Category: blog

New Father: I am the lone line of defense between my offspring and the harsh world. I would give my life for my child. I am on high alert, everything I have done in my life has led to this and I am ready to do whatever it takes to provide for them. I will install this seat with the care of a surgeon mechanic warrior poet. It will carry the very embodiment of my legacy.

New Mother: i’m just gonna go ask a hunky fireman to buckle this seat in.

There are (at least) two types of guard rails.

The first kind is the kind you see. The big, curvy, silver galvanized metal barriers that are put up on the sides of highways. They are used leading up to and out of an overpass, or along curves that might be more dangerous than usual. They are hopefully never used. They are important, but only needed if a driver has lost control.

The other kind is the kind you don’t see. They are laid just inside railroad tracks at key points. They are used at turns, merges and other places where the rail wheels might lose contact with the track. They provide a boundary, a way to secure the train as it turns. They are used often and helpfully so. They are important because they prevent the loss of control.

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That thing you’re scared to do?

It’s because it’s risky, right?

It could go wrong. It could be embarrassing. It could lose money. That’s the risk.

But if it goes right? Turns out, there’s risk there, too.

It could work–at first–then fail.

It could make money–then lose more.

It turns out risk is at the next step too. And the next. And the next.

It sounds overwhelming, until you realize you are where you are now because of all the risks you’ve already taken. In fact, you’ve taken risks more than you realize. For that matter, life is a risk. Work risks time, effort risks energy, love risks rejection.

You are a pro when it comes to taking risk – so much so that you do it daily without even knowing it!

That current risk doesn’t seem so big now, does it?

The marks on the pantry wall, just inside the door frame, each have a name and a date marked next to them.

The marks that are close together are 4 years apart – the difference in age between my brother and me.

Then his marks get much higher than mine.

This is what we learn growth means. More. More height. More knowledge. More ability. More degrees. More money.

But more is a trap.

At some point, growth is the ability to be more – not do more, not have more.

I can be more myself today, and there is no other growth – physical, monetary, admiration – that will make me more myself than that being. Whether that being is discovered by action, reflection, receiving and giving love, or any number of ways is the joy of the journey. It will probably change often.

But the mistake is to replace the journey of growth with the pursuit of more.

(30 Rock had the best lines)

Substack is cool, it’s trying to build its own ecosystem. A lot of writers who write on Substack say they love writing on Substack. 
I like it okay.

The technological advantage that t has, in theory, is the network effect. If I was a diligent writer I’d be writing often, reading often, making friends. Then I’d be linking to their Substacks and they’d link to mine. 
And so it goes.

I have followed a few of those links and been richly rewarded.
I have followed others and lost time I’ll never get back.

It is a funny thing, this “following” we all do now. I “follow” on Instagram, Substack, email, etc. But part of following is trust. If I give you a follow, I trust you’ll either benefit my time or at the very least, do no harm.

So when Substacks lead to bizarro left fields, I feel betrayed. Like I was lied to. Maybe it’s because I was around for the html early days, when typing a link was work. It means more to me.

Plus, the colors distract me from following the writer’s line of thought.

So, link well, friends. 
And never follow a link from someone you don’t trust. 
You don’t know where it’s been.

I was refilling my trusty Yeti with Diet Dr. Pepper at the gas station soda fountain when the explosion happened.

It caught us all off guard, a gasp could be heard from the wine aisle.

I kept moving. Playing it cool is my automatic reaction.

But as I turned away from the array of soda nozzles, I looked up to see the gray-haired culprit, his face bearing the casual smile of oblivion—as if he didn’t know what he had done.

But he knew. Every old man knows that his sneeze is loud enough to tear a hole in the space-time continuum.

I know, too.

For years, I thought it was just my dad. The dread at family gatherings when, as a father of napping children, I would clinch at the very thought of him sneezing in the same house. Or the shock when, while watching television or staring into the void of my phone his sneeze came quick.

My wife was caught off-guard by it for years. She got used to it. My kids, amazed, may never really adjust their young sensitive hearing to the brute force attacks of it.

At least we could all laugh about it together—or so I thought.

I don’t remember when it started—when the ancient daemon ghost of elder masculinity invaded my diaphragm—but it’s there now. And will be forever. I mourn the memory of pardoning myself politely after a muffled snuff, the forced suppression of a sneeze. Or, and I swear this true, when I could just pinch my nose and make the thing go away altogether. If I tried that now, the pain would be excruciating, not to mention the projectile ear wax would penetrate the sheetrock across the walls of whatever room I was in.

There comes a time in a man’s life when his age takes over. His grooming needs increase just as his grooming awareness decreases. His sneezes convert from decibels to Richter-scale measurements. He begins talking about himself in the third person.

He’s there now.

The torturous purgatory for me, though, is knowing what I have become. Unable to turn back, but able to know what I am inflicting upon the ear drums of those around me. I feel it coming, the sneeze, almost every time, my eyes widen, knowing the mockery that will be following. If possible, I warn those around me—pleading with eyes watering for them to save themselves. It’s too late for me, the longer I hold it, the more my nose rises heavenward, the worse it will be.

And then—it happens—and all the people in my home or the convenience store stare. I am becoming the old man. He waits for me—that oblivious smirk is his knowledge that all things pass—youth flees. I envy his apathy. Time and minor nasal irritation will drag me there.

But the dirty secret—the release felt after a sneeze of this magnitude is so blissful—that’s the real reason we don’t stop it. I’m still young enough to risk sharing this secret—all the older men have wandered off to use the bathroom by now, anyway.

We sneeze this way, because it feels good.

And at our age, not much else does.