I noticed this video on Facebook earlier today and I can’t agree more with Stevie Nicks on this. Honestly, I could be better at being present in the moment. Stevie makes some valid points.
Ponderings and Musings
Mindset.
This picture of me was taken just shy of the turn of the century. Earl snapped this photo; we were sitting on the shores of Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio.
This photo sits on our dresser in the area that acts as Earl’s nightstand. I glance at it from time to time when I’m getting ready for the day. This morning I was selecting today’s pair of underwear and thought back to life at the time this photo was taken.
If you think about it, it’s rather startling as to how much as changed in our lives with the great leaps of technology. This photo was taken back in the days when we relied on our film cameras. We’d fill up a roll of film with memories and take the film to be developed. There was much excitement when we picked up our pictures and looked at the results. Memories were relived. The ability to snap a photo, see the results and share the snapshot with the world, all within the span of five seconds, has kind of made the exercise a little less special to me. When I was out on my Jeep ride yesterday, some of the photos of the solar farm were taken with my trusty Canon digital camera. I didn’t see the results until I transferred the photos from the camera to my MacBook. This added a minute bit of anticipation as to how the photos really turned out. It was a moment of excitement.
I look at myself in this photo and try to remember where my head was at this time. I was very excited about technology. I wasn’t too plugged into politics; Bill Clinton was president at the time and I knew that there was a lot of shenanigans going on with the whole Lewinsky thing and that the Republicans were getting much crankier than I remembered them being when growing up. I watched CNN once in a great while. I read the news on various sites through our dial-up connections. It would be a couple of years before I wrote my first blog entry.
My biggest takeaway from my musings was that I was much less encumbered by the weight of the world. I still felt the need to right injustice in the world but the world didn’t weigh so heavy on my mind all the time. I’m trying to decide if this is a result of tuning into the constant stream of noise on social media/24 hour news/etc or if I’m just growing old and I’m just following the natural path of an American male in his quest to keep those damn kids off his lawn.
I’m making an attempt to not add noise to the chaos online as my 30 day personal growth challenge for the month of June. If I have something to say, I want it to be a positive contribution to the world. I don’t want fame, I don’t want ad revenue, I don’t want notoriety and I certainly don’t want to base my self-worth or value on the number of likes or comments or responses I get to a contribution.
As I come up on the last year of my 40s, while it’s natural that I’m going be older, I want to consciously be wiser without all the baggage of today’s chaos attached to it. I think that could be the best positive change I can make in my life today.
And honestly, I wouldn’t mind bringing Henleys back into my wardrobe again.
Purrfect.
This is Rexie. I’ve never met Rexie in person, but he seems like a good sort and he’s famous on the Internet. Looking at pictures of Rexie today kept me fairly grounded.
Tonight Earl and I also visited the local PetSmart store just to see the cats looking for a home. There were a few there and they seemed content. It was nap time for many.
My day was a whirlwind: the progress on the condo in Chicago came to a screeching halt due to some issues on the seller’s behalf and we were notified that there is going to be some budget belt-tightening at work. These two nuggets of news hit within a half hour of each other.
So I looked at a picture or two of Rexie and pictures of cats that have shared their lives with us over the years.
Purrfect.
Little Things.
Well this made my night.
Earl and I thoroughly enjoyed the latest episode of “Madam Secretary”, entitled “The Seventh Floor”. The tempo of this episode was different than previous episodes in that the focus was on Secretary McCord (Téa Leoni) and her staff. There was a great deal of character development of the staff and the entire episode had a “The West Wing” feel to it. The show has always done well with character development but the focus has been on the McCord family. Nothing wrong with that, but it was awesome to see the fleshing out of the supporting characters in Secretary McCord’s office.
This show is worth watching. It’s intelligent, it’s thoughtful and it “feels like real life”. If you haven’t seen “Madam Secretary” yet, please look it up on your favorite streaming service. It’s well worth it.
Oh, and I freely admit that I have a little straight crush on Téa Leoni.
Decaffeinated.
So on May 1 I began one of my 30 day challenges for self-improvement. This month I am going without caffeine.
The short version is, giving up caffeine is really hard.
I’m a week into this and I think I’m over the headaches. For the first couple of days last week I was going through some serious caffeine withdrawal headaches but by Wednesday night they subsided. I’m finding that I’m missing flavor more than anything; Earl has been kind enough to fill our fruit infuser water pitcher with limes or strawberries to keep the taste of water interesting for me. That is helping me from reaching for my old standby, unsweetened iced tea. When I flew on Delta this past weekend I opted to just have a beer, which is not a great answer to the no caffeine equation but it made the flight fly right by. I’ve already committed myself to not go down that path too often.
By the end of last week I found that I had a little more energy at work and my focus was better. Today was an unusually productive Monday for me, as I’m usually moving pretty slow on any given Monday. I like to think that by not kicking my body into overdrive artificially that I was able to perform as my body intended.
I’m still quite tired. We are at that time of year when Mother Nature is telling us that it’s one time but our clocks are telling us it’s another. The new blackout curtains we purchased for the bedroom are helping a little bit but my brain is still confused, even though we are two months into this special little hell others call “Daylight Saving Time”.
I think getting through the first week of being decaffeinated was the hardest part of this journey. I’m feeling like I can stick to it and I’m planning on doing just that well beyond this 30 day challenge I’ve given myself.
Hopefully when all is said and done I’ll find my natural Jolt.
DL 6009.
I’m onboard Delta flight 6009 from Raleigh-Durham to LaGuardia. Due to an aircraft swap, I was moved from seat 5A to 6A. I can’t complain about this as I’m in a row by myself and it is glorious. I was on the upgrade list for the premium cabin, but alas, I was number seven for six available seats. Honestly, I like my current seat better as there are three elementary school aged children in the premium cabin. They are being directed by a silver haired, clean shaven father with a sweater tied around his neck. I imagine he speaks with a clenched jaw.
The weekend in North Carolina has been most enjoyable. The weather was beautiful and the company was wonderful. It’s been raining non-stop in Upstate New York and the forecast looks like it’s going to continue this theme for the next several days. Looking at Chicago’s weather at the moment, it’s cool but it’s sunny.
Sun is the most important thing for me in a weather forecast. I can handle cold. I just want sunshine. Upstate New York has some of the cloudiest weather in the nation. This is not something to aspire to.
Since I have an empty seat next to me on this flight, I think I’ll take the opportunity to take a nap in peace.
Peace.
Growth.
Every once in a while I will put “All In The Family” on in the background while I’m working. For those not familiar with this ground breaking show, “All In The Family” was a ground-breaking sitcom that debuted in January 1971. The show wove comedy with often heated discussions/fights/explosions on the topics of the times. Over 40 years later, the show is still a television masterpiece.
When younger generations look back on “All In The Family”, they’re known to comment on the fashion sense of the early 1970s (what were we thinking), how out of touch Archie Bunker was with the times, Edith’s shrill voice, etc. Some may recoil at some of the language used. There are many elements of the show that are dated but they are vastly outnumbered by the sheer timeliness of the show. Archie and Meathead were fighting about things that Americans fight about today.
How sad is that?
In the past two days I’ve heard arguments on the show about computers and they way they’re changing society, women’s rights, gay rights, the economy, politics, the environment, religious and bigotry.
How disheartening is it that the American society is arguing about these exact same topics? It’s like the citizens of the United States have made absolutely no progress in these hot topics in nearly 50 years! People still call gay folks “fags”, others call minorities by horribly offensive names. Women are relegated to second-place status in our country (God forbid we have a woman president!) and religious nut jobs are still trying to convince us that we should all behave according to their beliefs and everyone else is wrong.
I’ve always hoped that during my lifetime I would see encouraging, positive change in our country. Poverty would be dealt with. Folks wouldn’t care about color or race or sexual orientation. Women would be right up there with men. At one time I felt quite encouraged about this, don’t get me wrong, we’ve made some great progress, but there’s a lot of people out there that want to see us go right back to the attitudes of 1971.
I’d like to think they just want fodder for another top-notch television show like “All In The Family”, but I doubt that’s the reason.
As Americans it’s our responsibility to steer our country in a forward moving direction. We should be electing officials that want everyone to grow, not fostering an atmosphere of holding people back and reintroducing uneducated segregation amongst our people.
Luckily, “All In The Family” is still an unbelievably great show that will continue to entertain. Unfortunately, it’s a shame that the topics are still so topical.