What do I want for Christmas?
This is the time of year when I get asked that question a lot. I don’t generally celebrate this holiday anymore. I mean there are a few folks for whom I buy a small gift* but I don’t generally decorate the house and do all that stuff anymore. Once in awhile I get a wild hair and will hang Christmas lights but then again, I might do that anytime of year. That said, I still get asked a lot what I want for the (insert Holiday here). The questioner may be asking in anticipation of gifting me with something or merely being curious.
Generally I don’t have anything on my list. If I want something I either get it myself, start a fund to purchase it at a later date, or write it off as a pipe dream. This year I actually have something on my list. This item on my list is something that I want more than anything I have ever wanted in my life and yet it remains elusive. I can’t save enough money to purchase it nor can I simply write it off as a dream so I am stuck. So here it is, my Christmas wish list for this year.
My only wish this year is that the coming year might find my entire family both happy and healthy.
That’s it. That is my list. I know it is asking a lot but if Santa could somehow find his way to drop that in my family room this year it would be lovely thanks.
Generally we are a pretty happy lot but I suspect that this year has taken its toll on us all. There have been a plethora of health concerns that have weighted heavy on us all and in addition there have been things that have dragged us all down to an abnormal level of unhappy. There have been challenges to try our spirits, triumphs that lift us back up, and health concerns that have run the gamut from minor annoyances to major life threatening ones. I hope to see that in the coming year, we all return to good health and good cheer.
So Santa, I hope this isn’t asking too much and if it won’t fit down my chimney, please feel free to drop it in the yard.
*Gift: an item purchased and intended to be given to another. Said item is to be something that the receiver would never buy themselves but something that so perfectly fits their personality as to be made for them.
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Monday, June 25, 2007
Passion for June 25, 2007
Someone said something to me the other day that sort of struck home with me. I carried that comment around with me for a few days as I mulled it over and over. Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore and just knew I had to blog it….
The comment was….You are always bragging about your friends and how talented they are. Do you feel like you are better than you are because you hang around with people like that? Or do you just pump your friends up to be more than they are?
The comment hit me sort of sideways at the time and I simply let it go. For one thing I didn’t feel like getting into the argument I knew the person was looking for but more than that, I knew that no matter what I said I also knew that this person was NEVER going to understand my answer. I actually felt kind of bad for not saying anything…but whatever.
So my answer is actually that I brag about my friends because each and every one of them has something worthy of bragging about. They span the spectrum of skills and abilities from the obvious to the obscure but each and every one of my friends has a unique and amazing skill or talent. I do not overstate their fantasticness, They rock, EOD.
The rest of the question is somewhat more complex and can not be understood if I were to simply answer without explaining. The answer simply is yes, I do feel like I am better than I am because of the people I hang around with. I DO get something from them but it is not what you might think.
Let’s start with how/why these people become people I want to be my friends. First of all it is not the talent/skill/whatever that draws me to them. It is what is BEHIND that which intrigues me. You see all my friends draw their talents and skills from the same pool. The end results are widely varied. What is it that all these people from so many different walks of life have in common to make them all so special to me? The pool they draw from is passion. Every single one of my friends is special because they draw their skill from something that they feel passionately about.
What? Passion? I don’t get it. Why is that interesting? Isn’t everyone passionate about something?
No, not at all. I would guess that probably most people feel strongly about SOMETHING or other but I am talking about passion here. There is a huge difference. When I am talking about passion, I am talking about the kind of people who when they talk about something, their whole BEING lights up. That is what draws me to them. People who not only HAVE but EMBRACE that kind of passion have a special gift. Their ability to feel that kind of passion translates to everything that they do and everything around them. They know the joy of doing/feeling/living that which inspires passion in them and that makes them a unique personality.
Let me give an example. For instance, I have worked with many engineers over my lifetime and to be honest most of them are pretty skilled. I mean you sort of have to have some kind of skill in that field. You spend years in college working on it, honing the skills in your jobs, and just repetition itself. They don’t really impress me. The engineer who really does impress me is my friend Rick. He was describing a new machine to me one day. It was something we were about to start work on and he was finalizing the concept. As he described it to me his whole face lit up, his body became more animated, and he described it in glowing terms. He sensed at one point that I was grinning at him. He stopped mid-description and smiled sort of bashfully. “What?” He asked, “I can’t help getting excited, isn’t it sexy?” I had to agree that it was. Seriously you can not BUY that kind of enthusiasm. You have to feel it and it can not be faked. Sexy indeed. Don’t get me wrong I am not talking about the desire to toss him down and have my way with him, far from it, I am talking about the overall appeal of it. They get excited about something and by association you can not help but get excited by it too. I am not surprised that one of my all time favorite jobs was working for Rick…the entire job was fun, exciting, challenging, and face it, sexy. It was not without its challenges, it did have days that just plain sucked, and it ended badly when we got bought and closed but I still can’t deny it was one of my favorites still simply because of Rick. He not only was LIKE that himself, he tended to hire people who were like that as well. You can enjoy your job or whatever it is that you do but those who feel passionate about what they do take it to a whole other level.
The same thing I have noticed applies to non-friend things as well. I find myself drawn more to music when the musician is passionate, more able to relate to the movie of the actor who does it because they love it, and so on regardless of how “mainstream popular” they are. I think this is why you will find me more likely to show up at certain concerts than others. It is not JUST that I am cheap, it is because you are more likely to find the truly passionate folks there. I mean you really have to love what you do in order to deal with doing it for very little financial reward so generally those who are looking to make it big won’t hang around long. Likewise I have seen some very talented and passionate folks LOSE that passion once the thing becomes a “job”. I knew some fantastic musicians who became famous only to find that suddenly when everyone begins to put demands on you and tell you how to do it, it loses its appeal very quickly and they lost that passion that made them special. Oddly enough some of them dropped out and got “day jobs” for a while only to find that they quickly re-found that passion. I believe this is what drives the “comebacks” in some cases and I know in some cases it is what keeps them doing the “small stuff” and careful to avoid getting so big and out of control again.
Lest you think that this is limited to JOB skills let be quickly stop that thought. In some cases this could not be further from the truth. The discussion has come up around here more than once about stay at home mom’s and their “value”. I have several friends who chose to be stay at home moms because they felt passionately about it. In some cases these are highly educated and highly skilled women who gave it all up to stay home and raise their kids. Someone once made the mistake to call that a “Waste” in front of me. I disagreed almost violently. Why? Because doing what you feel passionate about is NEVER a waste. These women would have been sad, frustrated, and unhappy to have someone else raise their kids while they “worked” out side the home and THAT would have translated at home. Instead by doing what they felt strongly about they BRING that passion to the lives of their spouses and kids. These “non-working” friends of mine have a gift and a skill to be fantastic homemakers simply because they are passionate about it. Likewise someone who did not WANT to stay home and care for their kids and felt strongly that they SHOULD be working outside the home SHOULD DO SO because to deny that passion is wrong.
The same is true about many others of my friends and in many cases it is not the OBVIOUS thing either. I have who is a very talented singer. She has a passion that drives her and that passion is what draws me to her. It is NOT singing. What drives her is a desire to honor a legacy. Her uncle was a quite famous musician. He taught her everything he knew before he died far too young. She feels strongly that it was meant to be that he should teach her these things before he died so that she could fulfill HIS destiny. She honors this with a passion that colors her life that translates into her singing but it is NOT the singing itself.
The passions vary as widely as the friends do. God, lovers, nature, acting, playing, home, travel, kids, family, politics, art, music, writing, business, science, and work are just a few and there are many others.
Each and every person who touches me in a way that causes me to want to be their friend has some kind of a passion that drives them. They have a certain kind of “Joie de Vivre” that flows around them that comes simply from this one passion… no matter what that passion is.
I said before I DO get something from that but what. Is it importance through association? Is it the “talking” value of friends in “high places”? What exactly do I get from that? That is simple. I get the joy from being around the glow of happiness that flows off such people. I enjoy being surrounded by happy people and people who feel that kind of passion and live it are happy people. This does not mean that they don’t have sad days, blue moods, or moments of unhappiness or anger; it just means that more often than not they are prone to happiness and I like that.
Take a good look around you. Those of you here that I call my friends are all passionate about something and it makes you happy people. So is the guy next to you, the one commenting before or after you, and the one who isn’t commenting because they don’t feel it applies to THEM. You can feel it, it surrounds you and make this a very happy place even when it’s sad.
The comment was….You are always bragging about your friends and how talented they are. Do you feel like you are better than you are because you hang around with people like that? Or do you just pump your friends up to be more than they are?
The comment hit me sort of sideways at the time and I simply let it go. For one thing I didn’t feel like getting into the argument I knew the person was looking for but more than that, I knew that no matter what I said I also knew that this person was NEVER going to understand my answer. I actually felt kind of bad for not saying anything…but whatever.
So my answer is actually that I brag about my friends because each and every one of them has something worthy of bragging about. They span the spectrum of skills and abilities from the obvious to the obscure but each and every one of my friends has a unique and amazing skill or talent. I do not overstate their fantasticness, They rock, EOD.
The rest of the question is somewhat more complex and can not be understood if I were to simply answer without explaining. The answer simply is yes, I do feel like I am better than I am because of the people I hang around with. I DO get something from them but it is not what you might think.
Let’s start with how/why these people become people I want to be my friends. First of all it is not the talent/skill/whatever that draws me to them. It is what is BEHIND that which intrigues me. You see all my friends draw their talents and skills from the same pool. The end results are widely varied. What is it that all these people from so many different walks of life have in common to make them all so special to me? The pool they draw from is passion. Every single one of my friends is special because they draw their skill from something that they feel passionately about.
What? Passion? I don’t get it. Why is that interesting? Isn’t everyone passionate about something?
No, not at all. I would guess that probably most people feel strongly about SOMETHING or other but I am talking about passion here. There is a huge difference. When I am talking about passion, I am talking about the kind of people who when they talk about something, their whole BEING lights up. That is what draws me to them. People who not only HAVE but EMBRACE that kind of passion have a special gift. Their ability to feel that kind of passion translates to everything that they do and everything around them. They know the joy of doing/feeling/living that which inspires passion in them and that makes them a unique personality.
Let me give an example. For instance, I have worked with many engineers over my lifetime and to be honest most of them are pretty skilled. I mean you sort of have to have some kind of skill in that field. You spend years in college working on it, honing the skills in your jobs, and just repetition itself. They don’t really impress me. The engineer who really does impress me is my friend Rick. He was describing a new machine to me one day. It was something we were about to start work on and he was finalizing the concept. As he described it to me his whole face lit up, his body became more animated, and he described it in glowing terms. He sensed at one point that I was grinning at him. He stopped mid-description and smiled sort of bashfully. “What?” He asked, “I can’t help getting excited, isn’t it sexy?” I had to agree that it was. Seriously you can not BUY that kind of enthusiasm. You have to feel it and it can not be faked. Sexy indeed. Don’t get me wrong I am not talking about the desire to toss him down and have my way with him, far from it, I am talking about the overall appeal of it. They get excited about something and by association you can not help but get excited by it too. I am not surprised that one of my all time favorite jobs was working for Rick…the entire job was fun, exciting, challenging, and face it, sexy. It was not without its challenges, it did have days that just plain sucked, and it ended badly when we got bought and closed but I still can’t deny it was one of my favorites still simply because of Rick. He not only was LIKE that himself, he tended to hire people who were like that as well. You can enjoy your job or whatever it is that you do but those who feel passionate about what they do take it to a whole other level.
The same thing I have noticed applies to non-friend things as well. I find myself drawn more to music when the musician is passionate, more able to relate to the movie of the actor who does it because they love it, and so on regardless of how “mainstream popular” they are. I think this is why you will find me more likely to show up at certain concerts than others. It is not JUST that I am cheap, it is because you are more likely to find the truly passionate folks there. I mean you really have to love what you do in order to deal with doing it for very little financial reward so generally those who are looking to make it big won’t hang around long. Likewise I have seen some very talented and passionate folks LOSE that passion once the thing becomes a “job”. I knew some fantastic musicians who became famous only to find that suddenly when everyone begins to put demands on you and tell you how to do it, it loses its appeal very quickly and they lost that passion that made them special. Oddly enough some of them dropped out and got “day jobs” for a while only to find that they quickly re-found that passion. I believe this is what drives the “comebacks” in some cases and I know in some cases it is what keeps them doing the “small stuff” and careful to avoid getting so big and out of control again.
Lest you think that this is limited to JOB skills let be quickly stop that thought. In some cases this could not be further from the truth. The discussion has come up around here more than once about stay at home mom’s and their “value”. I have several friends who chose to be stay at home moms because they felt passionately about it. In some cases these are highly educated and highly skilled women who gave it all up to stay home and raise their kids. Someone once made the mistake to call that a “Waste” in front of me. I disagreed almost violently. Why? Because doing what you feel passionate about is NEVER a waste. These women would have been sad, frustrated, and unhappy to have someone else raise their kids while they “worked” out side the home and THAT would have translated at home. Instead by doing what they felt strongly about they BRING that passion to the lives of their spouses and kids. These “non-working” friends of mine have a gift and a skill to be fantastic homemakers simply because they are passionate about it. Likewise someone who did not WANT to stay home and care for their kids and felt strongly that they SHOULD be working outside the home SHOULD DO SO because to deny that passion is wrong.
The same is true about many others of my friends and in many cases it is not the OBVIOUS thing either. I have who is a very talented singer. She has a passion that drives her and that passion is what draws me to her. It is NOT singing. What drives her is a desire to honor a legacy. Her uncle was a quite famous musician. He taught her everything he knew before he died far too young. She feels strongly that it was meant to be that he should teach her these things before he died so that she could fulfill HIS destiny. She honors this with a passion that colors her life that translates into her singing but it is NOT the singing itself.
The passions vary as widely as the friends do. God, lovers, nature, acting, playing, home, travel, kids, family, politics, art, music, writing, business, science, and work are just a few and there are many others.
Each and every person who touches me in a way that causes me to want to be their friend has some kind of a passion that drives them. They have a certain kind of “Joie de Vivre” that flows around them that comes simply from this one passion… no matter what that passion is.
I said before I DO get something from that but what. Is it importance through association? Is it the “talking” value of friends in “high places”? What exactly do I get from that? That is simple. I get the joy from being around the glow of happiness that flows off such people. I enjoy being surrounded by happy people and people who feel that kind of passion and live it are happy people. This does not mean that they don’t have sad days, blue moods, or moments of unhappiness or anger; it just means that more often than not they are prone to happiness and I like that.
Take a good look around you. Those of you here that I call my friends are all passionate about something and it makes you happy people. So is the guy next to you, the one commenting before or after you, and the one who isn’t commenting because they don’t feel it applies to THEM. You can feel it, it surrounds you and make this a very happy place even when it’s sad.
Drugs for June 23, 2007
Today is one of those days that poets and songwriters use for inspiration. It is a perfect California day. It is sunny and warm and a gentle breeze off the ocean stirs the air and lifts my hair ever so gently to tousle it around my face. Perfect in fact. One could not ask for a more perfect day.
I think perhaps today is also indicative of my own personal weather. I have talked incessantly about ones own personal weather and how you take it with you everywhere you go.
Jimmy Buffett says it best in “Weather with you”
Walking 'round the room singing Stormy Weather
At Fifty Seven Mount Pleasant Street
Well, it's the same room but everything's different
You can fight the sleep but not the dream
Things ain't cookin' in my kitchen
Strange affliction wash over me
Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire
Couldn't conquer the blue sky
Well there's a small boat made of china
It's going nowhere on the mantle piece
Well do I lie like a lounge room lizard
Or do I sing like a bird released
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather take the weather, the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather take the weather, the weather with you
My own personal weather seems to be changing again. It has absolutely nothing to do with things going on around me. I have no new news on the Aliens. I have no exciting developments in my life in any aspect. I am still struggling with the drug treatment and its side effects. I am still struggling to find my “worth” and value. I still have issues from out side interferences (and oddly yet again today after having my life messed with once again…
What is changing is deeper than all this crap though. What is changing is that personal weather. The ebb and flow of my spiritual weather has made its way back towards high tide….or at least away from the record low tide it has been residing at.
I have been feeling, well, happy lately. I have no particular reason to be happy, but I am just feeling it. I am sure a lot of it has to do with a large infusion of love and affection from my friends. I am sure that a lot of it has to do with a lot of things. It is a hard road for a little bit of happy to travel to get past all the ick that seems to clog the roads these days….but that little bit of happiness has kicked in the four wheel drive and is making serious tracks these days.
I am more than a little sure that a lot of this has to do with music. Everything in my life has to do with music. My life has its own personal soundtrack and it drives my moods.
I have mentioned being musically moody before. It is not just that the music I chose is directed by my current mood. It is not just that HOW I hear a song is driven by my mood. It is more about how music can DRIVE my mood. Well maybe not my actual mood but how it can drive something else.
No matter what kind of mood I am in music plays a part. Most recently I have been spending a lot of time inside my head doing battle with the aliens. I have been fighting turf wars daily struggling to hold on to as much real estate in my head as I can. There are simply too many living in my head. Like all good tenement buildings this means it is loud, crowded, and messy. There is seldom any peace and finding privacy for anytime is neigh on impossible. I need a vacation from this craziness. How on earth can anyone be expected to function with all this noise? How can one sleep when the building is never quiet? The answer to that, at least for me, is music. Music is my vacation. I find peace in it.
This effect is amplified with LIVE music and more so with GOOD live music. I show up and the voices in my head are chattering like old ladies at the bingo parlor. They nag about what I should be doing instead, they harp on the rest I am missing, they winge about time wasted, and all manner of things that simply must be paid attention to. The music starts and I find myself shushing them. They are reluctant at first. Then slowly I find myself listening to them with half an ear.
As the music works its magic I find myself concentrating more on the feelings if arouses in me and less on those voices. The music finds its way into my blood and is flowing through out my body like a drug. I feel it first in my extremities. It is slow to be recognized but then from somewhere else in my head my subconscious notices a finger tapping on the table in time to the music. Slowly the conscious mind recognizes it as mine. Then the finger tapping becomes a hand moving in time to the beat. As the drug continues to take hold of me I soon realize that my foot is now moving. Intermittantly at first it taps along with the music. Then it becomes more constant. A movement not to be denied, it switches from one foot to the other and back then to both. I feel the effects more strongly now. My hands and feet simply unable to be still as though shot with a massive dose of adrenaline. My brain is slow to recognize that I am now on my feet. Dancing along to the music. Once it does it also recognizes that the voices have finally shut up and a smile crosses my face.
The effect of the drug called music is slow to wear off. I carry it with me the next day and longer depending on the quality of it. The various tenants in my head lay spilled around the floor doped almost catatonic, quiet. Music is not only a drug for me it is one that builds up in my blood. It is the drug that is for now turning my weather sunny again…..on that note… it is a two-fer night tonight (on a three-fer weekend) so I am off to part one of two of Blues night…singing like a bird released…..
Today is one of those days that poets and songwriters use for inspiration. It is a perfect California day. It is sunny and warm and a gentle breeze off the ocean stirs the air and lifts my hair ever so gently to tousle it around my face. Perfect in fact. One could not ask for a more perfect day.
I think perhaps today is also indicative of my own personal weather. I have talked incessantly about ones own personal weather and how you take it with you everywhere you go.
Jimmy Buffett says it best in “Weather with you”
Walking 'round the room singing Stormy Weather
At Fifty Seven Mount Pleasant Street
Well, it's the same room but everything's different
You can fight the sleep but not the dream
Things ain't cookin' in my kitchen
Strange affliction wash over me
Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire
Couldn't conquer the blue sky
Well there's a small boat made of china
It's going nowhere on the mantle piece
Well do I lie like a lounge room lizard
Or do I sing like a bird released
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather take the weather, the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you
Everywhere you go, you always take the weather take the weather, the weather with you
My own personal weather seems to be changing again. It has absolutely nothing to do with things going on around me. I have no new news on the Aliens. I have no exciting developments in my life in any aspect. I am still struggling with the drug treatment and its side effects. I am still struggling to find my “worth” and value. I still have issues from out side interferences (and oddly yet again today after having my life messed with once again…
What is changing is deeper than all this crap though. What is changing is that personal weather. The ebb and flow of my spiritual weather has made its way back towards high tide….or at least away from the record low tide it has been residing at.
I have been feeling, well, happy lately. I have no particular reason to be happy, but I am just feeling it. I am sure a lot of it has to do with a large infusion of love and affection from my friends. I am sure that a lot of it has to do with a lot of things. It is a hard road for a little bit of happy to travel to get past all the ick that seems to clog the roads these days….but that little bit of happiness has kicked in the four wheel drive and is making serious tracks these days.
I am more than a little sure that a lot of this has to do with music. Everything in my life has to do with music. My life has its own personal soundtrack and it drives my moods.
I have mentioned being musically moody before. It is not just that the music I chose is directed by my current mood. It is not just that HOW I hear a song is driven by my mood. It is more about how music can DRIVE my mood. Well maybe not my actual mood but how it can drive something else.
No matter what kind of mood I am in music plays a part. Most recently I have been spending a lot of time inside my head doing battle with the aliens. I have been fighting turf wars daily struggling to hold on to as much real estate in my head as I can. There are simply too many living in my head. Like all good tenement buildings this means it is loud, crowded, and messy. There is seldom any peace and finding privacy for anytime is neigh on impossible. I need a vacation from this craziness. How on earth can anyone be expected to function with all this noise? How can one sleep when the building is never quiet? The answer to that, at least for me, is music. Music is my vacation. I find peace in it.
This effect is amplified with LIVE music and more so with GOOD live music. I show up and the voices in my head are chattering like old ladies at the bingo parlor. They nag about what I should be doing instead, they harp on the rest I am missing, they winge about time wasted, and all manner of things that simply must be paid attention to. The music starts and I find myself shushing them. They are reluctant at first. Then slowly I find myself listening to them with half an ear.
As the music works its magic I find myself concentrating more on the feelings if arouses in me and less on those voices. The music finds its way into my blood and is flowing through out my body like a drug. I feel it first in my extremities. It is slow to be recognized but then from somewhere else in my head my subconscious notices a finger tapping on the table in time to the music. Slowly the conscious mind recognizes it as mine. Then the finger tapping becomes a hand moving in time to the beat. As the drug continues to take hold of me I soon realize that my foot is now moving. Intermittantly at first it taps along with the music. Then it becomes more constant. A movement not to be denied, it switches from one foot to the other and back then to both. I feel the effects more strongly now. My hands and feet simply unable to be still as though shot with a massive dose of adrenaline. My brain is slow to recognize that I am now on my feet. Dancing along to the music. Once it does it also recognizes that the voices have finally shut up and a smile crosses my face.
The effect of the drug called music is slow to wear off. I carry it with me the next day and longer depending on the quality of it. The various tenants in my head lay spilled around the floor doped almost catatonic, quiet. Music is not only a drug for me it is one that builds up in my blood. It is the drug that is for now turning my weather sunny again…..on that note… it is a two-fer night tonight (on a three-fer weekend) so I am off to part one of two of Blues night…singing like a bird released…..
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