When Passion and Purpose Collide

I have good news and bad news and depending on your perspective of this whole blog thing, you could go either way on which is the good news and which is the bad news.

Here is the bad news.  I will be gone this coming week (I'm actually already gone) and will most likely not be able to post while gone after tonight.  Tonights post is going to be short as a result of this "being gone" thing.  Or, maybe that's all good news.

Now for the good news.  I will be back.  And, hopefully, with more content. (maybe that's the bad news) 

I mentioned long long ago that I was trying to work on a comic strip.  There have been some technological hurdles.  I could have done it old school, but it takes a lot of time that I didn't really have for doing cartoons.  Then I upgraded some tech and have basically had to relearn how to draw in order to use it.  

It still isn't perfect.  But it's now useable.  I'll be upgrading the art as I go and improving as I post.

I now have a direction that will lead to other directions and I have to say, drawing again is like breathing again when you didn't realized you had stopped.

It's easy to forget the things you are passionate about when you have been devoid of it long enough.  But this past week I was presented with some unexpected inspiration and, just as a joke, I decided to make it into funny art.

And suddenly, I remembered why I loved to draw and how important it is for me to do so.  The process of creation is very intrinsic to my personality and desires.  Those things haven't been a part of my life for a long time.  The exception being, maybe, this blog.

So, while I have some logistics to work out as far as where I will post strips and what they will be called (I'm thinking "Life and Stuff."), I'm very much looking forward to making it happen.  I have the ideas, now to put them to them to paper.  And by "paper", I mean a digital drawing tool that cost more than I'd like anything to cost.

However, I would like to reiterate this point.  Never lose sight of your passion.  Never walk away from it.  Simply find a way to use that passion in your life and make that passion ride with your purpose.  If you can do that, you are hard pressed to fail in the pursuit of joy.

Have a great night and I will see you in two weeks!

Lesson 5 - Sports Cars are Fast

Right.

So, listen.  At this point you are probably catching on to the fact that I like to state the obvious.

Captain Obvious.  That’s me.

Ha.  Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone was so aptly named?  Like, Commander Klepto.  Professor Halitosis.  Captain Vulnerable to Peanuts.

At the very least, comic books would be different.  But it sure would be useful in dating.  Captain Hammered McDrunken, or Princess Cottage Cheese Bum.

Ok, so, it’s probably better not to do that with our names.  We would make too many assumptions too quickly.  Because, really, nothing is ever how it appears to be at face value anyway.

It’s funny.  As people, we think we know all about something just by its name.  But there can be so many variations on an object or concept.  Let’s talk about cars.

Why?  Mostly because I like cars and, darn it, this is my book.

=)  (There is that emoticon again.  Persistent little bugger…)

You know how people say a person knows too little to be useful and just enough to be dangerous?  Did you know that saying was coined because of me?  Ok, so, that’s probably a lie.  Ok, I’m sure it’s a lie.  But that doesn’t make it apply any less.  Here is what I mean.

I grew up on muscle cars.  My dad was, and still is, really into old school hotrods and old cars in general.  Therefore, so was I.  I love them.  I wanted to own one.  (still do…)  I grew up in the garage with my dad turning the wrench on one project or another, dreaming about the day when I would get to be the guy behind the wheel of a car way to powerful for me to be driving.

The possibilities of trouble that lay before me were endless.

And then finally, the day came.  I got my driver’s license.  Oh the joy!  Oh the bliss!  Oh the horror!

Yes, horror.  If you were my parents, it was most definitely horror.  I mean, think about it.  Handing the keys to any car, especially a powerful one, to me, the kid who had dreamed about driving something fast and awesome all his life… it was sort of like taking a shiny new grenade, pulling the pin, and handing it to a toddler.

Well, the first car that I was allowed to drive on a regular basis as “my own”, was a 1978 Dodge Aspen ex-police car.  It had the whole squad car package.  Beefed up suspension, 360 cubic inch v8 with more power than I needed.  (admittedly, by today’s standards, it wasn’t that much power.  But still…)

I thought I was invincible.  I thought I knew everything about cars and driving.  And in my defense, I was quite knowledgeable for someone my age.  I knew all the facts and figures and how to work on them, and I wasn’t even a half bad driver.  Pretty good, even.  

The problem wasn’t my driving skill, however.

I used to go out on to barren roads and empty parking lots just to “test out” the car and “get used to its handling” and “do stupid crap.”  

I suppose we didn’t need to use code on that last one.

Well, there was this one road that I drove all the time.  It was a frontage road to the main highway that went past where I grew up.  It had a 55mph speed limit, but it had a tight curve near the end of it that was rated at 25mph.  But as every teenager knows, speed limits are merely suggestions (cough cough), and are meant to be ignored (please don’t take me to jail nice mister police man.)

I had practiced enough that I could toss that old squad car into fish tail turns and four wheel drifts.  I had learned how it handled and was pretty confident.  So, to test that out, I figured I could straighten that curve Dukes of Hazard style and live to brag about it.

Long story short, I hit that curve going close to 70mph.  And you know what happened? 

Nothing.  Absolutely nothing, except total and complete awesomeness.

I drifted that bad boy all the way through the curve like some sort of road racing demon of, um… road racing.

I didn’t crash, I didn’t get a ticket… it wasn’t even close.  In my mind, I had proven to myself that I was in fact the superior driver and that my superior understanding of cars and driving had won the day.

Fast forward a few months.

My mom had a fun little car.  It was a 1989 Dodge Shadow ES Turbo.  It really was a pretty fun little car.  Five speed, 150hp, and it handled like a go-kart.  Well, at least it did compared to that old heavy squad car I was driving.  It was lighter, peppier, and just more fun to drive.

One day while dropping off a friend at his home after school, I was going down that same road.  I decided I was going to show him how amazing my mom’s car was and, more importantly, how amazing my driving skills were.

We hit 120mph on the highway, got off, hit the frontage road, and where nearing triple digit speeds again.  However, I had the good sense to slow down for that curve.  I figured it like this.  That squad car made the curve at 70, and this car handled better.  Therefore, if I wanted, I should be able to take the curve faster.  However, I decided to slow it down to 55mph instead.  It was still crazy fast for that curve, but slower than before.  It should be a cake walk.

I threw that car into the curve and the next thing I knew was that we were upside down in a ditch hanging from our seat belts.  The car slid off the road (can we say I blew a tire?  For my ego?  Please?), hit the dirt embankment, and basically flipped corner to corner in some part barrel-roll, part end over end style of flipping.  Honestly, I’ll probably never know for sure what it looked like.  All I know is that car no longer exists.  It didn’t have a straight piece left on it.  Every window was broken.  Except for one, which my friend kicked out getting out of the car.  (that’s another story…)  Fortunately, though, we were fine.

Now, besides the fact that I’m stupid, what went wrong?  Was my analysis wrong?  Well, the Dodge Shadow was indeed the better handling car.  So if you are doing straight-forward logic, it should have worked.

What I didn’t account for was the fact that the Shadow was a front wheel drive car, and the Aspen a rear wheel drive car.  Anyone who knows anything about cars, knows that a front wheel drive car handles very differently than a rear wheel drive car.  That is where the flaw in my logic was.  I didn’t anticipate that fact.  I did not even know that fact.  For all my knowledge and “experience”, it had never occurred to me that it would matter.  It didn’t occur to me that which tires were providing the motion and struggling for traction would matter.  It never occurred to me that having the same tires steering AND driving the car, would cause grip to be different.  It never occurred to me that the car wouldn’t want to tail slide just like my other car.

Any truly experienced driver would know this.  I however, was not a truly experienced driver.  I just thought I was.

Unfortunately, reality and truth were sort of scaled and relative.

My facts were correct, but it didn’t occur to me that they were only correct within a certain context.  Fast for one car was even faster for another in certain situations.  Not that the speed was different, but the limits were.  The techniques for handling the limits were different.

As I’ve gotten older and driven other cars and faster cars, I’ve come to learn that fast and slow are relative to the vehicle.  If you are driving a Corvette, fast is pretty fast before it becomes too fast for the cars ability.  But if you are driving a boat like Buick slow can still be pretty fast when it comes to the cars ability.

It’s all about the context.

So is our world view.

Remember that from last chapter?  Our view is based on “facts.”  But the facts are sometimes relative.  They can be contextual.  A thing can be true, but not always true.

In America, giving someone the “thumbs up” gesture means “good job” or something similar.  But in some countries, the “thumbs up” is a very offensive gesture that definitely does not mean “good job.”

In one context it’s good, in another it’s very bad.

What facts do we use to shape our view of things?  What truths make up our perception of reality?  And, more importantly, how many of those truths are actually true?  And even more importantly, would we ever be willing to admit that any of those truths aren’t so true?

Without that flexibility, our world view will always be stunted, and therefore incomplete.  The only way to have that flexibility is through personal honesty.  The recognition that I don’t know what I’m talking about, or that I’m full of poo.

That recognition is super important.  It’s that recognition that teaches me that my car accident had nothing to do with the Shadow handling different than the Aspen.  It wasn’t that the car was incapable.  It was that I was incapable.  A professional driver would have been just fine.  I was the problem.  I was the one who didn’t know better, but more importantly I was the one who would never admit that he didn’t know better.

If I had, I would have been able to alter my view and therefore my actions.  I would have been able to recognize the fallacy in my mind before it was too late.

I would have understood that fast cars can feel slow, and that sometimes slow is still way too fast.

Lesson 4 - Everyone is a Green Lantern

            No, this title is not contradicting the last lesson.  Stick with me and you’ll understand.

Everyone who has ever picked up and read a comic book has formed some sort of opinion on who the most powerful superhero is.  Usually it comes up with friends in discussions like, “So, who would win in a fight, Wolverine?  Or Batman?”

Sure, those two are from two entirely different comic universes, but still the questions get asked.

But when it comes to “who’s the most powerful” I think many people would probably say Superman.  He’s one of the most well known and he is definitely one of the most straightforward in terms of powers and power levels.  Not many heroes can out punch Superman.

However, if I may offer my own opinion… without starting a war with comic book readers with differing opinions… I think the Green Lantern is the most powerful.  Or at the very least, has the potential to be the most powerful.

Hey hey, guys… simmer down.  I said it’s just my opinion.  You don’t have to agree.

Here is why I vote for him and a little Green Lantern back ground to boot.  The Green Lantern is part of a larger group of heroes known as the Green Lantern Corps.  They are basically a large group of space police that protect the entire universe.  It is broken into 3600 sectors (3599 actually, but that’s another story), with each sector protected by at least one (or more) Green Lanterns.  

The Green Lantern’s power comes from a ring he or she… or it… wears.  The ring channels energy though it, a green energy, and is controlled by the users will.  A Green Lantern is limited only by his or her will and imagination.

   Other than that, the ring user can literally do anything.

Anything.

If she can think of it, she can do it.  If he can imagine it, he can do it.  If they have the will, they can make it happen.

Fly.  Turn invisible.  Make objects out of energy.  Teleportation.  Phasing.  Simulate super strength.  Anything.

Manipulate matter.

Anything.

Manipulate reality.

Literally anything the user can both imagine and have the willpower to do.

Of course, there is the loophole.  It’s limited by the imagination and will.  And let’s face it.  Most of us are either pretty weak willed or completely lacking in imagination.

In reality, the Green Lantern is limited by how he or she sees or understands reality.  The Green Lantern is limited by his or her “world view.”

How does he see things?  Understand things?  What does that cause him to do?  How does it cause him to think?  What strategies will he devise because of that?  How will that guide his use of the power?

Let me give you some great Green Lantern examples.

Hal Jordan.  He’s the icon.  The Green Lantern by which all other Green Lanterns are measured.  He was an Air-force fighter pilot turned test pilot.  He has no fear.  He is focused.  He is efficient.  So when he uses his ring, this is how he uses it.  He keeps it simple.  He does what is needed to get the job done.  He likes to make boxes and spheres and hammers and such.  However, he also is the one Lantern that can do some of the more amazing things.  Turn invisible.  Phase through solid objects.  Create dimensional gateways.

He finds the most efficient way to do something, then does it.  No waste, no mess, no fuss. 

Kyle Rainer.  He was an artist.  Everything he makes is a work of art.  He makes comic book characters.  Anime robots.  Mecha.  Gun-toting bikini girls.  Ninjas.  And all of them are works of art and works in progress.  He never just does something and sticks with it.  Each construct is newer, better, more imaginative, constantly being made and remade.  He’s an artist, and he creates like an artist.  Never satisfied with what he’s done.

John Stewert.  The architect.  Everything he makes is precise.  And they have substance.  He makes something from the inside out.  It isn’t just a shell or an illusion of an object.  He makes it as though it has substance… as though it’s the real thing.  You could dissect it, and see the internal workings and constructs.  

Guy Gardner.  He’s the angry guy.  Raw.  When he uses the ring it doesn’t so much project energy as it leaks energy.  With him, the energy is like water in a dam waiting to burst through.  He doesn’t attack with creativity.  He attacks with power.  As much as he can, all the time.  No finesse.  No art.  Just raw power unleashed.

Kilawog.  He was an alien scientist.  He looks sort of like a humanoid hippo on steroids.  For some reason, his ring is the only ring that makes noise.  Of course, it’s not the ring, it’s him.  There is something about him, about the way he sees things and approaches things that causes that ring to make noise when no ones else does.  Everyone else goes silently about their business.  But not Kilawog.

There are many other Green Lanterns I could have talked about, but these are the main and most recognized Green Lantern characters.

It occurred to me that the significance of a Green Lantern wasn’t his or her ring and power, but his or her world view.

That is the one thing that’s different.  They wield an equal ring with the same power, same energy and same potential.  But each user is more or less successful or seemingly powerful or effective compared to each other.

All rings are created equal.

But not all users.

And as I was thinking about this, I realized that this is exactly how people are.  We are not limited by the possibilities around us.  Especially not in the modern age of globalization and global communication.  Instead, we are limited by ourselves.  By how we see the world.

We are limited only by our world view.

We are who we are in large part because of how we see the world.  Where were we raised?  Who raised us?  With what values were we raised with?  With what experiences were we shaped?

But more importantly, are we capable of seeing past any of that so that we can understand that all of our world views are limited and incomplete and therefore are limiting us?

That doesn’t make them bad or evil.  Just limited.  

Sometimes, we go a direction because someone told us we weren’t capable of going in another.  

It might not have been true.

My wife is a nurse.  When she was in nursing school there was an instructor who told her she would never make it as a nurse.  She wouldn’t be any good and she should just quit.

My wife could have listened to that.  Instead, she didn’t.  She graduated and has gone on to consistently be one of the most recognized and competent nurses in any department she has worked.  I say this not because she is my wife.  I say this because of the commendations she has received for nursing excellence as voted by both peers and patients.  The hospitals she has worked at have received numerous letters and messages from patients saying how much they loved her or how great she was with them and how much they appreciated her skill and attitude.

Of course, I think she’s great because she’s both kind and totally smokin’ hot.

But what do I know.

In the end, my wife could have experienced none of that success if she had listened to the person who was telling her what she couldn’t do, instead of believing in herself and what she could do.

She didn’t let that instructor shape her view of herself and therefore damage her world view.

Of course, my wife’s world view IS damaged.  But only in the same way all of our world views are damaged.

We only rise as far as we think we can.  If we didn’t know any different, we would go farther.  Be more.

You know why students in Korea and China and other Asian countries are often ahead of our students here in America?  Especially in areas of languages and math?  It’s because their school system pushes them harder sooner.

We see that and think, “oh, poor kids.”  Why?  Cause we all hated school.  

Do you think their kids see it that way?  Oh, they might hate school also.  But only for the same reasons we did.  They don’t realize they are being pushed harder.  They see it as normal.  

A person will go as far as they are expected to go.  We then draw a line at that expectation and try our darndest to not go past it. 

It’s a shame, really.  Because we are capable of so much more.  Of being, so much more.

All it would take is for us to realize that we are all like Green Lanterns and that the only limit is that which we place on ourselves.