I need to get better at doing this regularly. It's been twenty days since my initial post, and I've kept telling myself that I'm going to get back on and do this again. I even started a Twitter account (twitter.com/MoreLikeNelsonM) and was posting on there for a couple of days, then slacked off of that. If I'm going to better myself, then I need to start here. And there.
I still haven't watched INVICTUS, and I'm very disappointed in myself for that. I'm going to watch it by the end of the weekend, and I'm keeping that promise to myself. (Also, my thirty-day rental of it is going to end in nine days, so I'd better watch it.)
While I've mostly been with my family and resting after the last job I had (which was brutal physically because of insane hours), I've also been a bit lazy. And that needs to stop. While I've been spending a lot of time thinking about how to be a messiah, or trying to identify them, I've not spend much time DOING much of anything.
I just went to my Twitter page where a video I'd posted no longer was applicable to the link I put up. It was an ESPN piece about a NASCAR engineer with no arms named Richie Parker. This guy is phenomenal. He types with his feet and actually fixes cars by using tools with his feet. This is more than worth the less-than 8 minutes to watch it, if you have the time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiLDMBDPCEY
This guy is a hero to me. Absolutely. He does the most with what he's given and accomplishes incredible things. I'm looking at both of my hands typing and wondering why I'm not doing more.
The more and more I think about it, however, the more excited I am about my upcoming job. It's still not carved in stone, as a few things have to fall into place before it happens, but I'm confident it will and I'll be able to finally really feel good about what I'm doing for a living. Right now, my existential crisis has hit hard and I'm considering no longer doing a lot of the work things I've been doing, because I feel that they're for money and have no meaning. I need meaning. I need to search to do things that have meaning. And I have another idea that could really help the world that I've been kicking around for a while, and I'm going to apply myself to that as well, starting today.
Everything's really starting today. Writing on here daily. There, I said it. Now I have to hold myself to it. Too bad my smart phone is utterly crapping and would never be able to navigate here to write a blog, but my computer access should take care of that.
Focus is everything.
Friday, August 9, 2013
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Day 1- The Exisitential Crisis
I'm not sure if anyone will ever read what I'm going to write on here, as I honestly don't know how these things work. I have no idea how blogs are even seen by others. I'm certainly never going to send my blog link to someone and say "Here, look at what I wrote!" One, I loathe overuse of exclamation points. (Seriously, why do people email and text and use !!!!!!!! at the end of "Thank you"?) Two, I'm writing this anonymously for a variety of reasons that I won't get into right now. I'm sure they'll come up organically. No need to front-load and bore anyone with mundane personal details that you don't care about. Shit, I barely even care about them. Why would you? (Note: I'm usually not this self-loathing, my life is quite good, actually. But this IS the crisis moment, so I'm apt to be a little negative today.) I do plan on starting a Twitter account, though, and perhaps posting things there. My message is one that's positive, but I know I'll be venting about things that distract from the positivity. I'm not sure what I'm doing, but here it goes.
Bottom line: if you read this blog, I hope it makes you think. To be honest up front, you should know that THIS IS NOT A RELIGIOUS blog. I will not be promoting one religion over another, nor will I be preaching that of my own. At this point, I actually have no intention of revealing my religion. We'll see if that changes. Again, it's Day 1, so who knows.
So, the question: Who is a Messiah? I Googled (is that a word yet?) it. A bunch of different specific religious references came up. I'm not going to shit on any of them, but none of them fit my needs. They're all too specific.
I found one, of all places, on Wikipedia, that I like:
"A messiah is a saviour or liberator of a group of people," it says. I'm into it. It works. It's not religious. It's all encompassing. It's perfect for me.
I'm starting this because I feel that the world needs more messiahs. I feel we need to find them. Nuture them. Support them. It isn't necessary to be a religious leader to be a messiah. It's necessary to be able to lead.
And this is where my crisis began: I was watching TV last night with my father who is on the ill side of life. He has MS, and it totally blows. My dad was INCREDIBLY successful in his life in business, one of the best of the best. My sister and I look at each other and say, "Yeah, we'll never get there, not like him." Seriously. When I look at what he accomplished business-wise, it blows me away. And my sister does quite well for herself. She went to one of the top med-schools in the country and is now a shrink in one of our country's most famous cities. And me? I've done alright. My life doesn't suck.
But back to the point, as I was sitting with my dad. I'm watching after him because my mother doesn't really handle his illness all that well. She does her best, so I don't blame her, as it's hard. But still, not that great. She needed a "vacation" from him, and asked me to come babysit him while she went on a trip. Aside from the fact that my work and life schedules blow right now, I was happy to do it. I like spending time with him without her. He fears her. He barely even speaks around her because he's afraid to say the wrong thing and she'll yell at him. They even have a full-time nurse to take care of him who tells me the same thing. It crushes him, I know, to have been on top of the world and now be reliant on a woman who somehow feels Karma's against her for doing this to her (yes, him getting sick was done to hurt HER, of course).
Dmmit. Two paragraphs later and I still haven't gotten to the point. (I'll get better at this, I promise.) So my dad has a very limited POV of what's on TV these days. CNBC, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC and last but most, PBS. I think if he and my mother could only watch one channel the rest of their lives, it'd be PBS. More her doing, though, as I think he'd prefer ESPN, but wouldn't dare say it.
So he's conditioned to have PBS in his rotation, and last night he flipped to Charlie Rose, who was discussing President Obama and the Trayvon Martin case. Obama just came out in the press yesterday and discussed this case, and how Trayvon could've been him 35 years ago. I thought the moment was amazing. Poignant. So thoughtful. From there, Charlie Rose began discussing leaders, and it led to Nelson Mandela and the movie INVICTUS (which I haven't seen, but just downloaded and will watch very very soon). Charlie and his guests discussed Mandela and his ways of keeping the white people from being scared of black people when he took power in South Africa. (And I don't even know what is PC anymore, so please excuse me if I screw that up, it just changes every day.) They were specifically discussing how the black majority wanted to change the name of the rugby team, as it was a white-given name. But Mandela said that's what the whites would expect, and that's what they fear, so they should keep the name. And he'd stick to that metaphor with his leadership. I really need to see that movie.
Then Charlie et al said the world needed more people like Mandela. The Middle East needed people like Mandela. People who would stand up against all odds for what is right. Rose mentioned Sadat and someone else (I don't remember) as examples.
And THAT'S why we're here. I've concluded that Nelson Mandela is a messiah. And we need more of them. It set off some dominoes in my head. First question: what the fuck am I REALLY doing with my life? Answer: decent stuff. Second question: Why am I not a messiah? Answer: because I haven't set my mind to it. Now before you bash me for that latter one, it has nothing to do with me thinking I'm better than anyone. I don't. I do my best to look in the mirror and be happy with the way I treat others, and I am a vast majority of the time. But I don't push beyond my circles. I need to. I volunteered for something that helps the elderly but didn't follow through because my schedule was too busy. Terrible excuse. Time to stop doing that.
I'm taking a job that starts in a few months that could truly help my goal. I have the opportunity to help a TON of people, and I intend to take full advantage of that. it's going to be brutally hard to do, that job, and I'm not going in the most friendly of work zones for people like myself. But I'm driven to turn that opportunity into something more, something for the greater good.
Nelson Mandela. Messiah.
Me. Not at all. Well, I think I'm my dad's messiah when I'm with him, so that's a start.
I want to dedicate this blog to looking for messiahs among us, identifying them and trying to promote them, and also me trying to become one myself. I'm hopeful on the former, although it's an uphill battle. As for the latter, who knows...but it's probably steeper than K2. I apologize if this comes off as egotistical in any way. It shouldn't. It's out of genuine desire to help the world. Barack was Barry once. Nelson was Troublemaker (yes, look it up). I can't say whether I believe that messiahs are predestined or nurtured, because I have no idea what I believe when it comes to that question. All I know about that stuff is that we DON'T know about that stuff. So anything's possible. And if anything's possible...
I need to watch INVICTUS.
Bottom line: if you read this blog, I hope it makes you think. To be honest up front, you should know that THIS IS NOT A RELIGIOUS blog. I will not be promoting one religion over another, nor will I be preaching that of my own. At this point, I actually have no intention of revealing my religion. We'll see if that changes. Again, it's Day 1, so who knows.
So, the question: Who is a Messiah? I Googled (is that a word yet?) it. A bunch of different specific religious references came up. I'm not going to shit on any of them, but none of them fit my needs. They're all too specific.
I found one, of all places, on Wikipedia, that I like:
"A messiah is a saviour or liberator of a group of people," it says. I'm into it. It works. It's not religious. It's all encompassing. It's perfect for me.
I'm starting this because I feel that the world needs more messiahs. I feel we need to find them. Nuture them. Support them. It isn't necessary to be a religious leader to be a messiah. It's necessary to be able to lead.
And this is where my crisis began: I was watching TV last night with my father who is on the ill side of life. He has MS, and it totally blows. My dad was INCREDIBLY successful in his life in business, one of the best of the best. My sister and I look at each other and say, "Yeah, we'll never get there, not like him." Seriously. When I look at what he accomplished business-wise, it blows me away. And my sister does quite well for herself. She went to one of the top med-schools in the country and is now a shrink in one of our country's most famous cities. And me? I've done alright. My life doesn't suck.
But back to the point, as I was sitting with my dad. I'm watching after him because my mother doesn't really handle his illness all that well. She does her best, so I don't blame her, as it's hard. But still, not that great. She needed a "vacation" from him, and asked me to come babysit him while she went on a trip. Aside from the fact that my work and life schedules blow right now, I was happy to do it. I like spending time with him without her. He fears her. He barely even speaks around her because he's afraid to say the wrong thing and she'll yell at him. They even have a full-time nurse to take care of him who tells me the same thing. It crushes him, I know, to have been on top of the world and now be reliant on a woman who somehow feels Karma's against her for doing this to her (yes, him getting sick was done to hurt HER, of course).
Dmmit. Two paragraphs later and I still haven't gotten to the point. (I'll get better at this, I promise.) So my dad has a very limited POV of what's on TV these days. CNBC, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC and last but most, PBS. I think if he and my mother could only watch one channel the rest of their lives, it'd be PBS. More her doing, though, as I think he'd prefer ESPN, but wouldn't dare say it.
So he's conditioned to have PBS in his rotation, and last night he flipped to Charlie Rose, who was discussing President Obama and the Trayvon Martin case. Obama just came out in the press yesterday and discussed this case, and how Trayvon could've been him 35 years ago. I thought the moment was amazing. Poignant. So thoughtful. From there, Charlie Rose began discussing leaders, and it led to Nelson Mandela and the movie INVICTUS (which I haven't seen, but just downloaded and will watch very very soon). Charlie and his guests discussed Mandela and his ways of keeping the white people from being scared of black people when he took power in South Africa. (And I don't even know what is PC anymore, so please excuse me if I screw that up, it just changes every day.) They were specifically discussing how the black majority wanted to change the name of the rugby team, as it was a white-given name. But Mandela said that's what the whites would expect, and that's what they fear, so they should keep the name. And he'd stick to that metaphor with his leadership. I really need to see that movie.
Then Charlie et al said the world needed more people like Mandela. The Middle East needed people like Mandela. People who would stand up against all odds for what is right. Rose mentioned Sadat and someone else (I don't remember) as examples.
And THAT'S why we're here. I've concluded that Nelson Mandela is a messiah. And we need more of them. It set off some dominoes in my head. First question: what the fuck am I REALLY doing with my life? Answer: decent stuff. Second question: Why am I not a messiah? Answer: because I haven't set my mind to it. Now before you bash me for that latter one, it has nothing to do with me thinking I'm better than anyone. I don't. I do my best to look in the mirror and be happy with the way I treat others, and I am a vast majority of the time. But I don't push beyond my circles. I need to. I volunteered for something that helps the elderly but didn't follow through because my schedule was too busy. Terrible excuse. Time to stop doing that.
I'm taking a job that starts in a few months that could truly help my goal. I have the opportunity to help a TON of people, and I intend to take full advantage of that. it's going to be brutally hard to do, that job, and I'm not going in the most friendly of work zones for people like myself. But I'm driven to turn that opportunity into something more, something for the greater good.
Nelson Mandela. Messiah.
Me. Not at all. Well, I think I'm my dad's messiah when I'm with him, so that's a start.
I want to dedicate this blog to looking for messiahs among us, identifying them and trying to promote them, and also me trying to become one myself. I'm hopeful on the former, although it's an uphill battle. As for the latter, who knows...but it's probably steeper than K2. I apologize if this comes off as egotistical in any way. It shouldn't. It's out of genuine desire to help the world. Barack was Barry once. Nelson was Troublemaker (yes, look it up). I can't say whether I believe that messiahs are predestined or nurtured, because I have no idea what I believe when it comes to that question. All I know about that stuff is that we DON'T know about that stuff. So anything's possible. And if anything's possible...
I need to watch INVICTUS.
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