On flushing it and hitting your free throws

Opening Day is one of my favorite holidays of every year for a few reasons.  First, the Indians are still in the hunt.  Second, there are few things more beautiful than those pictures of gigantic American flags being rolled out in the outfield while grown men line up in their whites and grays to play a boy's game.  Third, because it makes me fall in love all over again with the most beautiful pastime there is.

Opening Day 2013 in the Cathedral of the Bronx

My earliest memories are from the baseball field in our side yard, and the majority of my most important moments have happened on this and other ballfields, other places of learning.  Learning how to wait on a curveball and how to read a fly ball off of the bat, learning how to round first base to stretch a single into a double, learning how to wear my socks at just the right length below the knee, learning how and when to use a takeout slide, and most importantly, learning that nobody is above failure.

Every coach that I have played for has understood that failure is part of the game.  My high school  coach used to tell us to Flush It whenever we came back into the dugout after really screwing up.  Not like if you hit a line drive that turned into an out, but rather times when you made an error, or threw to the wrong base, or got fooled by a bad pitch, or hung a curveball that got belted into the stratosphere.  When these mistakes happened, my coaches made me realize that either I could dwell on them and let them eat at me, or I could face up to what happened, figure out why I had made the error, understand that there was nothing I could do to take back the throw that I'd made into the third row, there was no way to get the ball back.  Flush and move on.

Young William with a Flush It play (but great calves) - June 2008

Like all lessons that you can learn from baseball (which is only a game because it couldn't be a philosophy), the ability to Flush It can be applied in every setting in the world, from school to romance to work to anything else, and as I reach what is the biggest turning point that I've faced so far in my life (going from college into the real world/childhood into adulthood/with a support system to on my own), I've found it useful to think about when I look back on the most recent phase of my life.  In my years at college I've screwed up academically, athletically, and socially (not necessarily in order of frequency or severity), and I've done it more times than I can count.  I've bailed on potential relationships because I've been afraid to commit, I've lacked interest in subject matter to the point where I bombed tests and backed my way into passing grades, I've tested friendships because I don't have an off switch on the basketball court, I've been cut from the baseball team, I've lied, I've cheated, I've given up, I've compromised my morals, I've done pretty much everything that everyone would tell you to avoid doing.

College is a period of difficult transitions, and I've grown up more in this time than I ever thought I could have before I came here.  I've accomplished some things and I've screwed some things up, probably at about a .290 batting average with my slugging percentage is floating right around .500. But these numbers, in whatever dimensions they exist, belong to the past.  The damage has been done, or not.  There's nothing that I can do now except to accept that it's gone, Flush It, and then learn from it.  The people around me may or may not accept it, but I can become better, and in the end, that's what's important.  What's done is done.

Okay Young William, so what do you do after you flush it?

Young William at the stripe - February 2007

Because I'm unable to talk in any way but through sports analogies, I'm going to pull from the arsenal again here, but I'll spare baseball.  As my older brother once told me, "Sometimes you get to be Maverick, sometimes you have to be Goose, and sometimes you crash."  I've crashed my fair share, I got to be Maverick on the baseball diamond, but on the basketball court I was always Goose.  My senior year I led the team in minutes because it didn't really matter if I fouled out.  The only other statistical categories that I think I've ever led teams in are fouls and charges taken.  I stayed in games because I played good defense, I didn't turn the ball over, and I made my free throws.

There's nothing like free throws in any other team sport.  Nowhere else are you presented with an opportunity in the form of an unguarded attempt to score points on any regular basis.  There's just you and the hoop, the shot is always the same distance away no matter where you go, and so theoretically, if you've practiced enough, you should be able to make it every time with your eyes closed.  Watch any game in which a team shoots 50% from the free throw line: the announcer is right: free throws are of eternal significance.

There are free throws in life.  There are things that we know will occur and that we can control.  We need to be successful in these things.  We need to be nice to our girlfriend's parents, we need to be confident in interviews, we need to love and take care of our family and friends.  There are very few things that we can actually control, so when they're placed in our lap - when we're fifteen feet away and unguarded - we need to be automatic.

The world is a scary place.  It's manipulating, it's demanding, it's forceful, and it's cruel, but that does not mean that it owns us.  When the world beats us down, we can flush our mistakes and move on.  When we see openings to success, we need to make our free throws.  The world is hard but it is not impossible, and if we are willing to learn from things and then flush them, and if we can make our free throws, the future doesn't seem so daunting after all.

On senses of entitlement

Earlier today, I had a test in my Labor Econ class (it was tough, but I think it went well, thanks for asking!).  Before the test, the professor wrote "Stay calm and THINK" on the whiteboard in the front of the room.  It was interesting to me because of its simplicity and its power.  We, as a collective country (world?), fail to do at least one of those things, and all too often we fail to do both.

Later this afternoon, Notre Dame announced that the commencement speaker in May for the Class of 2013 would be Cardinal Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, one of the most powerful people in the Catholic Church, and one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2012.  Of course everyone was ecstatic.  Here we were, at the best Catholic university in the United States (and I'm assuming world but I can't back that up), getting the Cardinal of New York, a longshot candidate of being the next Pope, as our commencement speaker.  Live and in person.  Wow!

Wait, that's not what happened at all.

Before I get into the actual result, let's give a brief history of Notre Dame Commencement Speakers of Recent Memory (NDCSRMs).

2012: Haley Scott DeMaria, a former Notre Dame swimmer who was severely injured, and survived, the brutal 1992 bus crash that killed two of her teammates.  On the 20th anniversary of the incident you would think that Notre Dame students would be excited to hear her inspiring words of perseverence and the strength of the Notre Dame family.  Nope, everyone complained.

2011: Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense, leader of two wars, former President of Texas A&M, the 7th largest university in the United States.  Pretty cool, right?  Nope, according to Patrick McDonnell, "I saw that a few students were excited, but most reactions were of indifference, simple acceptance or slight disappoint."

2009: Barack Obama, newly elected President of the United States.  The Leader of the Free World!  Whether I voted for him or not, this is amazing!  What an opportunity!  Nope, we complained because he was pro-choice.  We complained about the MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD.  Would we complain if Jesus came back down from Heaven to give the address???

Notre Dame complaining about having to sit through a boring lecture from the President

Now let's try to stay calm and think for a while.

The point of college, when you strip it down, is education.  See: The University of Phoenix.  At the end of the day, we are paying for the quality of education.  Higher quality education = higher tuition costs.  Tuition is also inflated by research that the school does, the social and charitable work that the school does, and the quality of life on campus (basically all non-school, non-charitable benefits to a student) to break it down to an extremely basic level.  Let's see how Notre Dame does at all of those:

Education

• 17th best University in the U.S. - US News and World Report
• 12th best College - Forbes
• Best Business School - Bloomberg
• 10th highest median starting salary at $53,400 (across all majors) - PayScale
• An 11-1 student to faculty ratio
• 65 degree programs
• Excellent Career Center and Career Fairs
• Signaling effect to employers from a Notre Dame degree

Social/Charitable

• 53 Student Service Organizations
• 9 Student Religious Organizations
• Events such as Bengal Bouts and Bookstore Basketball that support worldwide charities
• Connections to local community service institutions
• Access to hundreds of Holy Cross priests

Quality of Life

• 19th best Food Services in the Country
• Prettiest campus in the world
• 385 clubs and organizations
• Over 20 Division 1 sports teams
• The 2nd best football team in the country in 2012
• New facilities (Mendoza, DPAC, Jordan, Rolfs, Purcell Pavilion)

When we pay for college, we pay for the access to all of these things.  We aren't entitled to any of them, we aren't guaranteed any of them, we are simply given access to them and the opportunity to use them.  Everyday, Notre Dame students take advantage of these opportunities without gratitude because we feeling entitled to them.  And maybe we are.  Maybe we deserve them because of the check that we write every six months.   I don't think that we deserve any of this.

The four years that I have had at Notre Dame have been, by far, the best four years of my entire life.  I've grown in academic ways, in social ways, in religious ways, and in personal ways.  Did I know I was going to go to a great school in August of 2009 when I first arrived at Alumni Hall?  Yes.  But I had no idea that I would become a better, more well-rounded person who was better prepared to go out and face the world.  I will be eternally grateful for what Notre Dame gave me.  College isn't about buying a diploma so you can get a job.  College is about growing as a person, and Notre Dame, more than any school in the entire world (research not needed, differing opinions ignored), allows, and forces, students to grow as people.

So back to my first point about Cardinal Dolan.  Every single review I saw of the choice of him as speaker was negative or sarcastic.  They pointed to how he wouldn't be funny.  They called him a homophobe.  They said it wasn't as good as Brian Williams from three years ago.

There are things that are wrong with Cardinal Dolan.  Most notably, he's a strong opponent to gay marriage, but so is the Catholic Church and we've all decided to go to their school.  He's strongly against abortion, which Notre Dame and the Church also agree with him on.  He investigated a sex abuse scandal and took priesthood away from the offenders, which we're all in favor of.  At the end of the day, he's a successful, and very powerful, religious man that we can all learn from.

So what do we think we're entitled to?  I've heard multiple people complain because Stephen Colbert turned us down (may or may not be a rumor, I have no idea), who was a former commencement speaker at Knox College and at Northwestern.  How dare he turn down prestigious Notre Dame?!?!?!  Who would have the gumption to do that?!?!?!  Now we're stuck with this Cardinal?  I can't believe I'm paying $50,000 for this.

If Notre Dame wanted to, they could mail us our diplomas and not have a ceremony at all.  That wouldn't change our standing as graduates, and it wouldn't take away what we had done, and how we had grown, during our time here.  Instead, they're throwing us a party on a beautiful May morning in the most storied football stadium in the world and we can invite whoever we want.  If you want a different speech, that's fine.  Here's Colbert.  Here's Will Ferrell.  Here's Brian Williams.  Here's Steve Jobs.  Are they any less meaningful words because they were directed at Northwestern or Harvard or Stanford and not the 2013 Class at Notre Dame?  Is Cardinal Dolan not going to say something interesting or inspiring as well?  Isn't a new speaker better than hearing a backup speech from someone who has already done it somewhere else?

What I'm trying to say is that we aren't paying $50,000 for a 20 minute speech at our graduations.  We aren't paying for our graduation.  We're paying it for our four years of experiences, of which graduation is simply a period on the end of a chapter.  Anyone choosing to speak to us should be something that we're grateful for, not that we feel entitled to.  So instead of complaining because we didn't get more whipped cream on dessert at the end of a beautiful, gourmet meal, how about we appreciate what we've been given already, and look forward to what Cardinal Dolan will say.

On shifting lanes and holding on

I went home this weekend for the first time since I moved to Minneapolis last month.  Obviously, the main reason was to see friends and be with my family, but on my drive home I was struck with another craving that I had seemed to have been pushing down.

While what follows may seem off topic, I promise that A) it isn't and B) I'm going somewhere:

If you've never driven through the Great State of Wisconsin you need too.  If you have driven through Wisconsin but never at dusk, you need to do that too.  I left the Cities at about 4:00 on Friday night.  The air was about 90 degrees with what was probably 99% humidity, and I hit traffic leaving town.  It looked like it would be the worst drive in the history of the world, and as the ETA on my GPS climbed steadily while I was stuck on 94-E, I must say that I started to get a little antsy.  But after I crossed the border and headed southeast through the hills and fields of Wisconsin, everything changed.

I had finally left the "cabin traffic" of people heading north for the weekend for a getaway and had the road mostly to myself.  I was out of the city, so I rolled down the windows, opened the moonroof, cranked the music, and just absorbed the world around me.  The sun began to fall and the wheat glowed amber.  The hills were covered in long shadows, and the road slipped and snaked for miles ahead of me.  The wind blew warm in my face and for a beautiful few hours I was completely alone and completely in touch with the entire world.  It was in this moment, and here's where we connect back to the cliffhanger off paragraph 1, that I realized I missed going to church.  Albert Einstein once said, "My sense of God is my sense of wonder about the universe," meaning that the universe was designed so perfectly that there was no way that it could exist without an almighty power.  I had a similar experience on Friday, and I realized that I needed religious experiences in my life.  While adjusting to a new community and a new life, it had been easy to let slip for four weeks, but with the trip home I would be able to return and I was ecstatic.

My boy Al either praying or simply contemplating why he didn't do something more fun with his life than practice physics

The weekend came and went and Sunday morning rolled around and we went to church, where one of the readings was from the book of Wisdom, and went like this: 

Because God did not make death

nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.

For he fashioned all things that they might have being,

and the creatures of the world are wholesome;

There is not a destructive drug among them

nor any domain of Hades on earth,

For righteousness is undying^.

 

While I very much may be wrong in this interpretation, I heard this as telling me that even though things suck sometimes, they are not the work of God, and dammit if He isn't trying his hardest to try to swing the world in my favor.  He built the world to be good and it's not going to go down the tubes on his watch. 

So swing forward 3 hours and I'm back in the car headed north, back through beautiful Wisconsin, and I'm cranking New Radicals (who is, without a doubt, the best band to produce only one album ever) on the CD player in Mom's minivan (and no, it doesn't get any cooler than that).  New Radicals most popular, and second best song, is You Get What You Give, and while I've listened to it probably over 100 times, I've never really paid much attention to the lyrics.  Gregg Alexander starts out singing about the young and carefree life, but then hits us with, "but when the night is falling / and you cannot find a light. / If you feel your dream is dying / hold tight."  Fairly standard "don't give up" advice, right?  But it delves deeper.  He comes back with: 

God's flying in for your trial.
This whole damn world can fall apart,
You'll be okay, follow your heart.

You're in harm's way.
I'm right behind.

Pretty similar to the reading from Wisdom, right?

Always take advice from dudes in sweet pink hats

I could be the only one, in which case just stop reading, but it seems like all too often the whole damn world does fall apart, or at least it seems like that.  I get flustered and stressed and worried and I hole up and try to protect myself from the terrible things that will happen next.

But they never actually come.

And in these past three days I've been reminded of that once again.  The Earth is not a cold dead place, and in fact, it's quite the opposite.  Whenever something goes wrong, there's always something there that helps me to bounce back.  Sure, there's a hell of a lot of bad stuff going on out there, but that doesn't mean that it's going to ruin things for me.  If I hold on to what I value, if I don't give up, if I'm me, the goodness of the world will take care of me.  Things will shift from bumper to bumper city traffic to a beautiful drive through the countryside at dusk, and even though it doesn't mean that the ETA moves back to where it was and the bad things never happened, it doesn't mean that it's not an incredible experience.

"New is always better"

I just finished through the 2011 season of How I Met Your Mother on Mom's Netflix account (in exchange for the password, I've corrupted her favorites with beauties such as Baseketball and rated everything I watch as 5 stars.  Fair trade).  Anyway, the last episode was the best one yet (and you can trust me on that because I never make blanket statements), mostly because it was centered around Barney's rule of "new is always better."

There are many exceptions to this rule, namely Notre Dame football teams, the Chicago Cubs, and lacrosse being the cool new sport, but in general it's pretty good.  It's easy to get stuck in a rut and think that everything used to be better, but it's only because that part of our lives was figured out.  It was easy.  We know how things would have happened.  We can always be perfect in hindsight.

But we'd also be accepting something that isn't our best.

I get made fun of for my overuse of "It's the best day ever," but I do think that it's something that should be taken seriously.  After all, yesterday is a sunk cost.  It still matters on the balance sheet, it can't be erased, but there's also nothing that you can do to change it, so there's nothing to do but take what you have and create the absolute best possible outcome, the best day that can be made.

Were there days that were absolutely amazing?  Were there periods of our lives that we thought that everything was completely figured out?  Were we kings of our worlds for brief periods of time?  Yes, yes, and yes.  But would we want to relive those days in a loop forever?  I say no.

It's easy to look back and see what didn't work and wish that it did, but the truth is that it didn't, for whatever reason, and even if we revisit it every once in a while, we shouldn't have to re-enact it.  What's through is through and what's done is done.  Today in church our minister used the phrase, "from history to mystery," while describing the Easter story.  I think that applies here too.  History is done and the future is a mystery, but just because it's a mystery doesn't mean it shouldn't be taken on.  There's a reason that things end.  There are new beginnings waiting, and these new beginnings are always better.

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.

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.

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.

"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?" - Satchel Paige

I've been dreading today for probably the past two years.  I'm officially twenty, and while I could re-use jokes about beating teen pregnancy, I feel like this is a very dire situation.  "Not So" Young William is seriously concerned.

I'm pretty sure that I lived only three days as a child, but kept repeating them over and over and over and over.  The first consisted of going to the beach with my cousins in the summer, playing Running Bases, building canals in the sand that would always absorb the water before it would actually make it back down to the lake, and acting as a diver for Stu's Rock Store.  The second involved playing 3 innings of tennis ball baseball for the Lakewood Vultures, which always involved an incredible 3rd Inning comeback, going to The Freeze for Ice Cream afterward (except for when I went through my slushie phase.  Why would you ever choose a slushie when you could get a swirl cone?  That's the dumbest thing ever, Young William.  A slushie is just cold juice with small ice cubes.  Soft-serve swirl is heavenly), and then racing (and losing) to Michael on the bike ride home.  The third involved going to school, hanging out with my mom while watching Arthur and Magic School Bus, and then playing for the Lakewood Fighting Egyptians in basement basketball.  Pure domination, mostly because the other team's center had to carry a two year-old Stuart in one arm who would consistently pass the ball to the Egyptians.

Anyway, those were absolutely, positively more fun than reading 50 pages of textbooks every night.  I promise.  I didn't have to worry about employment, I didn't have to worry about school, I didn't have to do anything but focus on my dual-sport athletic career.

But.

Apparently you have to get older (dumb rule).

I've covered childhood fairly extensively before, so I'll try to avoid repeating myself any more than I already have.  As Ben Folds says so eloquently, "Everybody knows it sucks to grow up, but everybody does."  So apparently I have to suck it up and move on.

I've been haunted by this picture for quite some time:

I mean, that's great and all.  Absolutely wonderful.  But does that mean that I have to leave it?  Does that mean that I have to leave my magic, my joy, my childhood in order to give it to my daughter (who looks suspiciously like a blond Susie Derkins)?  I don't think so.  I'm not planning on being an overly controlling father who makes up my own kid's make believe, but I don't see why I have to live in a separate world.  Instead of a hand-me-down, can't it be an introduction, an initiation to the club?

The background on my computer (every other day) is this:

This is much closer to my personal philosophy.  There's too much cool stuff in the world to just give up on pursuing it.  The thing I dislike the most about that first comic is the caption that describes Hobbes as a "childish thing."  I've always viewed Hobbes on a similar level as the bell from Polar Express.  For those who don't want it to be real, it's not, but for those who understand how real and beautiful and incredible it can be, it's the most real thing in the world.  Hobbes is more than a toy, but he's also more than a best friend.  He's Calvin's carefree, imaginative, joyous, clever inner drive.

Growing up is generally associated with ditching the Hobbes (Hobbeses?) of our lives, as is depicted in the first comic.  Why is this the way that it's "supposed" to work?  Why aren't more people encouraged to keep their creativity, their passion, their carefreeness?  Obviously we have to be responsible.  We have to pay mortgages, raise children, work, etc, but we can still seek out adventures.  We can still go exploring.

I recently stumbleuponed this quote from Roald Dahl, also a staple of my childhood. 


“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”


I was pretty depressed this afternoon and tonight.  I really felt awful.  I felt like it was the end of the ride.  When I started writing this I was planning on it being more reminiscent than anything.  Instead, I'm feeling a lot better.  It doesn't have to end.  I'm going to keep exploring.  I'm going to believe in magic.  I'm going to find magic.  It may be hidden, but the journey is 95% of the fun.  Especially when you bring your Hobbes.