Miami, led by the world's biggest narcissist.

Blue-collar city vs Prima Donna city.  The Old Guard vs two and a half of the best players of the next generation.  Reigning champs of the East vs the challengers.  And Boston even spotted the Heatles two games and a 10 to 9 arm advantage.

Yes, I think it's fair to say that the NBA is as much fun as ever.

The Authentic Self

The one Natural that I have ever encountered was Roy Hobbs.  I first met him about ten years ago, when Robert Redford came into my living room and introduced me to the dangers of women who invite themselves to your hotel room and the concept that someone could hit a baseball 600 feet on the reg after: A. Not having practiced for fifteen years; and B. Having been a pitcher in his previous career; as long as C. The bat that was used had been infused with lightning.

I took both points to heart, and while I'm still to allow a wary woman into any hotel room I've occupied (which has worked out quite well, as can be seen by my lack of gunshot wounds to the hip), I do credit the second major concept from that film with ending my baseball career.

Young William showing a confident smile, knowing that all he needs is a magical bat to keep his baseball career going.

Young William circa October 2009 upon finding out that he'd been cut from the Notre Dame baseball team.

Unfortunately for me, I never found a lightning bat and I hadn't worked hard enough to make it the old-fashioned way.

***

My buddy Pete recently gave me The Legend of Bagger Vance (novel form).  I had planned on using it to avoid reading my psychology textbooks, but I was unable to do that as Pete obviously had me figured out from the beginning, because after a mere 74 pages, I stumbled into a trap of deep psychology.  For anyone who hasn't read the book or seen the movie, Bagger Vance is a caddy of mysterious origins who is less of a man who carries a golf bag and more of a life coach.  That's not to say he isn't a golf fanatic.  He is.  And while he does know the game from physical side, he is more worried about the mental and spiritual aspects to it.  He has the belief that every golfer has an "Authentic Swing," which cannot be coached, but rather follows the player from the very first time he picks up a club.  He describes the swing with a man named Keeler, another student of the game, thusly:

 

"'I believe that each of us possesses, inside ourselves,' Bagger Vance began, 'one true Authentic Swing that is ours alone. It is folly to try to teach us another, or mold us to some ideal version of the perfect swing. Each player possesses only that one swing that he was born with, that swing which existed within him before he ever picked up a club. Like the statue of David, our Authentic Swing already exists, concealed within the stone, so to speak.' Keeler broke in with excitement. 'Then our task as golfers, according to this line of thought...' '...is simply to chip away all that is inauthentic, allowing our Authentic Swing to emerge in its purity.'

As I'm sure you've all figured out, he's not just talking about a golf swing.

"'Consider the swing itself,' he said. 'Its existence metaphysically, I mean. It has no objective reality of its own, no existence at all save when our bodies create it, and yet who can deny that it exists, independently of our bodies, a...s if on another plane of reality.' 'Am I hearing you right, sir?' Keeler asked. 'Are you equating the swing with the soul, the Authentic Soul?' 'I prefer Self,' Bagger Vance said. 'The Authentic Self'"

Once again.  Not only targeted towards golf

Will Smith as Bagger Vance.  Quick side rant: This absolutely should have been Morgan Freeman.  Big Willie Style is way too young/unmysterious for this gig.

 Bagger Vance believes that there are three paths to find one's Authentic Swing Self.  The first is Discipline - hard work, dedication, commitment.  The second is Wisdom - analyzing, dissecting.  The third, however, is a "pure love of the game."  Only when this pure love is actualized does the Authentic Swing Self come about.

***

In The Natural (movie version), Roy Hobbs hits a home run to win the Pennant for the New York Knights (great name for the future Nyets, Prokhorov), blows up the light towers, and rounds the bases in a shower of sparks.  The only thing he learns is that it was him, not the bat, the whole time.  

In The Natural (book version) [Spoiler Alert], Roy Hobbs strikes out.  He's been forcing a relationship with the owner's daughter, which has clearly been a terrible idea from the start.  He gets paid to throw the pennant, and while whether or not he actually does is left unclear, he is faced by a child at the end who tells him to "say it ain't so," and Roy can't.  He has tried to force himself into being a celebrity instead of the simple man that he grew up as.  He tries to force a relationship with a woman who repeatedly shows no signs of caring for him.  He tries to build himself into a superhero instead of being himself, and the book ends with him walking away in the rain, a sorry and bitter man.

If asked how to describe Roy Hobbs' Authentic Self after finishing that book, I'm fairly confident that nobody could actually do it.  He grows on his strong, farmboy values, throws them away, and then is left in a state of ambiguity.  It could be that the natural wasn't so natural after all, or it could be that he simply stopped after the Discipline step from Mr. Vance.  He put in the time, the dedication, the effort to try to woo Memo (the girl) (shouldn't a weird name like that be the first clue that something's wrong??), but he never stops to analyze how terribly the situation that he's putting all of his time towards, and he certainly isn't doing it because of some pure love.  

You see, it's really easy to find Discipline when you want something.  The dedication and hard work that Bagger Vance refers to are the first (and often only) things that we try to increase when faced with a goal.  We rarely reach the Wisdom step, and almost never do things because we have a Pure Love for them.  We have the ability work so hard for something that we want it to be love so much that we can convince ourselves it is, but often it is contaminated with things that would be clearly noticed if we ever took the time to do the dissecting and analyzing that Bagger requests. 

That's because Pure Love can never be forced.  Pure love occurs when you love something for what it is.  You have no desire to change it.  You have no desire to manipulate it.  You don't approach it looking for something in return.  Pure love means loving something unconditionally for what it is in the purest sense.

I think that the most important line from Bagger's whole talk about finding the Authentic Self is when he says that what we need to do is to "chip away all that is inauthentic, allowing our Authentic Swing to emerge in its purity."  He says swing, but once again, I'm pretty confident that he means Self.

This doesn't mean that we need to avoid all outside influences in the world.  My parents have different ideas for what my life should be than what I think it should be.  I don't mind dropping a few tenths of a point on GPA in order to experience something that I feel I'll value more in twenty years, but they're worried about my grades because grades lead to jobs, which is a hard stance to argue with, especially considering that they've put me under their roof for the past twenty years, they've fed me, raised me, clothed me, made me into who I am today.  Just because they want something different from what I want doesn't mean that I have to run away from it.  It just means that I have to understand why our views differ.  I need to have a conscious, concerted effort to understand who I am even when the world is throwing influences at me from every angle.  

I'm guilty of having done things to get something in return.  I'm fairly confident that we all have.  I've thought at times that having a girlfriend would be great just for what it stood for, and not for who the person was.  I've wanted leadership roles for status instead of to lead.  What I've recently realized, however, is that I'm always a lot happier when I control myself and hope that that leads to the consequences I desire than when I throw myself at a desired consequence and totally lose control of myself, and while I never realized it before about an hour ago, I'm pretty sure that Bagger and I are on the same page.

It seems to me that all of this could be avoided if we simply turned our Discipline efforts another direction.  Instead of trying to attain something, why do we not focus those efforts on ourselves.  God knows that we have room to improve.  If we really, truly put as strong of an effort as we can into finding and maintaining our true selves, into chipping away the inauthenticities, as we do into manipulating other people to like us, we should be able to figure it out pretty quickly.  

And isn't that the person that we want other people to see?

Time is way too short to try to bullshit people with a false self, and even if it wasn't, why the hell would we want to do that?  Personally, I would rather find one person who loves me for my true self than a thousand who love me for something I'm not.  When we meet others we automatically go through the Wisdom stage.  We analyze them, we dissect them, we recall past experiences to figure out what's going on with them.  That's easy.  That's a short step.  We do that every day.

If we can take these first two steps and really, honestly be happy with them, that is when we will find a pure love for our Authentic Self.  We need to take that Discipline, take that Wisdom, and figure out what we truly are, and once we have, once we've analyzed and dissected it all away we will find out that we've found ourselves.  And if we've gotten rid of all the things that we really can't stand, if we've chipped away all the unnecessary buildup that has stuck to us, chances are that the stuff that's left is something that we love.

The hardest part of this whole thing (as recently pointed out by Pete) is not actively analyzing what's going on when it's going on.  You can't think in the middle of a golf swing.  You know the checkpoints of the swing, you know the basics, but you can't be constantly analyzing it to see if you've hit them.  You just have to trust that it'll happen.  You have to do.  You have to be.

I know that I have to figure out who I am before I jump into relationships.  I need to have confidence in myself.  I also need to be able to look back and know where I deviated from that self.  I obviously need to know how my Authentic Self acts, I can't do outrageous things and just hope to analyze them later, but like the golf swing, I just have to trust that I'm hitting my checkpoints and being myself and not be constantly double-checking to make sure I've been there.  If I keep looking back, by the time I turn around the moment will be gone, and that's not what the moment is for.

The moment is for being.  I want to be me.  Just like trusting my golf swing to hit the ball down the fairway, I need to trust myself to find pure love and to ride it out for as long as it lasts.  If it ends, I can figure out why, but bliss isn't meant to be interrupted by the conscience.  If it's all set up on the tee waiting to be driven straight and true 250 yards down the fairway, I have a responsibility to let it fly.  If I shank it into the trees and the relationship falls apart, that's the time to figure out what I did wrong, where I deviated from my swing, but for now, I'm going to trust myself to be the person that I know I am, and I'm going to love this for all it's worth.

What will your verse be?

On the recommendation of my roommate I just watched Dead Poets Society.  Great movie, LtP strongly suggests that everybody watches it at some point in the next few hours.

I'm a sucker for movies about nonconformity, especially for ones with Robin Williams, so this hit home pretty good.  Definitely a good use of two hours.

Robin Williams is an English teacher in Dead Poets Society.  His main message for his students is be their own people, to not do things simply to do things.  That everything should have a personal motivation behind it and should be a point of personal pride when it's done.

There's a big difference between personal pride and being recognized for accomplishing something.  Last week I talked about "Scott," who basically based all decisions off of what would make him look the best.  Sure this is cool.  Everybody wants to be seen as successful.  There are very few people who honestly don't care at all what other people think and do 100% what they want, and those people are psychopathic serial killers.

And have seriously creepy eyes

Personal pride comes from doing something that we want to do, that we're intrinsically motivated to do.  That's why there's so much satisfaction.  Where does satisfaction come from if we're looking to get externally rewarded?  Would someone be happy with the fact that they plugged themselves into the system and then got spit out?  All you have to do is not be very daring and not screw anything up. 

I'm not impressed. 

Anyway, I believe that to gain that personal pride we have to be willing to make decisions that are, well, personal.  We have to be ourselves and see if people adjust instead of adjusting to what we think other people want us to be, to be a Howard Roark instead of a Peter Keating, if you will.

In the post about Scott I talked about how I knew one person that liked him.  That one person is going to be referred to as Rachel. 

I used to be a huge fan of Rachel.  Very nice, seemed caring, etc.  No reason not to like her.  Until I found out the reasons not to like her, namely that she has none of her own values or beliefs.  She's all about making other people like her.  It's like her life is one big Miss America interview session - don't be too extreme in either direction, don't take a firm stand, basically just try to stand there and not give people a reason not to like you.

This really works, until, well, it stops.  People start figuring out what you really stand for eventually, and if they can't figure it out it starts looking suspicious, especially when it's more "empty" than "mysterious and dreamy."  I've honestly known Rachel for over 18 months, and I can't tell you what she finds important.  She's the most wishy-washy person I have ever met.  She makes decisions solely so that other people like her, especially people who can give her something (see Scott).

This creates a strange paradox.  The more she does to get other people to like her, the fewer people like her.  I've talked to a few other people who have known her about as long as I have, and we're all going through the same thing.  We used to like her but now there's just no reason to.

I don't dislike Rachel, but I don't like her either.  I honestly don't care at all.  Is there anything worse?  I would rather have somebody have some sort of opinion on me, either positive or negative, than just honestly not care about me at all.  I have lost respect for Rachel to the point where I try to say things to her just to throw her off and see how she'll react.  Almost every time she gets pissed at me, but because she wants people to like her so badly she always turns around and isn't pissed within a few hours or in the worst case the next day.

Why?

In one of the first scenes of Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams' character says, "We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse."

Basically we can do anything we want.  We can live our lives as if life is a science, or we can live them as if it's a poem.  This doesn't mean that medicine, law, business, and engineering can't be approached poetically.  Albert Einstein wasn't a poet but he lived poetically.  Sir Richard Branson lives poetically.  We only have a few years to be.  To be alive, to be in this world.  Being is a gift.  Is it really worth sacrificing the first 60 years of life working as part of the machine so that we can enjoy the last 20 years of retirement when we could simply see the entire life as an opportunity.

Life is not a rare opportunity, it's not a unique opportunity, but it is a special opportunity, and we need to look at it that way.  At the end of the above quote, Williams' character asks his class, "What will your verse be?"


That's a pretty powerful way to look at life, but it's very true.  Very few people are not remembered for something by somebody, so we need to think about what our verse is going to be.  Scott's verse will probably have completely proper rhythm and structure, but will it mean anything?  Rachel's verse will be cute and everybody will probably like it at first, but will we find any depth in it?


Our lives, our being, should be something that we're proud of, something that we can look back at and say, "Yeah, that's what I wanted to do, even if it's not what other people valued." 


Our lives need to be lived consciously.  If we don't know who we are, how will anybody else have even a chance of figuring out who we are?  Our verse is the only thing that lives on about us.  Our verse is our legacy.  What will yours be?

Life

Life is like driving down the highway on a summer night at sunset: you can view it a bunch of different ways.  There are people who are bored out of their minds and sleep through it.  There are people who role up the windows and turn the music up and just focus on the road and the destination.  There are the people who complain about how tired they are and how much their butt hurts and how they're sick of driving

There are the people that look forward to the journey but love the trip just as much.  They roll down the windows and feel the wind blowing in their face and look around and see all the beauty in the world, even if it doesn't seem present at first.  The beautiful way that the sun goes down over the corn fields.  The beautiful way that the sun peeks around the clouds.  The way that the clouds look like they're painted onto the sky.  The way that the wind hits them in the face, and sometimes it makes them tear up, but it's worth it because it makes you feel so alive.  The way that in a world full of so much hustle and bustle and business, you can be perfectly alone.  Everything is driven by your own motivation.  Everything is your own choice.  You thrive through the sun in your eyes and the crappy roads.  You smile and shake it off and have been able to experience the most beautiful things in the world.  Everybody has the opportunity to see the beauty, but not enough people realize that they're passing through it.

Not enough people laugh.
Not enough people smile.
Not enough people are brave enough to cry.
Not enough people realize that they're surrounded by beauty.

These people look for things that look beautiful, instead of realizing that beauty can be drawn from anything - a tiny smile or a simple laugh or a kiss on the cheek or being able to go on a walk or even being in a fight, because the ability to argue is a beautiful thing in itself, the ability to communicate everything is so unique and so incredible.

Not enough people have joy in what they do. They look for joy to come to them from the outside, instead of realizing that they're always surrounded by it and it has to come from inside of them.

Life is a beautiful, personal thing.  People need to be selfish enough to allow themselves to enjoy it. 

If everyone were selfish the world would be perfect.  We would all be joyful.  We would all be perfectly happy with everyone else, and we would allow everyone else to be happy as well.  This is selfless: allowing others to be happy.  Sad people are selfless because they try to make other people feel bad for them by allowing others to change who they are, which is selfish.  They don’t want their own joy, they want others to feel bad for her.  If they were selfish, she would tell the world to leave them alone and let them be her own person, but instead, they make others feel worse because they complain about how other people ruin their life, whether or not these are audible complaints, they do come out – this is selfish.  They are making other people less joyful because they are too scared to find their own joy.

We can't control other people, but we can control ourselves, which means that everyone should control themselves.  We should do this by enjoying where we are in every single moment of our lives.

That's joy.

That's beauty.

It's about love

My parents are outstanding at what they do.  They're great people, and have done a great job instilling their great values in my brothers and me.  They always pushed us to do our best in school, and when we got bad grades they were always pretty genuinely disappointed in us.  I have a lot more experience in this category than either of my brothers, so I consider myself the resident expert.  Anyway, I always thought that they just wanted me to get good grades.  I was always pretty scared of bringing home bad report cards.  It was terrifying.

Then I realized that they weren't disappointed in me for getting bad grades.  They were disappointed in my lack of effort.  You see, if John and Jennifer stress one thing, it's going balls to the wall.  I don't remember them ever taking the easy way out, and if I ever did, there was hell to pay.  The two times that my dad has been most angry with me came after basketball games where I didn't play as hard as I could.  As long as I provided effort though, there was never anything but pride for me from them.  That's why I can't stand when people don't try things or if they back away after something goes wrong early.

There's a kid who is infamous at our Lady's fine university purely because of his record levels of douchebaggery.  We're going to call this fellow Scott.

I honestly saw him wearing the exact same outfit as the kid in the pink, and doing it seriously.

I know one person that likes Scott.  One.  As in, that's it.  Literally everybody else that I know who has interacted with Scott has nothing but animosity for him.  Anyway, Scott was in one of my classes, and it's definitely a very hard class.  On the first test, he didn't do as well as he'd hoped, and he decided to drop the class.  Not too uncommon, happens every day in college.  But, this dude already has an internship lined up with Goldman Sachs, the New York Yankees of jobs.  This was an econ class, which is extremely important if he's actually going to be an investment banker, and he decided against toughing it out because he wanted a 4.0 on the semester.  Let's review.  He already has a job for this year, this class would help him learn for his job, but he dropped it because it was hurting his GPA.  This is a serious problem.  Where's the motivation?  Where's the love for learning?  Where's the effort and the hard work?

He's obviously a smart kid, but instead of busting his butt and trying to earn the best grade he possibly can, he's copping out and making himself feel good about himself because of his 4.0.  This really bothers me.  Too many people want results.  Not enough people want to work to get there.  This would be like if Scott had been flown to within a half mile of the peak of a mountain, climbed the rest of the way, and then claimed that he had successfully climbed the mountain.

Bullshit.

The best things in the world are the things that we work to earn, the things that we put our passion into, the things that we love.  It's hard to love something that's placed into your lap, because there's no value to it.  The reason that everybody loves walk-ons is because they're there for the love.  They're not trying to use a college team to vault themselves into the pros.  They're not riding it out for scholarship money.  They know there's a good chance they'll never get playing time, but they love the game and the work is worth it, even if they never get to see the A+ results that they might want.

Someday they'll make a movie called "Tom"

I try to avoid doing things just because the results will benefit me at some point.  Sure I'll benefit from my Notre Dame degree, but I want to love the things that I learn along the way.  I want those to be worth it.  What's the use of a degree if you don't know what you did to get it?  I'm sure there are a lot of people at this school who are here because of the degree they'll get.  That bothers me.

"Why'd you want to come to Notre Dame?"
"Isn't it obvious?  For the girls."

I love this place.  If I didn't I wouldn't be here.  I love everything about it.  It's the greatest place in the world.  There's no place better.  I love it.  And being someplace that you love, doing something you love, being with people you love; these are the greatest feelings in the world.  If we go places to get things and don't enjoy the time we spend going there and being there, if we do things to get results and don't enjoy the actual act, if we meet people and use them just to get something out of them without really valuing them, we're really missing out.

People have asked me why I write this thing.  I love writing.  Writing is a release for me.  I'm really good at having a lot of thoughts, and this is a way to get them out.  It's a way to reassert my beliefs, to make a record of what I think is important, and while there are always certain people I think would find each post valuable, but I don't write because I think I know better than anybody.  I don't want to tell anybody how to live their life or what's important or what they should be doing.  I don't think I'm "holier than thou."  I just need a release. 

That's the other thing about hard work.  The more time we put into something, the more it becomes explicitly ours.  If we take the easy way out, what have we gained?  A meaningless reward?  Trophies and honors and awards mean nothing without the things that they're based off of.  Giving me an Oscar wouldn't make me a good actor, it would just give me a paperweight.  Giving Scott a 4.0 doesn't mean he's learned anything, it just means he knows how to work the system.  I'll take someone with a farmboy work ethic and a value for learning over somebody with good grades any day of the week.  It's not about results.  It's about love.  If results are good, that's just an added bonus.