You Got No Fear of the Underdog. That's Why You Will Not Survive.

I don’t know how it started for me.  It was in there early, though.  Maybe as an offshoot of superheroes like Spider-Man.  He was just a kid in Queens looking out for the little guy.  It could have been anything.  I have always been on the side of the underdog.  I don’t need to explain what that is as much as I want to chart my adherence to this belief over the course of my life.

My blog, my rules.

January of 1981.  (How’s that for remembering?)  I never had an interest in sports and at that time I could probably name two football teams. I was in fourth grade and I remember a couple of kids talking about who they supported for Super Bowl XVI. There was so much hype about the 49ers and their new quarterback named Joe Montana.  I must have heard that incessantly. They asked me who I wanted to win, and I immediately said the opponent, which was a team I only knew from the logo on my bedroom curtains, the Cincinnati Bengals.  Of course, they lost.  It was Joe Montana, man. 

But that began my deep disdain for winning teams like the Niners and the Lakers and the Yankees.  And the Cowboys…especially the Cowboys.  If they were champs, I wanted them to lose. If they were popular, I wanted them to lose.  Here’s the truth:  Around 2000, I decided to get into baseball for the first time.  I picked the Red Sox as my team. They had gone so long without winning a World Series, and they are the rival of the Yankees, who were so crazy successful at that time. So, I picked them as my team.  Bought a cap and everything.  I was with them for the championship 2004 series, which was great. First win in eighty-something years.  A season or two later, I lost interest altogether.  I’m not from Boston and they weren’t underdogs anymore.  I moved on.

“Everyone loves an underdog”. This a phrase I’ve heard throughout my life and it is simply not true.  There are just as many people who support winners and winning and resent the small underdog when he succeeds.  I don’t know exactly how that mental process works, but I guess it is just a reverse of the relationship I have with the underdog.  These people go from winner to winner, dumping them when they lose. There’s probably a few that bought Red Sox hats after they started winning. I do the opposite. 

It’s not just sports.  I relate to first-timers and those who finally break through.  I love when a new author sells a billion copies, or some unknown director gets an Oscar buzz.  They figured out a way to buck the system.  I trust it because usually it’s based on merit, which so few things are.  They created something that was too good to be ignored.

But the feeling goes deeper.  I love teachers and local politicians trying to make an impact. I love whistleblowers and journalists that give us a truth we wouldn’t have seen otherwise.  I love new ideas and technologies.  They often have the hardest time getting seen.  A new idea is such a rare thing; its existence depends on those who are willing to listen and be challenged.  The fans of the underdog.

It’s a feeling of hope.  Its reflective of life itself.  Life is a struggle to survive despite the odds against it.

I don’t know what to make of you if you don’t support the common man.  I don’t know where your conscience lies.  I don’t know what your heart is made of.  You certainly don’t follow the beliefs of any major religion out there.  The underdog is the backbone of a culture.  They are the blue-collar people who make things work.  From that pool come the leaders we say we prefer; humble beginnings, strong work ethic, determination.  We say that, but do we all mean it?  Well, I do.  I vote that way, too.  The last three Republican presidents were all sons of rich men, and the last three Democrats started out with nothing.

Maybe that’s what separates us.  It all comes down to what we think of the underdog.

Hold on.  If you don’t like the underdog, does that mean you don’t like Harry Potter?  Luke Skywalker? Frodo? John McClain? Katniss?  What the hell is wrong with you?

It’s Important To Have Your Own Top Ten Lists

(This post has been on my mind for over a week.  The only way I’m going to get it out there is to present it in two sections.  The first one is my thoughts on the subject of embracing the things you truly love no matter what, and the second is a struggle to do just that.)

I assume this is a problem for some.  I know it was for me.  It may be based on anxiety, or low self-esteem, or a lack of attention, or a combination of those, but it’s a personality glitch I’ve had my entire life.  At least, since I was ten or so.

When I was little, as I’ve stated, I was into Star Wars.  I loved my cartoons, my Legos, and that was pretty much it.  Before I hit ten or so, I was an average kid who loved indoor shit and I was happy when I was surrounded by it.  As I got older and we moved to Florida, there were new people, new surroundings, and new influences in my life.  The boys I met were into girls.  They were into music and movies I’d never heard of.  It was that time in one’s life where you are trying to fit it, and by doing so, you pretend to go along with stuff you’re not necessarily into. 

(This sounds ominous; it’s not.  I’m not talking drugs.  I’m talking about listening to Duran Duran records.)

By the time I was 12, I was far away from these things I loved.  I was in middle school and life was girls I was too nervous to talk too and music that I never really liked.  It was the beginnings of teenage crap, and I was just along for the ride.  I had no developed a backbone.  I didn’t know enough about growing up to know that there is a time that you shed the things you thought defined you, and embrace the things that really do.  At least, I hope you’ve found that in your life.

I didn’t discover that until Back to the Future and George Carlin.  I didn’t discover that until The Beatles the Beastie Boys and Led Zeppelin and Jane’s Addiction.  It was awesome to experience these particular slices of our culture, but it was equally important to drop the stuff I didn’t like and admit to myself that it was never mine to begin with.  I was going along.  I don’t want to go along anymore.  I like this stuff instead.  It makes me feel something.  I identify with it.

However, low self-esteem and anxiety have residual effects.  You never are truly free of them.  I still have issues, all these years later.  With age, you get the odd societal pressures of the things you should embrace at your age and the things you should have let go by now.  I’m happy to see there is resistance against these pressures. (Especially in Portland.)  Only those true to themselves can resist.  The anxiety-ridden are still concerned about exterior perceptions.  “I don’t want people to think I’m a loser!” “I’m not a creepy old guy!”

Then, I have to remind myself of my credo: No one really gives a shit about what you think.

Which brings me to your top ten list.  I don’t mean top ten lists in general, or the endless clickbait listicles full of incongruous and incomprehensible horseshit on the internet.  I mean, your top ten lists.  Can you make top ten lists of the things you love without being concerned about what others may feel about it?  A top ten movie list of all time with all the Transformers movies on there because you secretly love that terrible shit.  Or a top ten songs of all-time list filled with bubble gum pop songs, all while surrounded by hipster friends who only listen to Neutral Milk Hotel on a loop. A top ten TV shows of all time only filled with sitcoms because one-hour dramas are too long to sit through.

For me, this is a tall order.  I am in an endless struggle in my mind to seem cool.  I’m not cool.  I’ve never been cool and most of the shit I like isn’t cool.  There is media everywhere that is embraced by the cool elements of our culture. I ignore that completely, yet I still want the recognition.  I realize that has nothing to do with me and I can include whatever I want, but it’s still in the background of my mind second-guessing everything.

Now, I will bring you the experience of me simply trying to assemble a list of my favorite TV shows of all time, as it happens. I apologize beforehand…

Of course, Lost is far and away my favorite TV show of all time, despite any criticism or any of its flaws. I lived for that show, week to week, year to year.  Oh, yeah, I have to limit this to dramas, and not sitcoms.  It just wouldn’t make sense to put Friends up against The West Wing.  Yes.  The West Wing is probably in the second slot.  That show is like a comfy blanket to.me.  It gets a knock because of the final two seasons, but no show is perfect.  Hold up.  Breaking Bad was flawless.  But do I think it’s a favorite show? I don’t want to include it just because it was critically acclaimed.  Do I, personally, love it? Would I kick back and watch the whole thing again?  It was the best show I’ve ever seen, but would it crack the top ten?  It might.  It was that good. I also have to include The X-Files.  Amy and I watched that religiously until the last shitty season or two.  It’s frustrating to watch in reruns, but it still has to be up there.  Homicide: Life on the Street did not get the love it deserved at the time because everyone else watched NYPD Blue at the same time. Homicide was better in every way and Andre Braugher is one of my favorite actors, period.

Now things get a little difficult.  After that first batch of shows that come to mind, it is difficult to round out the rest of the list.  I hesitate to include anything too recent because the series hasn’t completed yet.  This is also the place where I have to refrain from including shows that would make me look cool.  Like The Wire.  Great show.  Doesn’t make the top ten.  Dexter had its moments, Deadwood was only two seasons and although Firefly could have been the greatest series ever, it never had a chance.  I have to cut them all loose.  There is Justified, which I loved, and I have to keep in my back pocket.  Maybe it squeaks in at 10. The three recent shows I have in mind are Fargo, Mr. Robot, and Sherlock.  None of those are officially over, although Sherlock may be.  Sherlock is also a British series with fewer episodes, but each one is 90 minutes so I’m letting it slide. Fargo and Mr. Robot are my two favorite shows right now, and have been for the last three seasons.

Game of Thrones will not make the cut.  It's close. Orphan Black won’t, Doctor Who won’t, and there just any old dramas, anything pre-1995 or so, that come to mind.  I loved Northern Exposure when it was on, but it's not up there. Fringe was good but not enough. Mad Men, The Americans, Downtown Abbey, Sons of Anarchy…and none of the superhero shows I watch will make it.  So, what do I have? Lost, West Wing, X-Files, Homicide, Breaking Bad, Justified, Mr. Robot, Fargo, and Sherlock. Shit.  That’s nine.  Ugh.  Why do we have to make these lists of 10?  Now from all the cut shows, I have to pick a favorite.  It’s the same damn process all over again. I think from the batch I’ve mentioned, I have to include Doctor Who.  Smart, fun, and rewatchable. I think that is important criteria.  Would I ever watch this again?

Now for the order. 1 and 2 are locked. I now have to mix my attachment to the show when it originally aired and its rewatch-ability. Breaking Bad and Homicide are good, but serious and dark.  They will be at the end. Mr. Robot, Sherlock, and Justified are all lighter, or at least not as dark.  Doctor Who is very easy to watch again, but it still wouldn’t hop over some of these other ones.  Fargo falls somewhere in the middle.  Ok, shit.  Here I go:

1.     Lost

2.     The West Wing

3.     The X-Files

4.     Mr. Robot

5.     Sherlock

6.     Justified

7.     Fargo

8.     Doctor Who

9.     Homicide: Life on the Street

10.  Breaking Bad

Of course, if you change the criteria, this list changes…

My head hurts.

Somebody’s Got To Be The Good Guy

The more I think about it, It’s A Wonderful Life may have more of an impact on my moral barometer than any teacher or adult figure in my life.  When I would daydream, I thought about lightsabers and swinging on a web from building to building.  I built spaceships out of Legos and when I got older I read weird stories written by weirdos.  But the cornerstone of my values may have come from a Frank Capra Christmas classic.

My brother and I were left alone like wolves in the wilderness, piecing together our personality from the scraps that lay around our neighborhood and on our TV.  When Christmas rolled around, as most of you know, IAWL was repeated on TV dozens of times between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know it by heart. Somewhere, after my twentieth or so viewing as a kid, I think the lessons of the movie stamped themselves on my brain.  They are still there to this day.

George Bailey is a good guy.  He’s not perfect, but he does the right thing.  He does the right thing at almost every turn, even to his detriment.  He shakes off all the things he missed out on, and tries to do right by all the people in his life.  His wife and children, his mother and uncle, his brother and the entire population of Bedford Falls.  We see his sacrifices and they are confirmed when Clarence shows him a life when he was never born.  He gets to see the impact of his life on others on the shittiest night of his life.
            He has to do these things even though he knows he misses out on so much, like traveling the world, which was his lifelong dream.  We act like these people are martyrs; as if they want recognition for all these things they do.  I guess that happens.  The true reason I behave a lot like George is that I could not live with myself if I didn’t.  I am compelled.  Call that what you want, but if actions speak louder than words, maybe you shouldn’t criticize and nitpick someone who is trying to do the right thing.  George isn’t perfect.  He isn’t trying to be. He also isn’t trying to be good.  He is good.  The attempt is to live in this world while still being a good person.

I saw myself in George.  (Doesn’t hurt that Jimmy Stewart was a damn fine actor, too.)

Also, there is Potter.  He’s the mean old fuck in this movie that tries to ruin everything for everybody.  He’s a caricature, but a powerful one that really reinforced my belief about the rich and greedy. He’s gross, surly, ugly, always in black and never seems to age as the flashbacks continue.  He seems perpetually 101 years old.   Potter tells George that George is the only one who has beaten him. It’s not through business acumen or luck.  It’s because George is good, and good people can’t be bought. They aren’t motivated by money.  The thought of becoming another Potter disgusts George.  He couldn’t even conceive of it.

I always think of the line when Potter was speaking to the Savings and Loan board after George’s father died.  In response to giving a poor person a home loan: “What does that get us?  A discontented, lazy rabble instead of a thrifty working class…”

That entire notion almost succinctly explains the ideological divide in this country.  First of all, fuck you, Potter.  Second, exactly who are supposed to sell homes to other than the people who require them?  Assuming he believes the rabble to already be discontented, does he really believe it’s because of the chance at a new house?  Or is it something else?  It could be that one old man in a fancy wheelchair wants to manipulate the lives of everyone in town into a world of his choosing.  He is an empty husk of a human being that has never known kindness in his life.  If he did, he might value the lives of those people as they were, at that moment. They were human beings living their lives, some of them in need, and he had the means to help them. And he didn’t do a damn thing other than judge them through his office window.

I’ve seen Mr. Potter’s in other contexts for years. I see them on TV all the time.  I read their posts on Facebook.  The president is one.

Nice guys finish last.  That’s because the game is rigged and they don’t want to cheat.  Good guys get to be good fathers and good husbands.  They don’t necessarily get to be successful in the workplace.  Why?  That is the realm of the Potters. It’s rare when a good guy can succeed in there.  They have to walk a very thin line because goodness and doing the right thing are not valued in this country as much as money and winning. Most good guys are taken advantage of as soon as they are identified.  Their values often get in the way of good business.

So why are there good guys and good gals?  Because they have to be.  I have to be. They aren’t martyrs or angels. Like George, they are just doing what they are compelled to do, just like pretty people are pretty, and blue-eyed people have blue eyes.  They just are. 

Enough

I write 600-800 words, and I try to sum it up with a thoughtful sentence at the end.  It’s kinda my thing.  I don’t research, I don’t interview, and I hardly ever review. This blog serves as an idea dump.  Right now, I am struggling through the middle of my latest book, and I needed to step back and get a fresh perspective.  But I didn’t want to stop writing.  The idea behind this entry is that sometimes I have ideas I’m afraid to detail online.  It's cowardice.  I need to be bolder.  Plus, no one is really looking, so why not?

The first true book I wrote was about a young guy who gained fame by giving old-fashioned firebrand speeches.  The ones they had in old political rallies decades ago.  The book was okay.  But the ideas were mine and the story was a chance to hash out some of my more radical ideas. 

They are not original, to be clear.  They just aren’t talked about very much.

Here’s one:

I believe in Enough.

I believe there is such a thing as having too much.  I don’t believe it is a good thing for someone to acquire as much as they can to the detriment of others. 

You know damn well that communism isn’t what I’m talking about.  Don’t even go there.  You can also refrain from turning to the religion of the free market, which is not and has never been free. It has as many rules as NFL football and is as corrupt as professional boxing.  I believe in taxes.  I believe in a functioning government.  Rich people giving up more of their money than the poor is not what I consider a problem. But I also believe capitalism is a machine that works quite well, especially when enough people are keeping an eye on it.  There is opportunity in that system that can’t be ignored.  Fine.  Good. I barely know what I’m talking about, but I’ve sated the opposition.

I’m talking about Enough.  The social urge to push ourselves higher and higher.  To excel and be the best we can be.  I believe happiness and satisfaction come from the recognition of where we are in the moment.  The race to come in first doesn’t really make us stronger.  It makes us discontented and sad.  There is a feeling of emptiness that we never can fill.  We are always missing something.

Unless, of course, you believe in Enough.

Go ahead and disparage Enough.  Call me lazy or unmotivated or dumb.  Keep telling me life is a battle.

Maybe it’s not.  Maybe life just is.  Everything you see around you, right now. If we don’t believe in Enough, we never how great every day can be.

Enough money.  Enough time.  Enough friends.  Enough weight loss.  Enough Twitter followers.  I don’t support that you should stop trying to better your situation.  But I do support that there is a finish line you are free to enjoy. I don’t think we should “never be satisfied” or constantly look to the future.  I don’t believe happiness or being at one with the universe lives there.  Pride and glory are there, for sure.  Is that what you’re after?

I grew up thinking Americans were miserable.  It doesn’t take long for that conclusion to percolate once you start paying attention.  We’re disconnected, lazy, petty, and materialistic. I blamed it on corporations and commercials and pop culture.  But as you get older you realize there are a few things, only a select few, that we can control.  Americans aren’t miserable by nature.  We make ourselves miserable.  The holes we try to fill are the ones we’ve dug ourselves.  We feel pressure as kids to succeed and return the same pressure to our own kids.  Always scrambling to have more and be more and more and more and more.

What if there was Enough?  Each one of us knows what enough means, but do we truly embrace it?  Can we just be satisfied with enough, without shame or the urge to have more than enough? The simple notion of not wanting something is antithetical to our economy.  We are supposed to want. 

Contento. The Spanish word for happy is contento. I’ve always loved that. Not a joyous feeling filled with smiles and rainbows, but contentment.  Doesn’t that appeal to you?  Imagine the wonders it could do for your back or those stress headaches.  Try to think about what life would be like if you didn’t worry about tomorrow.   The cool thing is that you don’t need anything to get it.  It is a change in the way you look at the world.  It’s just rearranging the dusty garage that is your brain.

One more thing about embracing Enough.  You know how we like to blame corporations and commercials for all this materialistic thinking?  How do you think they would fare once we embrace enough?  Enough stuff.  Enough spending.  What happens when they can’t peddle garbage in our faces 24/7? I don’t know either. 

I’d like to find out.

Livin’ That Curmudgeon Lifestyle, Baby!

I have two opposing forces in my head.  I realized there was a conflict when I was around 24 years old or so.  I was married with two kids and I owned a house.  Life started pretty quickly.  I was also a dreamer with a yearning to be a kid as long as I could.  I at least wanted to identify with my kids as long as I could, and I knew the world of adults didn’t interest me.  So, my life was in the adult world, but my mind was still filled with ideas and a need to goof around. 

Then came the grumpiness.  I believe that it began as a resistance to the onslaught of responsibility I took on at such an early age.  I was doing the best I could as a husband and father, cobbling together meager paychecks and going to school for a degree that would eventually lead to a minor bump in pay.  I had a mortgage and a yard and cars to keep up.  It was a lot, but I did it.  However, fatigue set in and I knew I didn’t want any extraneous taxes on my already depleted energy.

And that took the form of a young curmudgeon.  I didn’t want strangers in my house.  I needed to connect with everyone my kids knew, at least at a base level or I felt uncomfortable around them. My innate need to host people nagged at me.  I began to withdraw from extraneous social gatherings and holiday celebrations.  I was never really invited to parties, but occasionally I would get an invite to hang out with co-workers, or a friend of a friend was having a thing and I almost always declined. 

I realized I was an introvert that needed friends.  I just needed them to be around me.  Going out to find them in the world was too much.  Extroverts are energized by journeys into the world.  Introverts are sucked dry every time.

I began to resent Halloween.  I don’t hate Halloween, but Halloween is a social holiday, outside of trick-or-treating with your kids. Socializing with adults on Halloween is a different animal. Adults want parties, and curmudgeons don’t like parties that much. I don’t do New Year’s Eve or St. Patrick’s Day.  They are meaningless to me.

How does my wife feel about it?  Let me put it this way.  Compared to my wife, in the arena of socialization, I am Barack Obama.  The pope.  Tom Hanks.  I am like, super-duper more social. The major difference between us is that all this stuff bothers me.

Then, I hit my forties.  Now we’re talking. The magical thing that happens when you are in your forties is that you stop thinking so much about what you were, and what you want to be.  It’s all about what you are.  The good, the bad, the ugly. My kids are grown and I’m losing my hair.  I’ve been married for 3,000 years and we haven’t murdered each other.  We’ve managed to hold on to our home despite the economy trying to destroy us at every turn. 

Now, I’m a curmudgeon and I don’t give a shit.

I have all my opinions and I don’t care who knows.  I’m a liberal.  Republicans are a sad joke.  Jerry Seinfeld is overrated.  All medical expenses should be free.  I don’t want anything bad to happen to the citizens of oh, let’s say, Mozambique, but I don’t really give a shit enough to think about it.  I feel deeply for the people of the world like when I was a kid, but I also know there are plenty of assholes that don’t deserve that concern.  I like my nerd stuff and I like football.  I know grown men risk brain damage every day to play, but it’s completely voluntary so it doesn’t bother me.  I respect vegetarians, but I am not one.  I like pork better than beef. I think Florida sucks.  I have friends and family there, but I really don’t like it at all. The Pacific Northwest is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. If I’m honest with myself, I probably won’t get to see many other places in my life.  I’m a comedy nerd.  Kevin Hart isn’t that funny.  I don’t know what fun is.  I have overthought every aspect of life that the concept is completely foreign.  Bagels ain’t shit.

I’ve never felt so free in my closed-off life.  I haven’t really changed.  I just don’t beat myself up about it.

It’s a curmudgeonly life, to be sure, but I don’t believe my mind is closed.  I am open to the world.  I don’t sweat it if nothing walks through the door. If it does, it does.  If something comes along that would drag me out of my routine and introduce a brand-new world to me, I would go.  I just have to let go of the pain of not finding it.  It was too much to bear that I couldn’t find new and exciting adventures out there.  I blamed myself for everything.  Now, I just chalk it up to experience and sip from my coffee mug. 

That’s the curmudgeon way.

Tiny Houses Are a Stupid Idea

"Can you move your elbow? I'm trying to fold laundry."

I do not watch reality TV. I don’t follow the lives of famous families or watch competitions of any kind.  The closest the Mrs. and I have ever come to watching reality is the occasional HGTV home improvement show or cooking stuff in the old days on the Food Network.

A blog post about how terrible this genre is and how dumb it makes us as a people would be about as fun as watching over-produced fluff about the wives of rich assholes. However, putting aside the desperate need for fame at any cost, I have found something that is equally as dangerous.  I found it on HGTV.  After they spent years following regular people as they bought houses and vacation homes and apartments, they opened up the world of tiny houses.

If you aren’t aware, a tiny house is just that.  It is the house the size of a trailer, that is meant to stay in one spot, once it settles in.  The width is about 10 feet usually and the length varies, but it is meant for one or two people to live inside.  The allure is that a normal house is too expensive, and money can be spent on ‘lifestyle’ instead of the trappings of a traditional home.

Well, they’re right.  Homes are too expensive.  You should be able to have extra money to do things besides pay for mortgage and upkeep. Practically, it makes sense.

There are a few snags.  First, you need somewhere to build and/or keep the house.  The episodes I’ve seen usually involve a young couple building on family property.  Okay, that must be nice.  I guess we’d all like some family land to build on.  Also, there is no room for kids if you decide to have any.  If you do have kids and you move them in one of these, I would consider that child abuse.  I can’t imagine a child forced to share the same space as their dad’s farts 24/7.  I can’t imagine having a sibling in my face all the time.

(Wait, I can.  I shared a room with my brother for our entire childhood.  It sucked.)

But the primary reason these are just god-awful stupid and short-sighted is that they are like kryptonite to a marriage.  Anyone who can withstand the intensely close proximity year after year must be made of iron and breathe fire.  No matter who you are, you need space.  Actual space.  Square footage.  Our culture demands it.  We don’t like being on top of one another.  We need time alone with our own thoughts and our own stuff.

I like the theory of memories over material possessions.  It’s a good way to go.  But we still live in 2017, right?  We all have jobs and we get limited vacation time.  Most of our time won’t be spent on ski vacations or hiking or taking that trip to Italy.  It’s unwinding after a long day at work, clipping our toenails, filling the house with the smells of cayenne pepper or beef or whatever’s for dinner, and falling asleep in the middle of NCIS Buffalo. Most of the time you will be staring face to face with your loved one, unable to go to another room and read or listen to music or do anything without bothering them.

Have you showered today?

Did I already tell you about Dave at work?

Stop making that sound with your feet.

In your face.  All the time.  No walls to stop it.

Day after day…listening to the other person’s nose whistle when he breathes. Seeing her scratch the same spot on the bottom of her foot with the tail end of a PaperMate pen. The foot tapping.  The sniffling.  The same questions over and over.  No escape.  No respite. Just face to face with your partner, swimming in the same body funk until it melds into one giant cloud of irritation and madness. There are bathrooms supposedly in these things, right?  Every time you go, the other person hears EVERYTHING.  Every time you leave the bathroom closet, the door swings open into the living room cubby and kitchen nook. 

I want to crack my knuckles in peace.  I want to watch my Simpsons reruns and laugh at the same lines I’ve heard a dozen times.  If my wife and I and to share the size of a house that is less than half of my garage, she would have strangled me by now.  It would have been one snarky comment too many.

My advice? Find a space with a minimum of two full sized rooms. Separate bathrooms, too, if you can swing it. I’ve been married a long time.  My wife and I have our space. We have together time and alone time. That’s how you do it. That’s how you make it this long without losing your shit.  Spending your life purposely huddled in a tool shed is insane. 

They Aren’t Going Anywhere!

            I’m quite sure I have a million opinions about social and political issues.  I’m also sure I have a handful of unique, if not original things to say.  (At least they are original in my tiny section of the world.)  I believe that I am right on a lot of things, I am fuzzy on a bunch more, and I’m downright stubbornly clinging to a few outdated ideas for which I have not heard a convincing argument to the contrary. There is a concept I think about over and over, and it applies to all sections of the ideological spectrum.

            We are in a divisive time.  (Duh.)  We need to be able to speak with each other without screaming.  (No shit.)  There are more things we have in common than are different from one another. There are extremists with microphones and internet connections and there a shitload of confused people in the middle with a lot of bad information floating around.  I get it.  Most of us get it.  I truly believe that.  I know I talk about how unbelievably dumb we are as a culture, but I really think there is an undercurrent of common sense that holds us together.  It just gets blurred and sidetracked from time to time.

What we have to keep it mind until we can enter into a more rational age, is that no one is going to win or lose.  There will be special interests that gain some ground, and some that lose some, but there will be no victors.  Why?  Because despite what your motivational speaker said, life is not a fucking game.  Is not analogous to a game or a race or a competition.  It’s much more complicated than any game.  Even Risk.

The bedrock of my belief is that all those people you oppose; all the ones that vote the opposite way or protest the thing you believe in… aren’t going anywhere. They aren’t.  They will all be there tomorrow.  The goal is not to win or defeat your opponent because those people won’t just sit around and be losers forever.  There will be another day.  The sun will rise. You see how the analogy doesn’t work?  We’re not pieces on a board.  We’re humans with complicated and ever-changing lives.  We don’t fade away if we lose, like slain aliens in a Halo game.  We wake up the next morning, believing want to believe, caring about what we care about.  You can’t win.  You have to figure out how to work with those that oppose you.  Why?  Because they aren’t going anywhere.

Whites?  Blacks aren’t going anywhere.  Blacks?  Whites aren’t going anywhere. Rich people?  Poor people aren’t going anywhere.  Poor people?  You bet your ass there will always be rich people.  Gay and Queer?  Straight?  Left? Right? Dumb? Smart? Men? Women? Adults? Kids? North? South? East? West? Red? Blue? Faithful? Atheist? Old? Young? Healthy? Sick? Love? Hate? Yankees? Red Sox?

On September 2, 1945, we signed a peace treaty with Japan that ended the war in the Pacific. Between both sides, there were hundreds of thousands of deaths. Hundreds of thousands that spanned over ten years.  But on one day, after the US dropped atomic bombs on Japan, they ceased hostilities.  That is considered a win.  But the real story of the rise of two of the three biggest economies in the world is the collaboration in the post war period.  After all this life and death conflict, we learned to work with each other and thrive. In one decade, we were murdering each other.  The next, we were making toys together.  If that’s true, then don’t you think we can find a way to come to an agreement over immigration?  Kneeling NFL players?  President Dipshit?

We talk because fighting isn’t cool. Arguing is part of talking.  Arguing isn’t a sign of a crumbling democracy.  It’s just the opposite. 

Just remember, the guy you disagree with isn’t a foe to be vanquished.  You won’t win because there is no winning.  There’s just living.  Living with yourself and living with your neighbors. It’s the only answer because they aren’t going anywhere.