What a lucky and abundant country I live in. This thought occured to me at 7am as I got off of work. As I started off for my 1 hour drive home, I turned on the radio. In short order there was a report about the happenings in Japan. I can't begin to imagine what the Japanese people are living through. Their world is destroyed beyond belief. Rubble. Mayhem. Disorder on a scale that I can't understand. If you've never known hardship you might have a natural difficulty identifying with what is going on there. I have to really think hard about Japan if I want to have a tiny chance of understanding their troubles, because my hardships are small compared to theirs right now. It's true that the trouble is thousands of miles away, but I advise you to pay attention like your life depends upon it. In the future it may.
By all accounts, the Japanese are demonstrating the kind of courage and fortitude in the face of crushing odds that the world community ought to use as a model of civilized behavior. I haven't heard of any looting, tramplings, lawlessness or thuggery. I have heard of people who are all in the same boat: all of them scared, hungry, thirsty, and wondering where their yesterdays went to. Yesterday when the coast of Japan was abundant and free, the fishermen fished and the workers went to work. People ate 3 meals a day and spent time with their families. There were no 14 hour waits for gasoline or 6 hour lines at the grocery store to buy your maximum 5 item limit. Things were normal. There were problems to be sure, but none like the current ones. Suddenly, a leviathan has risen from the sea. A random and unpredictable disaster slammed Japan to it's knees. Pay attention because this essay quickly will become a teachable moment.
Hollywood makes money hand and foot off of the kind of mayhem that's happening currently in Japan. It's their bread and butter. A Hollywood meal ticket. I'm sure the directors are scrambling from their little Hollywood chairs to grab up the 1st screenplay drafts. In the near future, there will be movies and documentaries detailing the stories of ordinary Japanese performing extraordinary feats of courage. I sure hope that Hollywood is paying attention and learning something because they also live on a fault line. If one of Californias fault lines slip, causing a major disaster, I wonder if the Japanese will scramble to get California earthquake stories on paper so that they can sell the rights? I don't think so. I would't blame them if they did though. Man, that would be ironic as hell. My point is that we are all lucky to be here in a country so abundant. There are also some basic lessons that are on display with respect to Japan:
1. There's nothing glorious about destruction so be reverent and thoughtful.
2. Think about others' problems as if they were your own.
3. Don't be greedy. You're not the only one suffering.
4. Pay attention. You might be next and will need the perspective that is being offered.
5. Think about what would happen in the USA if the abundance were taken away.
The Japanese are teaching us all how to live fuller more thankful lives with their heroic actions, patience, and demonstration of what it means to be a civilized country. God bless Japan.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Three kids will do something really cool with me today. I have access to a helicopter and they will get to check it out. I think I would have loved to do that when I was a kid. I hope they remember the things that were done for them when they are older. I hope that they know the things I do are for free. Fathers and Mothers all know the meaning of free. Free means no strings attached, a gift in the purest sense. Free stuff is closely tied to love and love can't have a pricetag. It has to happen that way or love would not be real. It's a universal truth. Loving isn't easy though. I submit that loving ranks high among the hardest things you will ever do. Whoever said it was easy obviously never loved anything the way I do. Love has asked me to look in the mirror and change, it has asked me to see the truth through wicked lifelong lies and rise above everything. It demands that genuine pain be felt and recycled into understanding instead of covered up or buried. Buried pain is a cancer we all carry by the way. More on that later. Finally, love asks that I step outside of myself and honor the human capacity for self sacrifice, emotional realness and empathy - not to mention forgiving a billion billion times over. I've been married for 11 years and learned this meaning of love the hard way- trial and error. But I go to sleep each night knowing what the meaning of love is and believing that I loved my hardest. What does love ask you to do?
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Wonder What The Deal Is
I wonder what the deal is. The only thing I can say for sure is that it changes in a flash. But the world has to know what the deal is and I intend to try to shed some light on that. Everyone's deal is different and that's the main thing I guess. So many people try to force their own individual and unique lives on everyone else that it just creates disharmony in the world. Don't force your deal on me and I won't force mine onto you. You wouldn't last a moment living out my deal. It's individual and it's my life. You'd never like my world anyhow. Think your world is so bad? Ask the person next to you what their problems are and then ask yourself silently if you'd want to switch problems with him or her. You will know if they've been honest with you about their problems if two things occur: 1) They talk for over an hour and 2) if your answer is "Hell no". Fitting the square peg in the round hole won't work, we all learned that one in Kindergarten. Still adults try to do it all the time. They try and push their own realities on everyone else. I've heard the saying 'walk a mile in someone's shoes' since I was a kid. It's true. Try to empathize before the stones are thrown. Try for once to imagine what it's like to be the person next to you on the train, the person who just walked by hurriedly or the homeless guy under the bridge. This world would be a way better place if only 5 more people lived by that one little saying. Walk a mile in someones shoes and see for yourself.
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