Tired of the BULL$HIT? U.F.O. Sightings Are Real, But Made Unreal.

Before I write a post like this, I'm usually feeling a little anger at the government.  That would be my government--the U.S. government.

Not others, necessarily.

For example, I just watched this special from the History Channel about U.F.O. reports for the second time, and I wasn't watching for the pictures or accounts--this time, I was watching for the culture.  My question to myself was this: what is the culture in a given area that a U.F.O. reporter must walk into in order to share his experience?  The resulting answer, for many places but especially in the U.S., was a culture of pure hostility, ridicule, and dismissal.

Why?  What is it going to take?  If you're one of the people who believes in intelligent life outside of our atmosphere, you must hold at least some excitement over the prospect of coming into contact with them.  If you refuse to believe there is intelligent life out there, or that it hasn't visited Earth, nobody is going to convince you it's real and happening now.

If you watch the above referenced show on the History Channel, how do you come away with any feeling other than the U.S. is incredibly harsh toward those reporting U.F.O. sightings/encounters?  It's not made any easier by technology, either; with my moderate knowledge of programs like Photoshop and Cinema4D, I could create both pictures and videos of U.F.O.s that are incredibly realistic.  There is something that I hate about that, and I guarantee you that there is something the U.S. government loves about it.

It's now easier than ever to dismiss sightings, in the form of pictures/video, as having been tampered with.  And oral accounts are almost given no credence.  Now, the flood of hoaxes will blur and diminish the believeability of U.F.O. reporters.  Set aside for the hope that maybe some beyond-the-shadow-of-a-doubt polygraph can be designed (and it may come), we are pretty much left to decide whether or not we believe in intelligent life elsewhere.

I heard the argument, which is a good one, about God--you'll put 100% faith into an invisible being you've never seen, heard, or sensed in any provable way, yet you'll fully dismiss photo and video evidence that has been fully tested and researched by experts who claim it has not been doctored.  You'll believe it when a president tells you that a country has something to do with the terrorists who attacked your country and that, therefore, we must invade that country, without a second thought (until much later).  You'll believe in ghosts, having never seen or sensed one in a provable way (audio, video, photo, other technological means that would have shown the encounter), if at all.  But as soon as the possibility of E.T. life visiting Earth comes up, you're pointing and laughing, saying that the reporter is either crazy or looking for a paycheck.  You'll believe what you're told--humans have done that since our beginning.

And what you're told, now, usually, is that U.F.O.s can all be explained, and they are not craft from some advanced civilization (or possibly, as I've theorized before, they are our own craft from the future, visiting key history sites/moments).

What a shame.  But nothing will change unless you and I do something to change the culture, will it?

What it will take is you and I and everybody we know telling their friends and family and their governments that what people see, especially pilots in the sky (due to their training, proximity to many spotted craft, and ability to distinguish natural or other phenomena from alien or enemy craft), must be taken seriously.  It MUST be.

Make the FAA take out of their guidelines that no mentions of U.F.O.s are allowed, even as pilots and air controllers and airport personnel are reporting them.  It's getting RIDICULOUS.  In every branch of science and learning, we encourage those with honest reports, especially when accompanined with evidence/proof, to step forward and help us better understand what is happening in our world (or elsewhere) and yet, regarding U.F.O.s, we wave them off and immediately discount their story.  WHY?

Don't you want to do something about this?  Regardless of whether or not the U.F.O.s are guided by intelligent forces outside of our planet/solar system, enemy countries, or some other phenomena, don't you want the persecution of people who are telling the truth to STOP!?  I do.  I hope you'll help.

The New Definition of Author

Said it before and I'll say it again; anybody can write a book.

What follows when I say/write this somewhere is something like, "No, I couldn't," or, "Maybe, but not just anybody can write a good book."  Fair enough, but if you can put together a few thousand words, you can call it a book, put it up on Amazon.com and others as a legitimate publication, and sell it.

Because of that, we have to re-define author.

Authors, to many of us (I'm guessing, as I often do), are or were a group of people who had incredible writing skills.  They were unique, and considered very creative, artistic, and intelligent.  If they had a recognizable name, they were easily made into living (or dead) legends as soon as we learned about them.  Maybe it had something to do with our English teachers and their constant references and teachings of the great names.  Maybe it was an academic crush we had after reading one author or another.  Somehow, the term "author" had a very regal air about it.  It sounded like its own lottery victory--something like a knight or a Samurai.  Author.

Now, we new-age "authors" have to be honest about who we are.  If anybody can get a book out there, put before millions of people if they have the connections, advertising money, or just luck (anything other than a fantastic gift in their craft), we can't let the new term stain the old term.

The new author can be anybody.  Literally.  Anybody CAN write a book.  You don't see bands and musicians that perform local gigs being dangled in front of hungry listeners in fifty different countries unless they market it as such.  A sculptor, painter, or artist of any type typically has to break through some huge barriers to get any significant sales.  But not an author.  An author can put together something, get it before millions, and start making some money with no advertising dollars, no agent, no editor, no lawyer, no label, no imprint--nothing.  An author needs nothing but the will to write and publish his own work in order to be an author.

Of the other authors I talk to, with the exception of a couple, very few are having any illusions about the new definition of author.  They know that it doesn't take what it used to take.  Sure, some of the greatest writers of all-time have been self-published because no formal house would take them, and thanks be to the Gods of Words that they did.  And of these new authors, stars will emerge.  But never before has the entry cost been so low, and the potential payoff so high for a writer.  Never before has enough time in a day existed for somebody to risk the long, tedious process of putting down words at novel-length, (especially considering the initial investments before typewriters of type-setting them, presenting them to a publisher or agent, and then waiting sometimes months or years to hear if you had anything worth publishing) because they had more free time--didn't have to work on the farm sixteen hours a day, or the railroad, or the lumber mill.  Now, even full-time employees find time during their days to write and send it to themselves through e-mail, or jot it down somewhere on a break, then they have evenings and weekends.  Never before has it been so easy to call one's self an author.

The good news is that most of us know this.

Most of us, I think, are very respectful of what our more traditional heroes did to get their stories into print.  We are not them.  We are the new authors.

What does that mean to you as a reader?  Nothing, really.  Means you are going to have a LOT more to choose from, but you'll have to develop an eye for quality work or at least work that you enjoy (formatting problems and typos are on the rise, for some reason, even among big names).  You'll have to learn to have that discriminative eye to save yourself time from investing your precious reading time into a book you won't enjoy.  For writers, that means that you should have no illusions about how important you are just because you put a bunch of words on paper.  For one thing, no matter how good you write, you're nothing without readers.  Secondly, most of us do not write for fame or money and wouldn't mind being nothing--most of us would write if we were the last human on Earth and had no audience.  It's just a necessity.  Most of us, articulate or not, do not know why.  We just need to write.

To my reader friends, this writer is asking for your patience.  Yes, we're flooding you with new choices in reading now, and most of us cannot afford to vet our stories to the degree some household name in writing could--with the many levels of edits and re-working and teams of beta-readers and professional critiques.  We just want to tell our stories.  That means that, yes, we're going to put out some sub-standard work as a group.  The bar has been set high--it is now being lowered by volume of works produced and the trade-off of relaxed restrictions for more variety.  We want to keep the bar high but we are really nothing more, when compared to the traditional author, than a fruit-stand on the side of the road compared to a major grocer.  Our stuff might be great, and less filtered and more pure than the stuff you get through the grocer, but who is running our quality control?  Who is making sure we comply with FDA standards?  From which seller are you more confident buying from?

That's the struggle for us, while having to think (and discriminate) more is the burden for the reader.

In any case, I encourage readers and authors to share in that public discourse that defines what an author is in 2012 and beyond.  All that has happened is that the entire show has changed to open-mic night.  I think it's important that new authors aren't believing in something that isn't true and that readers aren't believing that the word "author" means what it used to.

In summary, I guess I could say that the new author cannot carry by default what his traditional counterparts carried in status and esteem.  That still must be earned, in any field.  What we can offer is a fruit stand, and we can tell you how pure our fruit is, and we can talk about how we grew it and how enjoyable it will be, and we can sell it for less than the grocer.  Everything involved, to a reader and author, is still a risk, but it's not an incredibly important risk.  Try something new, hone your skills for separating bad writing from good writing in the early going, and let's move some fruit!

Update: We Are Still Losing the Battle Against the Creepy Smile

As much as I hate to report it, the creepy smile has not only survived our initial attack but gained momentum.

Just recently, a new season of my favorite show, "Through the Wormhole," started.  On the first episode, and several after that, I saw the dreaded "creepy smile."

If you missed my initial post about it, it refers to when somebody is smiling (usually a big smile) while they talk about nothing that could even be remotely linked to humor, funny, or even be seen as sneaky/cute/flirtation.  You dig?  See, when I smile while talking--when any normal human smiles while talking--it's because you are either about to deliver a punch-line, you are telling a funny story, or you're remembering a pleasant time and talking about that.  Also, you may smile while talking when the words aren't funny, but you're essentially flirting with somebody.

But not these people.  No, sirs and ma'ams.  These creepy fokkers are driving me insane.  Here's the real reason: it's not that they are usually physicists or science types, or very smart types you may see as a guest on a news program--the problem is what it means.  I have used every neuron I could fire up and my experience with psychology and sociology to determine that there are TWO primary reasons why they are doing this:

1.  They would like to show you that they are so smart that they can smile while telling you difficult formulas or news that only the elite might be privy to--difficult formulas or news that most people would make strained faces while delivering.  They smile in the same way a drunk dude would smile while trying to show he felt no pain as a cigarette was mashed into his arm (except there are no signs of faking it).  It is a huge sign of over-confidence.

2.  They have become "salesmen," of sorts, or in some way followed that old Socratic methodology of getting people to duplicate their behavior.  Why?  Well, the old Socratic method really focused on saying things that people would HAVE to agree with because they were commonly known facts or solid reasoning, and after getting them into a "yes mood," hitting them with the questionable material, such as why they should buy something.  In this case, the smile is to try to make YOU smile, and that tells them two things: first, you aren't real smart because you are smiling over nothing.  Two, it's hard to dislike somebody OR what somebody is saying as you smile at them.

My dear and great friends, all I'm asking you to do is insist, whenever you see the creepy smile, that the smiler then stop if he/she is talking and explain why they are smiling.  I can imagine some of the answers, like, "Well, I don't know, actually," or "Oh, I just love talking about this," or "Well, I was thinking about having sex with you, whenever possible."  The truth is that their motives rest with items numbered 1 or 2 above this paragraph.

What's more dreadful?  They learned this not by reading about it.  Not be being told.  They learned about it by seeing it on TV or elsewhere.  Silently, almost subconsciously, they adopted it.  In their minds, there was probably only this thought at the time; "I see.  People that smile while talking look really confident, and I want to look like that."  It's the dumbest gd bullshit I have ever seen and I plan to stand up forever against the creepy smile.

The creepy smile, my friends, is a direct attack on the special nature of a genuine smile!  We can't let them cheapen the human smile!  When they do, make them state why they are smiling, tell them why you think they are smiling, and then they'll stop!!  We don't want people to stop smiling; we want them to not use one of the greatest physical human behaviors ever for other-than-noble reasons

You Should Write Down Memorable Moments

We're a fairly lazy society as far as technology has let us be, and that's ok.  So many memorable moments can be captured on video or a snapshot that there's no real reason to have to record the event in words.  You can simply look at the photo/video and the caption you put with it to remember the moment as if it just happened.  But not every important moment to you can be photographed or recorded on video.

Although I've had this feeling a few times before, this is the biggest one.

I just finished writing a novel.

Sure, I've got the editing, formatting, and publication headache lying in my immediate path, but I'm here to tell anybody who doesn't know that besides meeting the perfect partner or seeing your child(ren) born, there is no greater feeling than completing a book.

And that is especially true for writers like me who haven't hit it big.  Large names in the industry know they will finish.  Even the ones who are only moderately known are pulling in $10-20k advances.  The big stars, much more than that.  See, they know they will finish.  They not only have the monetary support and outside expectations blowing into their sails, but they have a confidence and really, a rush on it because as soon as they can finish one, they can get the next advance and start the royalties rolling in (if they are motivated by money at all).  At the very least, they know that this is what they do for a living, and that gives them the full confidence that they will finish each book.

But I have about 8 other unfinished works.  Moreover, a writer that hasn't "made it" yet always has to question whether or not his motivation will be destroyed by needs that dreams can't fill.  He has to wonder if he's wasting his time, and when you're writing a novel, you have a million chances to say, "I don't want to do this.  This is shit.  I'm done."

I've read a lot about this.  I, personally, have never really doubted that I was born to write, but from all I've read, the normal (I won't say average because there are few "average" writers in the world) writer often throws stories away, throws them in a desk and leaves them there forever or just stops writing them.  For many, they fear the embarrassment over their mistakes in content, form, structure, believability, or impact of a story.

Not me.

The reason is that I trust two things pretty well within myself--my ability to be a fairly accurate weather-vane for what is exciting or moving prose combined with my belief that I know people pretty well.  That's it.  I believe, correctly or not, that I have my finger on the heartbeat of human behavior and I believe that I accurately judge what will move a reader's heart and mind at a given time in our lives and that this knowledge will let me put down words that will be enjoyed by a reader. 

They say to write what you know.  Bullshit.  Write what you like.  Write what you would read--that's the best advice.  I write books that I literally read over and over.  Not because I'm proud of them or always looking for errors (no matter if they are good or bad) but because I am interested in the story.  Believe it or not, I write with a small feeling that the books I really want to read just haven't been published yet.  I write books that I know I will enjoy reading, even though I know that deep down, my true motivation comes from what happens when I imagine a reader taking in my story.  I can try to predict the impact and enjoyment, the fear or surprise that gives us that multifaceted human experience that we call life.  For reasons I don't understand and don't care if I ever understand, I like to give people something that their minds can enjoy eating and digesting.  I like to feed minds.  It's very fulfilling.  So what if mine is getting some food, too?

This is the night that I had never written about until now, even though it's my 4th published and 5th completed novel.  It feels like standing on top of a mountain that you fell off of fifty times before.  It feels like you've been wrestling a bear for six months and finally slammed his ass down on the mat and pinned him.  It feels good.  There is that knowledge that although now I do have some mucky work to do on the story, the story itself is complete (at least until the sequel).  It's done.  It's emerging on the other end of a war victorious.  It's telling your imagination, "Hey, kooky part of my brain, great effing job!  You did it.  You can rest, now.  You can go on vacation and re-charge--you earned it."

What a beautiful feeling.  This can't be captured with a photo or video--only writing, and so I did.

Get Your Religion Out of My Face

The biggest reason I signed up for service in the U.S.A.F., after wanting to get the Hell out of ma's house and a small town that didn't have enough action for me (but now is perfect) was because I have always been in love with the idea of defending freedom.

That freedom, in this country, means you get to worship whatever entity that you choose, or none at all.  I like that.  It's comforting to know that we can choose our own invisible men to praise or choose none at all.  Along with that freedom definitely comes some ruffled feathers, especially if somebody just believes you are entirely "wrong" in your beliefs, morally or factually.

I had somebody close to me send me her 5 millionth e-mail forward about Jesus a few years back, and it pushed me over the edge.  It wasn't any dislike for Christianity--it was my knowledge of her behavior as she preached the gospel.  I won't say any more than that so as not to give away any identities, but let's just say that it was like being sold Christianity by somebody who had never yet lived by the principles it taught.

So, I had had enough, and I grabbed my American flag and waved it about for a while before sending this response out to her and a few other people so there would be no confusion, and it worked.  It was very clear.  I was upset that I had to break it down into so much detail, but here's my advice to you--say it once, say it with love, and leave no room for interpretation if somebody is doing something that drives you insane on a regular basis.

In my message to her, everything I stated is still accurate as far as what I believe except that I'm a full-fledged Ignostic now.

My message follows:

"Hey Jane Doe,

     You know how much I love you, right?  Ok, well I went ahead and read this e-mail you forwarded.  And this e-mail is pretty much for you but I'm sending it to Jane Doe 2 and 3 as well so I can try to make my position clear here and live a more peaceful life, and hopefully to get the same type of cooperation from them as I hope to get from you. 

     I've told you that I'm Agnostic (although lately I've been considering adding a little "Ignosticism," in with it... it's a bit of a different creature...), that I always will be, and that I hoped you could respect it.  I think that you semi-acknowledged my request, but that in your heart, you believe that if you can just throw enough Jesus at me, it'll finally stick.

     Each time that I get something like this from anybody, after I've made my position known to them, hurts a little.  It has a ring of dominance to it, as if the sender is saying, "Yeah, ok, you aren't so sure my religion is the right religion (if any one necessarily is) but I'm just going to keep dunking your head into the toilet filled with my brand of Holy water until you believe."  And, as you imagine going through such a gross analogy, you are feeling what I feel when I get these e-mails (and these e-mails can come from different people I know, but don't worry--all will get this response from now on). 

     I love you very much, and I'm thankful for you and all of my family, and everything that my family and friends have done for me.  I am committed to our pact of the elimination of negativity, and it is in that spirt that I'd like to politely request, again, that you try not to send me religious e-mails, especially of the type that suggest any one human being might be closer to God than any other, or that some kind of "love," or "blessings," have been deposited into some imaginary bank account. 

     I've read the bible, cover to cover.  I've read more than my fair share of the al-Qur'an, the Veda, the Analects, the 5 classics of Confuscianism (Book of Rits, I Ching, Book of History, Book of songs and one other), the Talmud, the Upanishads, the Tao-te-Ching, and the Bhagavad Gita among others, and we aren't even into the real African and Greek gods yet, with those books.  We haven't even touched on alternative religions or even pagan ones that lasted for centuries and millenia.  And how many religions were never recorded, but were practiced?  Believed?  Religions that people lived and died for--that shaped their daily decisions?  It's a large, large number. 

     Normally, I wouldn't go into so much detail to try to explain to you why I'm a dedicated, committed Agnostic, who has lately also become a staunch defender of Agnosticism.  Again, in summary, I am a man who believes every human being, sane and insane alike, should be able to both choose and exercise their religion as long as they are not physically endangering anyone else or negatively affecting the general public good in their worship rituals.  

     Moreover, I'm not willing to tell any single religion or theism (including atheism) that they are wrong, are going to Hell, are mislead, or are right.  That includes you and Christianity--I'll give my life in a split-second to defend your right to pray and to try to heal people and everything else, because that freedom is automatic for Americans (and I think most of us would die to protect that freedom).  In return, all I'm asking for is that you not push your religion on me, because I don't see your religion in the same light as you--I see it as a practice, which was created by man (by Divine guidance or otherwise) and represents but a speck of beliefs that all humans before us and those alive among us, believe.  It's your speck--I respect that--but it ain't mine.  And of course you could be dead-right in your beliefs--I don't know--what I do know is that I will not commit to any religion until I am certain it is positively, absolutely, the only correct one nor will I rule any out as legitimate until I can find and equally dis-empowering argument against it.

     The truth is that I'm not going to live my life with any reward in the after-life as a goal (nor will I live in fear of an eternity in Hell).  If that costs me, please, let it cost me.  I am your [family member], Kevin A. Kierstead.  I'm not a fence-post Christian, nor am I a Christian who pretends to be one when it's convenient while routinely behaving in ways that would make any saint cringe (this is the bulk of my disgust for many religions, from al-Qaeda claiming to be doing Allah's work to the American Sunday Christian, who's normally breaking those commandments up like crackers every day but Sunday--or so many "priests," who saved their "best work," for Sundays, when they could get alone with the altar boys...)...nor am I a Satan worshiper or a whacked-out Wiccan.  

     I am Agnostic, and I have the right to be Agnostic, because I'm an American (it's automatic).  I will not routinely e-mail you anything trying to talk you out of Christianity, nor will I try to convince anyone in this world, including those from every practice I've written about in this e-mail, to see things from my point of view.  What I will demand, however, and what I am demanding now, is the right to not be bombarded by presumptuous messages from any of those religions (I know you don't come up with most of these "forwards," but I've seen soooooo many, and this is one too many).

     I really hope you don't take any offense to this.  I just know that I'm gonna be stomping around this old brown and green ball for some years to come, and I'd like to be able to peacefully dodge the flying carpets that tend to be zooming around regarding invisible deities and testaments that only the dead can validate.  I was talking to [my child] one day, and ever since she was old enough to talk, I've encouraged her to explore religion and that if she believed in a God (or anything else) and she wanted to "immerse" herself or get involved, I would get her to every single meeting needed for her to live that commitment.  She knows that, too.  And you know what she said to me when she was visiting two summers ago?  We had been talking about how many different religions there are, and that most people around here believed in Christianity.  And I told her that lots of people base everything they do in their lives on the Bible.  She says, "Well, Dad, it is just a book."  I said, "Huh?"  She blinked, looked at me like I was stooopid, and said, "The Bible.  It's just a book."

     She will not be punished for that (I will make sure of it) just as she would not have been punished for saying that the Bible was all that mattered in life.  But I will say that I'm proud of her.... not because she has somehow demoted the Bible--we all know there are some good moral lessons in there, and that even if nothing else, those are good lessons for the kids--but because she was/is willing to open up her mind and think for herself, not to be corralled into some cattle pen where the Christians are saved and the rest set ablaze.... she's free.  I'm free.  You're free.

Love ya.

Kev

Thanks for understanding."

Do You Have a Favorite Sports Team? GOOD!

I had a very wise friend who wasn't into sports.  Although he played ice hockey in college and I even talked him into playing rugby one season (and he was 48 and out of shape--I was exactly half his age), he didn't idolize anybody or anything that you would see on ESPN.

It was back then that I got to thinking.

I have been a life-long Washington Capitals fan.  They were given the go for the expansion a couple months before I was born, and when they started in 1974 (even though I was only a couple years old and my family members were avid Ft. Wayne Komets fans, who lost in the semi-finals the year I was born but when the Championship the next year), I was already in love with the Caps.

Thirty-eight years later, and the Caps still have no cup.


As I told some friends recently, I am only a fair-weather Washington Redskins fan.  I was madly in love with them, too, up until around 2000 when my daughter was born.  She took a lot of attention, but she wasn't the reason I stopped following the Skins.  I stopped because they kept breaking my heart in part, but mostly because football had lost two things by then: 1.  local players, 2.  team spirit (vs. individual celebrations and money moves).

Back in high school, we didn't have hockey or I guaran-damned-tee I would have played.  I did talk a friend once into playing hockey with me when there was ice outside.  We used brooms and a smashed beer can.  That was as close as I ever got to the real sport.  But who cares--I love being involved in it.  I've been to a zillion semi-pro games.  The Hampton Aces, the Hershey Bears, the Norfolk Admirals, the Syracuse Crunch, the Alaska Goldkings, and I could go on (and quite a few Caps games).  If you don't follow hockey, give it a shot.  It has elements of boxing, soccer, racing, and football in it.  Hard hits, real blood, and the teaser for me is the slippery part--the somewhat unpredictable nature of puck movement on ice.  That's exciting.

What other sport (except fighting, boxing, mma, etc.) will let you fight with another guy until blood is all over the place and teeth are flying and only put you in chair for a five-minute time-out?  Hockey is golden.  It is representative of every desire humans have (almost).  Fighting elements, competition, pain, and if you're watching the right team(s), hunger.

I got to thinking about it though.  Pro sports is a business.  They want your money... tickets, merchandise, licensing, etc.  That's how they'll pay their players to be stars.  Plus, like football, hockey rarely has locals on a team anymore.  The trading game is alive and well.  Most players are European or Canadian.  So knowing all of that, people do ask, "Why like a pro sports team, specifically an NHL team?  What does it accomplish?  They don't represent you or your town anymore (with the constant trades/moves)."  That's true, really.  And I will admit that my love for the Caps is a combination of just having always loved them (not a good excuse to love a team, being that it was a love jump-started by my folks) and having always respected the sport and the team-nature of the players... the odd relationship of a goalie with his mates; goalies are in a class of their own that only they fully understand.  I love the sport, the positions, and the team, and it's history, and now, one of the guys I grew up watching is coaching them (Dale Hunter, scrapper extraordinaire).

Here's the whole point; think about what you love in life.  Your kids, maybe your job, maybe even a politician or his party.  You root for them.  You feel good when they win--bad when they lose.  The quote is that it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.  True?  I think so.  The experience of life is about feeling and experiencing.  I have insane love for a few people in my life, including my daughter, family, girlfriend and her daughter, and a few friends, but I also love a sports team.  I love when they win--hurt when they lose.  Far as I can tell, that adds to the experience of life.  The drama of having not won a cup yet pushes every year... a repeating theme.  When will we win it?  It's a cliffhanger.

Why not love a sports team?  Why not add to your experience in this world?  Why not regularly test your ability to love and hurt--to heal and cheer again?  Why not lift that psychological weight-set to strengthen yourself?  It will add passion and depth to your character, as well as growth and maturity in accepting loss.

Unlikely Measures of Success and How to Recognize Them

Think about all you go through in life.  Think about this question; what are the first three or four things you think about when you wake up in the morning (besides the bathroom)?  Right there, you have it--that's what really matters to you in this world.  It may be a love for somebody.  It may be a fear of/for somebody or a respect or an excitement over some thing (toy) or event.

This evening, I'm out cutting my grass.  The neighbor is consumed with how we blow our grass to ensure it doesn't go into the drainage ditch or into his yard.  I suppose caring about it is reasonable, but being consumed?  I don't know about you, but I've mowed grass since I was 8-years old.  I probably wouldn't even remember when I started if it weren't for the dog that bit me in the ass when I was dragging the mower home one day--I suspect he thought I was an Imperial Walker and he sought to protect the street of his homeland.  In all those years of mowing, 32 since then, I've been taught to/practiced mowing grass outwards, away from the uncut grass, in order to keep it from accumulating inward and bogging down the mower.

But he's a specialist.  He owns a business that deals with the intricacies of lawn care.  I can respect that.  Yet, in all of the lawns I have mowed where there were ditches, I have never had to worry about the grass going in and accumulating.  Some of those lawns, I took care of for years and there was never any accumulation (it was either destroyed by the push-mower or weed-eater, or pushed out of the way by the forces of the mower's blowout, wind, or water).  The mower I'm using now cuts grass so fine that it's like a powder almost.  Little, teeny, itsy-bitsies.

I didn't get defensive when he came over and lectured my gf and she volunteered to go rake out the ditch after the first time I broke his cardinal rule.  I didn't get defensive this evening when he stood at his fence line to chaperone my cutting as he has taken a liking to, and even when he said to me (which were his first words directly to me), "I'd like if you blow it away from the ditch and the fence.  I just cut here, and I blew mine away from your lawn," which wasn't even true because we watched him with a push mower, on our property, blowing it right into our yard.  I didn't get defensive last year when he suggested that trash was ending up in the ditch, as if it was coming from our place (which is rather tidy if I do say so).  We live on a MAIN road, with litter!  Didn't bother me.  I blew it off.

Do you sense where this is going?

He must be doing great!  The only question I had for him but never asked was this: "When was the last time you had a genuine smile?  About anything?"

If you are doing so well in life that your thoughts get consumed with grass fragments or the origin of plastic bottle caps or hamburger wrappers, you really should pat yourself on the back because you have arrived.  I have no question that the man knows his business, but I don't take kindly to anybody telling me how to cut my grass where I live.  I have a general problem with authority anyway, but specifically problems with those who try to impose their will upon my domain.  Yet, the more I thought about him, two feelings emerged: the first, of course, was the realization that he must be doing pretty damned well and the second was that he needed to find something to enjoy instead of policing.

When I came inside tonight, another thought occurred before I realized the topic of tonight's post.  I thought about an author who had written on the Amazon boards that she couldn't understand why her sales had dropped down to under 50 or 100 (can't remember) books per day, and the other authors and some readers were all consoling her and giving her tips.  Nothing at all wrong with that, but I sell an average of just over one book per day, and the reason I'm entirely content with that is this: two years ago on this day, I hadn't even published a book, and now my fourth one will be published in June (I've written five to completion but I'm re-working the daylight out of one).  I look FORWARD to the day when I have to complain that sales are under 50 per day, because you know what?  That's not a problem.  That will never be a problem for me.

The message I guess I'm trying to push is this; take a survey of yourself and find out what you worry about or complain about the most in a given day.  Then think about where you were ten years ago and what you were complaining or worrying about then.  If your problems are worse, then you're pretty much average in your thinking by my guess.  But if your problems are much less severe, don't be afraid to smile inside even if you won't let people on the outside know that you're doing much better (you know who you are--some people love to appear always on the brink of death in some form).  The depth and true impact of your perceived problems is the most accurate measure of your success.