Positivity

Living Outside Boxes

/ Chris White / 11 Comments

Everyone knows I love movies. I have been intrigued with and entertained by movies since before I can remember. It is a passion born from mostly my mother who also loved movie going. I’m often quoted by my wife who likes to mimic me by saying that “I even love bad movies because at least they provide an escape from reality for two hours.”

My background in law enforcement draws me to suspense and action movies but my overall nerd-ness loves all things technical too – so you can imagine what my favorite genres may be.  But since I turned 50 and my testosterone levels have plummeted to levels deeper than Raquel Welch did in the 1966 science fiction film “Fantastic Voyage” (look it up Jon), I’ve noticed that the increasingly sensitive side of me is starting to totally dig the chick flicks nowadays.

I have this amazing memory of my mom taking me and my siblings to see a double-feature film at Harding Mall in South Nashville when I was 10 years old. It was “Barbarella” (Jane Fonda) and another movie called “The Groove Tube” which was Chevy Chase’s low budget film debut. I don’t know what my mom was thinking at the time but I think it must have been one of those duh moments because she only let us watch about 15 minutes of the second feature before jerking all of us up by the collars and getting us out of there.

I distinctly remember the film sequence that instigated our hasty exit; a mock public service announcement for venereal disease that covertly used a real penis made-up as a man’s face as its actor-spokesman. Yes, a penis with a mustache was talking to the camera. At ten, I didn’t fully understand all of the 15 minutes of sexual innuendo but I knew we were watching something we weren’t supposed to be watching which is pretty damn cool if you ask me. I still laugh about that all the time because we had brought along my next door neighbor Wayne and I wonder today if he has the same memories I have.

One of my favorite movie scenes of all time is the testing scene in the beginning of the movie “Men in Black”. To refresh your memory, let me sum it up as follows:

Will Smith’s character (who later becomes Agent J) is in a room with other candidates so the MiB can supposedly find the proverbial best of the best candidate for the MiB job opening. The candidates are all men from either military academies or elite law enforcement and are squeezed into tiny egg-shaped chairs that barely contain their bodies.

They are each given an exam booklet which is sealed in fragile paper that tears easily and a pencil. As they all scrunch up in their pods, twisting, wiggling, crossing and uncrossing legs to find comfortable positions for holding the booklet and writing at the same time, Agent J – after breaking his pencil while trying to open the envelope – stops, looks in front of him, and sees a more traditional looking table across the room.

SCREEEEEEECH! The otherwise silent and sterile room is filled with a deafening noise as Agent J drags the heavy metal table across the floor toward his egg chair. The other candidates shoot him some ugly eyes while trying their best to concentrate on the test while Agent J, oblivious to an unwritten decorum, makes himself comfortable to take the test. He repeats this type of abhorrence to all things status quo later when at the firing range.

At the firing range, these same best of the best candidates have no problem at all accurately shooting all the monsters on the targets but Agent J shoots the little girl instead. When Zed (Character played by Rip Torn) asks J “May I ask why you felt little Tiffany deserved to die?”, J responded with something like this: “When I saw little Tiffany, I’m thinking, y’know, eight-year-old white girl, middle of the ghetto, bunch of monsters, this time of the night with quantum physics books? She about to start some shit Zed.”

In that scene, Will Smith thought outside the proverbial box and instead of following what everyone else was doing. He was not afraid to literally make some noise, free himself from tradition or modesty, and do something bold that may help him achieve his goals. The situations he was placed in were structured to the point of absurdity, which is an exaggerated reflection of how complicated we tend to make life in general when we could just as effectively do things more simply. In J’s view, being quiet and conforming to others’ tin-soldier mentality only hindered his ability to accomplish the goal of passing the tests. His ability to think asymmetrically turned out to be his strongest quality.

Now if you are rolling your eyes at the phrase “thinking outside the box,” I completely empathize. The phrase has become trite and jargony and has an honored place on the list of most overused clichés and axiom’s by teachers and professors, which includes but is not limited to (yes, there are others) “seeing the forest for the trees”, “learning to think like a businessman”, or “An ounce of prevention…”, you get the idea.

Personally, I’m more moved by axioms which make you think rather than one’s which tell a commonly known truth such as: “99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name”, or “Madness takes its toll – please have exact change.”, or “It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.”. But stripped down to its core, “thinking outside the box” says in four words what I believe to be the key to success in almost any venture as well as general happiness in life.

To me, thinking outside the box means not blindly following conventional wisdom as well as challenging assumptions about yourself, others, and the world around you. It is a shift from conceptual frameworks and paradigms to free-flowing uninhibited thought that challenges all common perspective. It’s not to say that you shouldn’t educate yourself with all that old-school knowledge, it’s just a theory that examines and explores the things unsaid rather than the things said.

We live in such a heavily controlled environment. The restrictions placed upon us do much to stymie our creativity and our ability to think freely. Perspective and perception are also powerful governors of our minds. We often view reality through narrow lenses sculpted, polished and honed by years of experience and education. But is my reality the same is your reality? In some cases yes. To you and I, red IS red and the number 4 IS the number 4. Those are constants nationally and worldwide. But what about the organic and obscure? Are we looking at the same things in the same way and coming up with the same conclusions? I doubt it.

If thinking beyond this proverbial box is so great then why do so many people encourage (or implore) you to color inside the lines, follow the rules, and stay inside the damn box? Well they are either inside the box themselves and not sure how to get out, are afraid to get out, or even worse — they are actually selling the box.

People often disagree with me about these things, citing the importance of their specific life anomalies, and I am often prone to accept the reasons they espouse because I have the heart of a teacher not a preacher. But the reality is that most of these people are simply afraid. An example of this is that in my car, while alone, I believe I’m an accomplished singer…but I’m too afraid to demonstrate just how great I am in public. Is that a fear of performing or fear of revealing how much I suck at singing?

I don’t know; ask Emily, she’s probably heard a few subtle A Cappella moans and some interesting intonations happening on long drives in the car before. Fact of the matter, I will likely never sing to anyone in public – ever. It’s just not something I’m willing to let out of my box, even though me and Michael McDonald sound identical.

Well, except for that time in Germany on a Rhine River cruise with friends Rob and Rachel. Rachel is a huge karaoke fan and begged me to sing a song. I reluctantly agreed after a long tumultuous series of offers to buy various desserts.

When the moment arrived and I drug myself to stand front and center for my performance, I whispered to the DJ to que my chosen song, much to the anticipation of my wife who was paralyzed with dread. Then the song “Tequila” started playing, you know, on and on without any lyrics.

Everyone was so confused; why wasn’t the redneck from Tennessee singing? Then, with one collaborative sigh, the whole ship finally got the joke as I confidently sang out-loud the one and only lyric…”TEQUILA!”.

That “box” for those whom are afraid represents all that is stable and controllable and accepted. I get it. I really do. I could sing one word, but to sing a legit whole song would have taken a level of something-something I just don’t possess. I understand that the box is rigid and sturdy and comfortable. But, it is still a stupid box and I know of no one who can truly spread their wings and fly inside a box.

You can paint the box and decorate it and bedazzle the box with rhinestones or Harley Davidson stickers or whatever it is that you enjoy but at the end of your life, you will move from that one beautifully decorated box to another simpler and more tasteful box. But will you have really lived?

Ask Bruce Jenner what he thinks about living in boxes. For him, his life was always about making the rest of us comfortable. His outer box was covered in rustic leather and had spikes and beer stains and cigar burns all over it. But the inside of his box looked somewhat different I suspect.

I’m not suggesting the “box” is about gender or sexuality at all, but I’m neither saying it is not. I think the box is different for everyone and the same rules apply no matter what is in that enigmatic box. The box can contain a multitude of things that have the effect of holding you back in life or in situations.

It’s just as important to recognize that your box might contain the elements of shyness as it is to recognize that your neighbor’s box is full of Pollyanna. Both qualities can hold you back from achieving goals but for entirely opposite and unexpected reasons only relevant to that one person.

Look, I love plans of attack and guidelines and goals and milestones and all those things you have read about, and yes, in some areas of life there are definite paths that must be followed to reach a specific destination — i.e., you are not going to become a doctor without going to college, taking the exam, going to medical school, passing your boards, doing your residency, etc.

But overall, never underestimate the value of thinking outside the box, figuring out your own way to get from point A to point B, and trusting your instincts along the way. Heck, maybe you don’t even have a point B in mind yet. No problem! Think of your current lack of a point B as already being outside the box. We can be sure that people like Michelangelo, da Vinci, Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg never knew a box existed.

And look, while thinking outside the box can certainly be about sitting down to solve or approach specific problems, it does not have to be. In fact, I like to think of it more as a way of life. Writing down your ideas or making a vision board is never a bad idea but there is something about saying it out loud that makes an idea sound really stupid or really profound. Don’t be afraid to bounce ideas off the chests of friends but don’t be afraid to execute a really strongly held idea just because that trusted friend doesn’t have the same vision as you.

Be forewarned, however; sometimes when you operate outside the box, people look at you funny, make not-so-nice comments about you and your actions, and maybe even tell you that you are crazy for doing what you are doing because, oh, I don’t know, you are not making any money at it; or, people won’t like it; or, you’re making people uncomfortable; or, you will never get anything out of it anyway; or, no one else cares but you; or, you are too old; or, you are too young; or, you are not being serious enough to really achieve anything… so what is the point?

Well that is just the thing and the most beautiful part of living outside the box, even if it’s just from time to time. Sometimes we do not immediately know the point when we venture outside our boxes. What is the point of doing as you feel? I don’t know, perhaps it is just because it makes you feel good, and what is the point not to do it?

Sometimes, thinking outside the box can produce challenges to those around you who’re used to a much less complicated version of yourself.

Sometimes a small spark of interest ends up turning into a passion and perhaps then into a new life or career. Or maybe your life becomes enriched with a lifelong love of a new author, subject, art, or activity. Or maybe you develop amazing new friendships that remain long after that particular dalliance outside the box is over. Or maybe your time out of the box is special just because it was time out of the box, and there really is no point besides that. You’re going to grow as a person regardless of the reason, the activity, or the point.

And besides that, there is nothing more stifling and frustrating than feeling boxed in, and that is because we are not honoring that part of ourselves that wants, that needs so desperately to get out. In 2016, I was feeling like I was in a box. A box of social and political correctness. The box grew more and more confining as the accepted conditions of my career held me back from engaging and being myself.

So, after suffering as much as I could stand, I decided to leap outside that box of political correctness and even beyond my own normal social boundaries and resolve my situation in the only way my life has trained me to do. Was I right to do it or wrong? That is a matter of perception for others but for me there’s no question that I did the right thing?

So what this blog is really saying, I suppose, is that thinking or living outside the box is not about what others think and it’s not about what’s good or comfortable for everyone else. Living outside the box allows you to shed the layers of social acceptance and just be the person you need to be at the moment.

“Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up.”

Pablo Picasso

Creativity comes from peeling away the things which quintessentially make us adults, and instead, looking at situations and life from pure naiveté. Living and thinking outside the box is just a cliché way of expressing that same thought. When we strip away those latticed layers of conformity, maturity, shame, rationality, power, ego, reciprocity, and emotional clutter, then we can harness those crumbs of ingenuity floating around in a sub-consciousness that is much less chaotic.

I’m stepping outside my box right now. When I express my inner thoughts about life, love, parenthood, or politics, I’m pushing my own self-imposed boundaries of the first 50 years of my life. While I’m nowhere close to inventing an Alfred Hitchcock character like in the movie “Vertigo” nor could I possibly do justice to a character like Russell Crowe played in “A Beautiful Mind”, what I can do is articulate the things that keep my mind busy when put into a square room and asked to administrate black & white procedures all day.

My sister Lisa is an amazing artist. She principally works in the medium of portraiture. But what makes her amazing is not how accurately she can replicate a photograph. What makes her amazing is how she can so intricately produce what she see’s in her head – which could be quite different than how the rest of us see things or people. Lisa can create something entirely original and yet be instantly identifiable as the same thing, only in her own language. I

’m not an artist so I won’t attempt to impress you with a science or vocabulary I know little about, but I think the secret of anyone’s success is an ability to be bravely put forth your product, different as it may be, and own it. It’s your thing, your voice, your identity all mixed up as an ingredient inside your vision of the world around you. Own it.

For myself, I had one little dalliance out of my own box a few years ago and now here I am carving out the next half of my life, only differently and more deliberately. Maybe the lyrics from “Carry on My Wayward Son” will never resonate beyond the confines of my Chevy truck but the lyrics of my life and my thoughts will resonate in words on some digital cloud somewhere forever. Absent that one baby step, you and I wouldn’t have met.

When is the last time you stepped outside of your box?

Power Brokers of Personality

/ Chris White / Leave a comment

Personality is a curious thing. Where do we get our personalities anyway? Are we merely homogenous mixtures of our parents; does our DNA play a role? Or, are we simply carbon sponges – borrowing influential bits and pieces of identity from everyone and everything around us as we go?

If personality is strictly a family DNA affair, why aren’t we reading about Charles Manson’s parents instead of just crazy ole has-been serial-killer Charlie? If we’re simply selective sponges, how would you explain the occasional similarities between the personalities of parents and children – even when some of the characteristics aren’t necessarily favorable? Personality, no doubt, is a complicated and fascinating subject.

Intelligence, just like personality, is also a quite difficult matter to put your finger on. Some books lean more toward nature (predisposition) and others to that of nurture (learned). It’s a pretty well-settled argument that a person’s intellect is a product of both of these things but to what extent? My parents could have supplied me with the most fantastic, bestest ever DNA on the planet but if those supposed great genes were never nurtured and cultivated with kindness, personality, education and experience, I’d just end up being one of those socially awkward and useless brainiac; a big-brain-no-game type. Certainly not the pinnacle of expressiveness I’ve become, right?

Take myself for instance, I love words. I’ve always loved words. As a child, I would regularly read the dictionary and thesaurus just to learn new words and to see how those words interacted with or held similarities with other words. I have no idea where that interest comes from as no one else in my instant family has the same level of curiosity with words and writing. Not that my siblings aren’t artistic and intelligent in their own right, they certainly are those things.

But my very favorite things in life are words and old maps and perhaps mac-n-cheese. My Achilles heel, however, is numbers. Numbers and mathematical equations have never been friends of mine. My mom is super smart. I’ve been told she has an IQ of 160. But mama is one of those types who loves numbers and formulas and good scotch. She might love words too, I don’t know, but she certainly doesn’t outwardly exhibit signs of being a word lover.

My dad, as far as I know, was neither a fan of numbers or words. He had a love for drawing, maps, fried green tomatoes, cigarettes, and oyster stew. Unfortunately, one of those things killed him at much too young an age. I never really got to know much else about him as I never knew him as an adult. He died during the most selfish period of my life, teen-dom.  

Between the three of us, we’d probably struggle to formulate a decent dinner menu, but there are distinct similarities that have been promulgated within me as a result of my embryotic journey. Some of which, I’m delighted to have gotten for free. Other not so pretty chromosomes, I’d love to set free. Free to a good home, slightly used chromosomes.

My personality more closely resembles that of my mothers’, but I clearly see little parts of my dad peeking back at me in the mirror from time to time. Plus, I do love old maps and fried green tomatoes. The curly hair? Well, that was my grandmothers’ gift or curse, depending on what day it is. All that hot wind just to say that I am definitely not a carbon copy of anyone.

What about siblings you say? I was just about to mention that. Yes, I have three and we’re all very different. I’d love to go into more detail about my family peeps but this here blog is about me, right? So, lets expose them one at a time as they do weird things I might want to write about. Or instead make a pact not to reveal each other’s adolescent misadventures over a glass of our mother’s scotch.  I think I’d prefer what’s behind door number 2.

What about our parental responsibilities in the development of our children’s personalities, work ethic, citizenship, responsibility, honesty, etc.? I mean, I’ve been down the road of parenthood myself and somehow survived. How effective can our lessons really be, and did our influences change the outcome of their personality? I think so. If a good portion of our personality and intelligence comes from nurturing, then of course each experience a child encounters will contribute to the child’s overall world view, as well as the decisions he or she makes when its their turn to make choices.

I don’t believe that anyone can be the parent they truly aspire to be. That is, if you aspire to be great at it. We may come close; you may even achieve a certain level of trust with your child that looms enormously large in their minds. And if that’s the case, good on you, but there’s a big responsibility that comes from having adult children who idolize an imperfect parent. You can rarely live up to those sorts of ideals and eventually their world will come crashing down when they realize you’re just as confused as they are.

We often see identity as an immutable object, a thing that we possess, and a force that we are possessed by. But as we go through life, the roles that we fill – dutiful child, rebellious teen, doting parent – are more than just clothes that we can put on and take off at will, but facets of who we always were, facets that lay hidden only until we need them to surface. I mean, who would have known that I would be expected to love Hockey?

Well, those latent skills still lie latent somewhere deep in my psyche, never having found the right potion to wake them up. But when you suck, just be a good actor. And, much like actors, we may seek out certain parts, but all too often, the parts we end up playing are given to us as much by circumstance as by our own decisions, so that the Introvert is suddenly thrust into the spotlight while the Extravert is left moving scenery backstage.

I’ve learned through the experience of writing this that around 40% of our personality is stemmed from our inherited genes. This according to Dr. David Funder, Psy Prof, U of Cal – Riverside. This leaves lots of room for considerable amounts of influence from environmental factors (i.e., where you live, cultural influences, life experiences and exposures). If you happen to carry a certain gene that affects serotonin, you may have a higher risk of depression and anti-social behavior, but perhaps only if your childhood is marked by severe stress or maltreatment.

It’s kinda crazy to think that even the most level and sane among us may carry a gene or even sets of genes that could have made them bat-shit-crazy; but, because they might have had good parents, the bat-shit-crazy part never surfaced, and the town-hero part was cultivated instead. Somewhere are a bunch of cats rescued from a tree by a fireman all knowing that the same fireman could have just as easily been one of those cat killing types…except that his dad told him he loved him and, of course, those important words fixed everything.

Even identical twins have different personalities. Twins will share 50% of several different personality traits. Fraternal twins will share 30% of several different traits, and non-twin siblings also share around 30%. More interesting to me, however, is that non-biologically related children raised by the same parents share around 7 %, which demonstrates just how powerful influences, home, neighborhood, opportunities, friends, and social status can affect someone’s personality.

Scientists haven’t isolated the genes that might carry markers for all personality traits quite yet. But we do know that genes work together with other genes to influence their expression. It could take several different genetic combinations for a child to develop a certain personality trait. Genes can switch on and off again, due to several different factors – sometimes because of genetic influences. Genes can also affect chemical messengers such as serotonin and dopamine, which both have a profound effect on the brain and can influence personality traits such as anxiety or shyness.

It’s just unimaginable to me that one could ever truly master the science of genetics, especially as it relates to personality and intelligence. As hard as my tiny little brain tries to wrap itself around every kernel and crumb of personality science, life experiences will do a cannon ball in the gene pool and change the genetic recipe all over again. All this uncertainty makes me think I should have picked a less complicated subject to write about, perhaps next time we will talk about cheese.

All I’m thinking right now is, my poor, poor parents. What a complicated game of “Taking a Turn in the Cabbage Patch” these two novices were playing and didn’t even know better. They might have been safer playing Russian Roulette. I mean, let’s get real; these tiny little helpless creatures we’re producing are complicated as hell.

I mean, you pay too little attention to your children or the opposite, become overly protective – not realizing how each path you take can impact the grown-up people our children become in totally different ways. While mothers are the ones who most often get blamed for the insecurities and character flaws of children, it’s actually the fathers who play a bigger role in a child’s personality.

According to the latest research, children are likely to pay more attention to the parent in their lives which they perceive as having the higher interpersonal power or prestige. In a good number of families, not in all cases, the parent who most often fits that bill is the father.

My experience was just the opposite. My father was a hard worker and a supervisor at his mostly blue-collar profession. But my mom, a white-collar professional with accolades, accomplishments, and power, was the one I looked up to most. My mother is incredibly smart but somewhat aloof. She’s not a nurturing sole, she’s a pragmatic and sensible spirit with a high dose of I-don’t-give-a-rats-ass.

My father, however, was from a more modest background, was extremely well-liked and gregarious with his friends while my mother was from a slightly more sophisticated social circle and a bit more urban. My mom worked early in their marriage but like most mothers of the 1960’s, she stopped working when she started having kids.

That went on for quite a while because she was having kids for quite a while. She didn’t work a job again until I was about five years old. When she decided to do so, she hit the ground running and was a rockstar among females in the corporate world, breaking barriers and glass ceilings way before people referred to them as glass ceilings.

I think she got so much attention that it scared my father to death. He really struggled with my mother’s successes in sales so there was some serious pressure from within the marriage for my mom to change professional directions. She eventually left the career she loved and moved into a position in finance. Something she was also great at, but, of course, a job she didn’t really enjoy.

 Even after that move, she was still a rockstar. About a decade before her retirement, she was a corporate controller for a fairly large office furniture company in Nashville. The company she worked for was purchased by a Canadian company and announced it was moving to Quebec. She was asked/invited to move to Quebec in order to secure her position. My mother refused to move with the company, choosing to stay at home in Tennessee. So, instead, the company offered to pay for her to travel from Nashville to Quebec every week.

My mom traveled like that until the day she retired, at least a dozen years or so later. She was clearly an integral and important figure in that large corporate environment. So, while it’s easy to write nice things about a parent or tell folks how smart they are, it’s not always easy to find an example, such as I just did. My mom is a difficult person to get to know. But despite her general aloofness, she has always been a rock star to me.

So contrary to the experts, it was actually my mother whom I perceived as having the higher interpersonal power and prestige – not my father. So, of course, my mother is to blame for all my character flaws…uhm, just kidding mom. Well, maybe some but certainly not all.

Another thing the “experts” say is that simply spending time with your parents can help an individual develop better social skills and higher levels of confidence. You hear that Jon? Let me say it again in case you glossed over the previous sentence. The “experts” say that simply spending time with your parents can help an individual develop better social skills and higher levels of confidence.

This positive effect on our kids is deemed especially strong in studies when time is spent with the father. It sounds like the experts are working for dad, huh? However, it is also said that too much praise and attention is linked to the development of narcissistic personalities. Apparently, we should never tell our children that they are better or more special than other children. It’s far better to simply encourage positive behavior and acknowledge that they’re capable of high achievement – just like so and so.

So, just like most of my blogs, we don’t really learn as much about others as we learn about ourselves. I mean, when you think about it, what can we do to change or affect how other people interact with us? We can’t! So, I think its more important that we take what we learn about life and cultivate a better self with it. In the end, all we have is who we were. But, just maybe my son will want to take advantage of the newest opportunities science has to offer…spending time with dear old dad.

Should We Be Here? Humanity’s Obituary.

/ Chris White / Leave a comment

One of my many interests in life is the field of genealogy. I’ve been delving into the woodpiles of my family story for over three decades now and I’m still just as excited about the journey as I was when it all first began. I find it incredibly fascinating that modern technology has given us the tools to collate vast amounts of historical and ancestral data that we’re now able to trace our direct ancestors back hundreds or even thousands of years with relative ease. On top of all that and with the addition of DNA analysis, we can find distant cousins in obscure places across the globe, then assemble individual family records to sort of reverse engineer parts of our family trees otherwise impossible to unravel.

My favorite of all our vacations has thus far been our trip to Wales. During that trip, we were fortunate on one day to have our lunch in a 16th century pub named the “Old Swan Inn” in a tiny southern Welsh village called Llantwit Major. The significance; that pub once was the ancestral home of my 12th Great Grandfather Sir Robert Ragland (b. 1510 d. 1565). Just the ability to know that is super cool; but actually visiting and dining there among the same broken plaster walls, hand-hewn beams and squeaky wooden floors that my distant ancestors also experienced cannot be adequately described.

There were, of course, lots of other interesting and genealogically important places we visited on that trip, but I don’t want to bore you with the history of my maternal ancestry. I just wanted to share the one part of it that I think supports the overall gist of this story and get you thinking about the possibilities that lie ahead of you should you begin pursuing your own family story.

Not all the things I think about in my quiet moments are appropriate for every audience but there are a few thoughts I often have that I don’t mind sharing. One is this idea of how incredibly miraculous it is that any of us are actually here today. When you really sit back and delve into the odds, its unfathomable that we could be here by mistake. When I talk of odds, I mean the obstacles our forefathers and mothers endured to be able to pass on their DNA to us. You and I are the children of the sturdiest, smartest, luckiest, healthiest, strongest, fastest, surefooted’est group of men and women ever born. If they weren’t all these things, we surely would not be here today.

I guess, what brought about all these ideas is my insatiable appetite for history. I love to read. Lately, I’ve gotten interested in the history and evolution of Celtic and proto-Celtic peoples as they spread themselves through early Belgium (Gaul) and Germany (Germania), through the beginnings of a country we now call France (Frankia), then onto the island of Britain (Britannia) and across and up into Wales (Cambria), Scotland (Alba) and Ireland (Hibernia). That is, of course, not the only way humans made it to the islands and areas well-known today for their Celtic inhabitants; just their most prolific path.

This journey, as is the case for every tribe of humanity, was and is affected by a plethora of circumstances and decisions that shaped the future of these people. Some of which they had no control over and some of which they did. Either way, hundreds of millions of people gave their lives along the way, learning and evolving and becoming more disease resistant then passing down that new knowledge and those priceless immunities to their children and grandchildren.

That seams easy to say and read doesn’t it…hundreds of millions of people. Unfortunately, it does even for me. If I were not the author of this story, I might myself roll my eyes at someone talking about hundreds of millions of people. But, when I’m done here, I hope that you think twice or three times about the scope of what it really means to be you and be me.

Just think for a minute about the many things our humanity has survived: famines, plagues, natural disasters, religious inquisitions, and wars. Let’s look at plagues for a second.

Plagues: When you add the deaths brought on by Malaria, the Black Death, Measles, Smallpox, the Spanish Flu, the Plague of Justinian, Tuberculosis, the Bubonic Plague, the Antonine Plague and AIDS, you’re talking about nearly 7 Billion deaths. That’s close to the current (2019) population of the entire planet and about 22 times the population of the United States. There were literally villages in the middle ages that were completely wiped out by plagues. The bloodlines of entire families were wiped out in some cases.

If your family happened to have been one of the victims of any of those plagues, you literally would not be here today. There would have been about a 50/50 chance that you wouldn’t. But your family and my family were made of good stuff…the best stuff; so here you are today playing video games and getting your news from blogs, all so very thankful and mindful of the sacrifices made before you that allow you to simultaneously hold the high score in Donkey Kong AND Super Mario Odyssey for 2 years straight.

But seriously, what would our planet look like today had all those deaths not occurred? The human experience is complex. From massive amounts of death and destruction have arisen new antibodies and disease resistance that helped to carry our ancestors, the ones with the strongest immune systems of their day, on to reproduce and evolve further.

War: If we examine the aftermath of war, which by the way is incalculable, and break it down from Ancient Wars (549 BC to 450 AD), Medieval Wars (534 AD to 1487 AD) and Modern Wars (1494 AD to 2018), it is a scary picture indeed. Ancient Wars took about 60,000,000 people from us. That is not including the spouses and children who died from starvation as a result of the death of their soldier husband/father or the death of civilians when villages were pillaged. Medieval Wars took another 90,000,000 people. Modern Wars, however, have taken more than 465,000,000 people out of our gene pool.

By combining just the known casualties of recorded war acts, the numbers are staggering – more than 600 million people. But the reality is that there has always been war, much of it unrecorded. Entire peoples, languages and cultures have been eliminated by war. Remember the song lyrics, “my baby she’s a Chippewa, she’s a one of a kind”? Well, the tongue and cheek humor in those lyrics aren’t so funny if you’re a Chippewa, except, there are no Chippewa left are there?

Religion: Religious persecutions, insurrections and inquisitions have been quite the DNA altering influences as well. More than 10,000,000 documented people have been intentionally and quite gruesomely murdered at the hands of various religious sects, orders, church’s, etc., in the absolute belief that God instructed them to do it.

It’s amazing to me that even an evolved and otherwise healthy human mind can be influenced to believe and to justify the complete intolerance of another’s beliefs and ideals. We see militant religious intolerance to this very day from every nook, cranny and political sphere known. There are some human conditions for which no cure could ever be invented – because perhaps we don’t want really want to be cured.

Famine: Famine is not something to sneeze at in our world history either. Just in China alone, widespread famines have taken the lives of over 80,000,000 Chinese family descendants. Russia too has a long and painful history of famines; the cumulative effect of which numbers close to 21,000,000 people.

Just think for a minute what it would have been like to live in either China or Russia during any of the dozens of separate national famines of those era’s. I remember news reports from my teens showing thousands of Russians standing in bread lines to get rationed food. These are not just historical era problems from a more barbaric past. Famines are also current events.

When the widespread push of Communism was spreading through Western Europe after WWII, the U.S. and its Allies were just as concerned about famine and hunger as they were about totalitarianism. People were dying by the millions. The U.S. alone spent more than 13 Billion dollars on foreign aid to western Europe from 1948 to 1951 in order to save lives.

Ethnic Indians too have lost nearly 60,000,000 people to famine over their recorded history and Africa has lost 20,000,000 just in the 20th century alone. When you look at famine deaths worldwide, it’s not difficult to figure out that we’re pretty darn lucky that our particular ancestors were somehow able to survive to leave us this healthier legacy – the importance of which we may or may not have figured out for ourselves.

Natural Disaster: Along with all the other drama and dysfunction happening before we existed, our poor forefathers also dealt with other issues you may not have thought about. Our planet has endured 5 separate ice ages, thousands of earthquakes, volcano eruptions, banana peel falls, floods, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, asteroid collisions, pterodactyl attacks, mud slides and who knows what all else. I have no way of calculating the total deaths and migrations associated with the ice ages and it would be impossible to account for the historic numbers of people affected by the other events I mentioned.

I think though it would be more than fair to assume that millions and millions of our ancestors have been eliminated from our genetic heritage as a result of natural disasters. If you’ve ever been fortunate to visit the ancient city of Pompeii on the Amalfi Coast in Italy, you’ve probably met what’s left of some of these unfortunate ancestors in person.

So, for those of you who’ve not been keeping up with the score, we’ve passed the current worldwide population (7 Billion) by over 8 hundred million people. This unfortunate fraternity of humanity, I’ll call the Friends Without Benefits Club, are an anomaly for sure. Many of them never had the chance to pass on their DNA, but we know they made enormous contributions to our survival that will never be fully appreciated as we mostly have no names, books, statues or poems from which to memorialize them.

These were not just heroes of their villages and cultures who sacrificed themselves as soldiers in order to keep their family’s DNA safe. These folks were also the guinea pigs of early humanity who donated their existence to a science that was not yet knowable.

When you are at your lowest moments and you question why you are here or whether anyone would care if your gone, think about all the good karma that saw to it your existence was even possible. Even my dog has a reason to be here. None of us are accidental. None of us are incidental.

And when you begin to feel the pains of intolerance to anyone for anything. Step back a second and remember how radical intolerance begins. It begins with justified intolerance. Sometimes a justified intolerance for people who have a justified intolerance toward you and your ideals. Said differently, they may think you’re just as weird as you think they are.

Try instead to cultivate the grace within you and recognize that everything in this world has its own time, and perhaps…just perhaps, there is a very good reason things are the way they are. Time is temporary. Be patient and tolerant and it will soon all change.

Featured

Life Is Short, Even On It’s Longest Days

/ Chris White / 2 Comments

At the beginning of time, the clock struck one.

Down dropped the dew, and the clock struck two.

From the dew grew a tree, and the clock struck three.

The tree made a door, and the clock struck four.

Man came alive, and the clock struck five.

Count not, waste not, the years on the clock. Behold I stand at the door and knock.

Eric Lomax – 1995

There are times in our lives when inevitability and expectation crash together and we’re forced to accept that it’s inevitability that has the best odds. In a fleeting moment, circumstances and life take a sharp curve at a bad angle and suddenly we’re not as surefooted as we may have believed we once were. People in our lives, no, important people in our lives die, and we’re left behind trying to figure out what it all means to us, what we’re supposed to do, and more importantly what are we still capable of doing without them.

In the outrageously short span of a couple weeks, someone in your life who is outwardly strong, weakens and dies. My mom’s husband of thirty-two years, Bill, died last week. He’d been a part of our family story far longer than our own deceased father. There were some good memories and some bad too but this is not really a story about Bill; its about me and you.

Emily, my wife, is probably reading this right now and saying, “of course, its about you”, and she’d be right of course, but I’m still determined to move forward with the usual piles of babble and gibberish I normally produce anyway, ignoring all the subtle innuendo and eye-rolling. Without any benefit of having a cadre of literary fans, I’m merely forced to live up to my own expectations which aren’t really all that high – so read this at your own risk.

So if Bill isn’t the subject of this blog, why are we all here; all seven or eight of us? Well, it’s complicated. The easiest way I can explain it is that I’m a person who normally lives in my head and right now I really need to be living inside my heart. I think a lot of people, like myself, go into our heads when we’re sad or wounded because we think we’re smart and we need answers, or we want to take prisoners and need to build places to put them.

But sometimes a person just needs to get out of their head and into their feelings. The problem is that my feelings have grown an entire pant size since I last wore them. Alas, at the age of 54 I’m suddenly realizing the true value of stretch pants. I should be thankful that hearts aren’t made to stretch like old-man-jeans or else I may be tempted to live more comfortably in my heart, defeating the purpose of being born with a Y chromosome.

The overriding and principle motivation for this blog being that I really just want my mom to be OK. This is her second husband to leave her behind and I can’t imagine the experience of uncertainty and grief that she must be experiencing right now. If your life is lived a certain way, perhaps very independently, and something like this happens, it turns your world upside down because you can’t help but to visualize your life exactly as it has thus far been lived – only without your partner in tow or pulling the plow.

Those are valid thoughts and for many people who don’t have children or family to step up and into new roles, these kinds of fears can become our realities. But losing a spouse at an advanced age doesn’t necessarily put you in some predetermined box, especially if you have important things you want to do or say or be. You’re only limited by your thoughts; its the same for 8 year old’s as it is for 80 year old’s.

While the moment is emotionally overwhelming, yes, time itself is not necessarily definitive. Who better to reinvent or reinvigorate their lives than a mature person who could give a rat’s ass about what other people think of them? Sometimes, you don’t need a plan, you just need to breathe, let go, and see what happens.

Maturity is the great equalizer isn’t it – you can finally take advantage of it. If life isn’t or hasn’t been giving you things to look forward to, do things or say things or write things that frame what precious moments you have left of your life in a way that is truly worthy of how you want others to know you – and look forward to whatever new beginnings you choose to cultivate.

Crisis need not be the catalyst for growth or change, but it sure does bring things into perspective. The selfish side of my personality is excited about having my mom all to myself again but the nicer of my temperaments ache for her as she so obviously craves some higher level of acuity as to her near and distant futures. It’s a challenge to find the right words sometimes, when you know someone you love needs to hear something they can cling to – or most importantly, believes.

Did I mention that one of my best life-long friends passed away last week too? Yeah, that one was a real kick in the gut. I think he deserves his own blog so I don’t want to wallow around in the emotion of all of that in this story and I don’t want to diminish the importance of the message I’m trying to convey here either. Everything in its own time right?

What can I say, I was moved by the Eric Lomax poem above. Even more so, after reading about his amazing life, his struggles, and most importantly his ultimate answer to the chaos that haunted him for years.

I don’t want to spoil the story yet, so I’ll let you discover this interesting fellow/poet on your own. His words were just so poignant to what I’m attempting say here. I’m challenging you to read that poem 5 times in a row when you’ve finished this blog, just to let the words sink deep.

Poems are like song lyrics, they mean different things to different people; each of us clinging to the crypto-dubious words and our own truths simultaneously. I could go on to tell you that there’s a religious experience buried in there but that’s just me. Regardless of where it grabs you; let it grab you.

So let’s sum this thing up so that Emily will actually read the whole thing. We’re all getting old. Time is ticking for the 5 year old and it’s ticking for the 50 year old’s. Although the damned clock continues to tick, it also tocks…, tock rhymes with rock so lets rock shall we? There are only so many summers left and I intend not to waste them being old.

I don’t want you to waste yours just being the old chic either. Don’t be old, be vast and brilliant and expressive. Or you can be one of those fake palm reader persons, OR, you could be an old lady prostitute if you want, just be and be happy being. Life is short; so damned short, even on it’s longest days. Life and time are not about existing, it’s about living. You can do this; we can do this together.

Foes

/ Chris White / Leave a comment

Thank you Fate for all my wonderful foes. Am I being facetious? No, not really. I won’t lie though, I do wish everyone would like me.

Am I all that different from the rest of you in that regard? I really don’t know the answer to that, I’m just assuming that the desire to be liked is consistent among all of us.

I will say that it definitely hurts my feelings when I find out someone doesn’t like me, especially when it’s someone I respect or someone I’ve invested a lot of myself into. In retrospect, however, what could be more inspiring or motivating than an outright enemy or competitor? They keep us sharp don’t they?

People without foes cannot imagine the passions that burn within those of us who do – the fire being constantly kindled by people whose only real goal in life,  it seems, is to subvert the goals of others.

A wise older man told me once that “most people don’t care if you do well, they just don’t like it when you’re doing better than they’re doing.” If you count yourself as a hard worker, a creative type, detail oriented, a smart cookie, or maybe just lucky as hell, someone out there is going to hate you for whatever it is that sets you apart or is perceived by them to elevate your status above their own.

Thankfully, the laws of selection have likely killed off a good bit of that asshole DNA over the life-span of humanity. Our “old school” ancestors weren’t as obliged to take as much lip as we are these days and swords aren’t as readily accepted as a part of daily dress as they once were.

But despite all that early character-cleansing activity, there’s still some decently pathetic people out there continuing to fertilize prick-eggs. They just keep coming. Just because one may die, you’re never going to be out of the woodwork. If you are a do’er or a leader or a facilitator – there’s always another sniper out there ready to put you in his/her cross-hairs.

Batman-Villains-2-600x400

The jealousy gene is present inside all of us, especially me. If I meet someone who seems to have it all together, living the easy life, I’ll admit that I sometimes feel a bit of jealousy. For a fleeting moment, not really knowing the back story of that person, I unwittingly think that I want what he or she has.

The key words here are “seems” and “think”. But not everything is always as it seems. Our jealousies are oftentimes out of sync with the person’s real life – perhaps they’re living a life that we wouldn’t want for ourselves at all – we just haven’t seen it naked yet.

Some people, though, have a jealousy gene which is Enormously Dominant. Let’s just call this condition E.D. for now.  These people are genetically engineered to feel threatened by another’s outward successes. They are so consumed with jealousy that they actually believe that your successes (big or small), undermine their own abilities.

Maybe they believe you will be favored or loved more than them. Perhaps they have a tinge of mental illness – your popularity or success emasculates their own self-perceptions. These folks are driven to try and derail you. It’s not personal, it’s their E.D...

dr-evil

We’re really never going to know the exact reasons why these insecure folks will sell their souls to undercut your efforts, or why they are drawn to careers in selling school supplies; we just have to recognize them for the value that they bring to our lives.

Haters don’t necessarily hate you, it’s far more likely that they actually hate themselves. You become a reflection of what’s missing in their own mirror and a painful reminder of their own inadequacies.

To sum it all up, backstabbers and haters are not going away. If you lose one, you will get another. Why not elevate their status in a way that brings about positivity instead of stress? First learn to recognize them, then learn to appreciate them for the challenges they help you overcome. Perception is reality, they say.

FOES

Thank you Fate for foes! I hold mine dear

As valued friends. He cannot know

The Zest of life who runneth here

His earthly race without a foe.

I saw a prize. “Run,” cried my friend;

“’Tis yours to claim without a doubt.”

But ere I half-way reached the end,

I felt my strength was giving out.

My foe looked on while I ran;

A scornful triumph lit his eyes.

With that perseverance born in man,

I nerved myself, and won the prize.

All blinded by the crimson glow

Of Sin’s disguise, I tempted Fate.

“I knew thy weakness?” sneered my foe,

I saved myself, and balked his hate.

For half my blessings, half my gain,

I must thank my trusty Foe;

Despite his envy and disdain,

He serves me well where’er I go.

So may I keep him to the end,

Nor may his enmity abate;

More faithful than the fondest friend,

He guards me ever with his hate.

W. Wilcox