Life Lessons: Introduction

I have no idea what I’m doing.  Just thought I’d warn you.

I’m not even sure why I’m doing it.  But for whatever reason, I really want to write a book.  I don’t know if I think it will make me rich, or if it will be fun, or both, or neither.

Maybe I just like hearing the sound of my own voice.  Except, you know, I can’t hear the written word.  So, I guess it’s more like reading the sound of my own voice.  But with out the voice.

Or actual sound.

Right.

Did I mention that I have no idea what I’m doing?

I do feel that writing can be cathartic, even if it is just a random spewing of thoughts.  Sometimes, that which makes us feel better is the illusion in our head.  The illusion that I did a good job, or that my words actually matter in some way.

The illusion that I matter.

It sounds bad when I say it that way, doesn’t it?  Of course people matter.  We just don’t always believe that WE matter.  That I matter.  

But we want to.

We want to know that our lives have purpose and impact and are more than just a series of pointless events strung across time.  So, even when we aren’t sure… or perhaps, especially when we aren’t sure… we will create the illusion in our own heads that what we do, who we are, what we say, matters.  We want to feel better about ourselves.

Huh.  That sounds depressingly pathetic.

That is not actually my intention.  And really, what do I know?  I’m no psychologist.  I don’t know what you are thinking.  I don’t know why you think it, even if I say I do.  Which, I will probably do.

But everyone wants to feel better.  Even if they already feel good.  We want to laugh.  We want to improve.  Progress.  Run faster, farther.  Be skinnier and more muscular.  Have more hair in the right places and less in the wrong places.

That’s a weird one, right?  It’s amazing how much power ones hair has.  Nothing makes you feel older or look older than losing your hair.  

Trust me, I know all about this.  Mine has not so much disappeared as it has migrated.  It’s pretty patchy up top, but fortunately my body compensated by giving me extra all over and inside my nose.

Then there is my little patch of lower back goodness.  Or the random patches on my chest, belly and nipples.

That’s right, all you young attractive and body-hair free guys.  Just wait… your time is coming.  Once, not long ago, I was like you.  Full head of awesome.  Hairless pecks of glory.  Six-pack abs of sexy.

Now, I’m mostly sweaty and smell bad.  

I still sometimes try to act suave and sexy for my wife.  Which really makes her giggle.  But not in that turned on sort of way.  More in that awkward embarrassed sort of way.  In that, “Oh honey, you’re so silly.  You keep trying, and that’s… sweet…”

This works wonders for my ego.  It keeps reality in check.  Or perhaps, it keeps me in check, and snuggly tethered to reality.

It also keeps me jogging.  I can’t begin to describe all the ways THAT sucks.  They tell you that you get some sort of high or rush from jogging.

Lies.

All lies.

You know what I get from jogging?  

Tired.  Sore.  Out of breath.  Sweaty.  That feeling of such utter exhaustion and fatigue and inability to, you know, breath… that I beg God to strike me dead where I stand.

That’s my jogging experience.

However, to be fair, since I started jogging again, I’ve lost 20 pounds as of this sentence.  I can actually see my abs again.  I’d forgotten that I had more than one.  I can see four real clear, and two more are beginning to come out of hiding.  I’m buying shirts a size smaller now.  I no longer get out of breath when starting the car.  And you know what?

I feel pretty good about that.  I look better.  I feel better.  It turns out, all that work is worth it.  The pain and exhaustion.  

The other day my wife noticed that my arms had muscles.  At first I was thinking, “You mean they didn’t before?”  But then I realized she was noticing a difference in me.  A difference she liked.

And that made me feel good about me.

Which made me go out and by a nice, new, tailored suit.  And by “nice”, I mean “cheap”.  Let’s face it, I can’t afford nice.  I mean, it’s not high society.  But it does look the business.  I put on that suit, and I think, “if you weren’t so bald, you’d look totally sweet.”

So, I wear a fedora with it instead.  I like my fedora.  It looks good.  And oddly, it looks good when I wear my Green Lantern t-shirt, jeans, and Converse All-stars.

Although, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who thinks so.

But does that matter?  

Well, probably yes.  But not as much as it used to.  And maybe that’s the real improvement.  It’s not the hat or the suit or shirt or the new-found abs.  Maybe it’s just knowing I can be a better me, an improved me, or that I can be happy with me.  

Because, all that superficial crap is meaningless.  My wife loved me when I was just sweaty and hairy and bald.  Does she love me more now that I have a nice suit and a trimmer figure?

No.  Sure, she is now ok being seen with me in public, and no longer hides behind the closest tree when some body walks by.

But she cared more about who I was inside, than what I was outside.

Why didn’t I?

Maybe that’s why I’m writing this book.  

I'm Back, I'm Sorry, I'm a Bad Person, and Other Things So Please Read Thank You.

Sooo... how do I explain myself?

That is going to be tough since I'm not sure I actually have a good excuse.  My last post told you about a project I was working on.  Since then I've changed jobs (no, I wasn't fired... might have even been promoted-ish), moved (no, I wasn't evicted), significantly improved my health (no, I... actually, ya, I am kind of healthier now), and have been trying to deal with life.

Let's focus on that last one.

I would like to preface this and say, any personal issues I may or may not hint at are pretty minor in the grand scheme of things and really don't stack up well against people who have actual problems.  

Let's pause there for a second.  If you are new to this blog and have never ready any thing here and might not know who I am or what this whole thing is about, I encourage you to go back and read my old posts.  Emphasis on old.  I couldn't believe how long it had been since my last post till recently when I checked out the page.  I was shocked and embarrassed.

In a nutshell, I talk about life and stuff about life and lessons learned there-in, usually in embarrassing ways that have to do with me being an idiot, hence the title of my blog.

Back to my poor excuse for excuses.

Life got "hard".  While, it could be argued that my life was being "successful", it was by no means "easy."  I'm using quotes to let you know the relative quality of those words.  One man's torture is another man's vacation.  Or so I'm told.  I don't look at those websites and you can't prove otherwise.

When things get difficult there are lots of ways people can react.  In my case I started withdrawing from stuff just to avoid extra work and other things, like, you know, thinking.  No, it wasn't actually that bad.  But I was getting distracted by life more and more and it got harder and harder to focus on and remember to do the things I actually enjoy.

Like this blog, for example.

But you know what is funny?  All that time I wasn't writing and posting to this blog, I was actually writing.  At some point, I don't remember when, I decided to try writing a bit more organized form of the blog and see if I could make it a "book".  I even managed to hack out 10 chapters plus an Introduction.

I never moved passed that stage.  I finished chapter 10 over a year ago or more.

One thing that is strange about me is that, as a leader type person, I am required to make regular decisions about stuff and things.  And I do just fine in that regard.  But in my personal life, sometimes when I'm not sure how to move forward with something, my decision making abilities sort of shut down.

As dumb as that makes me sound, I still like that better than just saying "I got lazy."  You pick the one that makes you all happy and glowy inside.

It turns out I've been in a really good place career wise for a while now and I've had the time to do this regularly, and I have continued to put it off.  I honestly do not know why.

Even as I sat down to finally suck it up and do this, I hesitated.  I realized the emotion was "fear."

Seriously.

Fear.

I was literally afraid to write this post and continue forward and pick up where I left of and keep trying.

"Why?" I hear you ask?  "What's wrong with you?" you maybe thinking, and, "Are you stupid or something?" you could rightly ask.

I truly am not certain.  I think partially because it had been so long, I was afraid no one would read.  I have let down a few faithful readers and people who looked forward to my posts, however idiotic they may be.  And that's a big deal, because I'm not sure there were that many people reading in the first place.

At least, that's what I thought.  As it turns out, I'm a moron.

This will make me sound dumb, but I hadn't considered actually checking the traffic checker for this page.  It seems there have been many thousands of people checking this page, even during this long dry period.

I'm sure many of them found this page looking for something else.  I'm not so arrogant as to think this thing was what people were looking for.  But man... people have been looking, and checking, and waiting, and I'd been letting them down.

I feel like a bad person.  (have I garnered enough sympathy yet to move forward?  Let's find out...)

So, here is what I'm going to do.  I'm going to post those fledgling book chapters.  And then I will keep posting new stuff.  And, I may even throw in some extra "fun" stuff as well.  Some of you know I was an artist/designer by trade in my first post college career.  Not an amazing one, but, good enough.  Well, I've been working on a web cartoon/comic/thingy.  It's not ready yet.  I have a couple completed strips, but not enough to be ready to start posting them, and quite frankly, I'm not sure how often I want to, or even can, post them.

But I want to... I need to... make this blog into something more.  I need to have this thing in my life that is simple and honest.  The rest of my life is also honest, but it's usually far from simple.

However, for tonight, I will post this, um, post, and then I will immediately post the introduction to the "book" I was writing.  Maybe one day I will decide it's done and maybe even publish it.  I could certainly use the money.  But I realized that, those words shouldn't be about the money, and that they should be free for those who can find them, and if I publish later, then yay and whatever.  But if I can say anything that helps someone, or causes someone to consider life differently in some way, then I should do that.  That is the true purpose.  It's the thing that matters.  Doing something that improves the life of someone else.

I think I lost sight of that before.  I got caught up in my own life, and forgot about everyone else.  Which, for those who don't know me and you do go back and ready my old posts, you will understand the irony in that failure.

I hope you, my former faithful readers, will forgive me for the last few years of blogging silence.  It was not super cool.

Alright, all my groveling and excuse making, done, let me tell you about what I will be posting.  (yes, I know this is getting long.)

The book was to be titled the same as the blog.  Each chapter was titled as a "Lesson".  They are better structured and thought through, as my old ones are bit more haphazard and slapdash.  They probably have typo's in them.  I proof read really well as long as someone else wrote it.  But when I proof read my own work, I'm pretty awful at catching mistakes.  I'm not going to edit them, or change them.  This means you will read some stuff which may be dated.  In those cases, I have, when I've caught it, added one of these (words and stuff) with the updated info or time frame.

Also, the posts will refer to themselves as a "book" sometimes.  I know about it, I'm not going to change it.  My reasons are excuses, excuses, more excuses, lazy, excuse, and excuses.

One of those reasons is correct.

Ok, enough putting it off.  Here we go.  Tonight, I give you "Life Lessons:  The Further Adventures of a Perpetual Idiot - Introduction".