“Sitius, altius, fortius.”
-- The Olympic Motto
I’ve never been one for new year's resolutions, only because we must subject ourselves to the tradition’s timing. Do people need to lose weight in June? Or be more generous in October? Perhaps call up an old friend in May? What makes a New Year so special that only then can we purge ourselves of our faults and revisit our passions with renewed vigor? Any day serves to make a change, and January 1st certainly doesn’t have the most productive record when it comes to steadfast commitments.
But since I now have at least four readers who will hold me to my commitments, I’ve decided to look to the year ahead – one that looks to be filled with tremendous change – and commit myself to certain things.
First, this blog will not be a personal fad. I will continue to maintain it, and I hope to see it flourish with a cornucopia of content. My Netflix subscription has gathered dust over the holidays, but I intend to dive right back into my viewing habits of one film a day. Certainly those films which I find either inspiring or infuriating (and some in-between) will find there way into the pages of this site.
Second, I plan to read at least one new book a week. My reading slowed when I had my grad school applications pressing on me, but now I can return to my one-book-a-week habit. First up – Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad.
Third, for one year I will dismiss selflessness. If one aspect of my personality has hindered forward progress in my life, it has been my need to please. Whether parents, friends, or abstract ghosts of world opinion, I only recently weaned myself off of the pleasures of other people. When it comes time to choose a grad school (hopefully there will be a choice), I will choose from my own heart and not a myriad of other people’s.
Finally, I return to the quote that starts this entry:
“Sitius, altius, fortius.”
For those not down with the Greek, it means “Faster, higher, stronger.”
When I think of those words, they never cross my mind in an athletic context. I’m not going to cut three tenths off of my forty this year. I’m not gonna add six inches to my verticals. No, what always struck me about that phrase was its breadth. It didn’t specify its growth. It allowed for improvement in all areas. That is what I hope for in the coming year.
I hope to expand my knowledge in every arena possible. I hope to improve my writing, continuing to churn out the pages I have during my application process. I hope to find a greater way to open my heart to the people I care about. In general, I hope to improve my person in every conceivable way.
If not, I’ll settle for losing ten pounds.
Friday, December 31, 2004
Sunday, December 19, 2004
My Grandmother's Rebuttal
"Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not life bring understanding?"
-- Job 12:12
I remember a brief time when my grandmother was well. My brother and I used to see her nearly every day. My mother would drop us off at our grandparents’ house on her way to work, and we would watch The Bozo Show and Woody Woodpecker until it was time to head to school. In that hour or so, my grandmother would find time to check our fingernails; no girl would want to hold our hands on the playground if we had dirty fingernails, she would say. For five minutes we would battle, our finger funk clearly too treasured a thing to cede without a tantrum. Eventually, we would relent, though our grandmother would have to do all the work. We slumped in our chairs, or hands dangling lifeless at the end of our arms, while she worked away with her toothpick. I wish I could say her tenacity kept my fingernails habitually dirt-free through the rest of my life. Sadly, I cannot. I will say this, though: I am constantly aware of their condition.
When she wasn’t harassing the Rockwell boys about poor grooming habits, my grandmother smoked in the kitchen. For some reason, I cannot recall that specific image, though I am certain of the practice. When I think of the habit that crippled her later life, I seem to only recall the purse: the tan leather pouch that housed her packs, with its external pocket for any number of rotating lighters. I remember it sitting on the kitchen table next to her as she snuffed out her last cigarettes before taking us to school. When I reached junior high, our my grandmother was no longer available to take us to school, the years of smoking having caught up with her. Emphysema spoiled her lungs, sending her to the hospital for an extended stay, the trauma permanently weakened her heart. We didn’t lose her then, but I can only imagine how close we came.
For the next several years she battled her own fierce pride, refusing to accept that she could no longer manage as she once had. At the start of my sophomore year in high school, she took me shopping for new clothes. Instead of letting me or my grandfather push her around the mall in a wheelchair, she walked; in most of the stores she sat outside the dressing rooms as I browsed, too winded to make the rounds with me. I would bring back an armful of clothes, and she would express her opinion when I came out.
As time moved on, it became harder and harder for my grandmother to get out of the house. She may have attended some early football games, but I can’t be sure. I know that once the temperature dropped late in the season she could no longer handle it. She didn’t miss my plays, though. Especially the musicals. She used to force my brother and I to see the Music Guild’s productions each summer, and I’m sure she took some credit when her grandson hit the big stage for “Luck Be a Lady.” But sadly, as her grandchildren’s programs, games, and exhibitions grew more frequent, her health forced her own attendance into decline.
Still, there was one place where her attendance was perfect. Every Sunday morning, my grandmother went to church. For a time, when I was searching for my own path through the religious experience, I regularly attended with them. I enjoyed the experience while it lasted. I watched my grandfather’s devotion to his wife as he wheeled her to a special, reserved seat. I noticed the glimmer in both their eyes when they got to introduce their grandson to their friends. I smiled listening to my grandfather roar through the hymns, projecting his booming voice around the church. I still cherish those memories, even with no place in my heart for the services themselves.
I never could get a strong read on my grandmother on those precious Sundays. She sat quietly next to me in her wheelchair, her hands folded sweetly in her lap. The faintest smile always spread across her face – not a smile of elation, but of pleasant contentment. As my grandfather took fervid sermon notes on one side of me, my grandmother simply listened, smiling, as she soaked up The Word. She always thanked me for coming after worship, as if it were a trouble for me to be there. But I relished that time in the church, when she only spoke in smiles.
I loved making my grandmother smile. The way she smiled each time I came in the door for a visit… I felt unworthy of her joy. And few laughs will ever match hers. She didn’t just laugh at my jokes, as is the common response to humor. Most of her laugh represented her delight in the comic. She never laughed specifically because I said something funny, but because her grandchild had said something funny. It’s a subtle difference I only now recognize.
Before I moved to Florida, I went to visit her. My dad had told me she wasn’t well, but I had been hearing that since the eighth grade. My grandmother had never been well, per se, but after ten years of edge-of-death talk I had convinced myself that my grandmother would toe the line forever.
Seeing her on that visit only helped confirm that belief. She sat in a recliner next to the window, her oxygen machine and her Bible by the side of her chair. We talked about my plans, and she expressed how proud she was of me. She expressed her optimism about my move, and told me to make the best of it. I promised I would, and before I left I gave her a hug and she kissed me on the cheek and told me she loved me. I returned the sentiment in the faint, uncomfortable way that young men often do, and I said good-bye.
Two weeks after my move, my grandmother went into the hospital. A week later she passed away. I didn’t go home for the funeral, and I only now regret it. In three days, I will return home for the first time since my grandmother’s death. Even still I imagine her in the house, and I know I am ill-prepared for the moment when I will walk into my grandparents’ living room and realize the person who always got my first hug is no longer there. The rest of my family has had time to grieve, to share the loss with each other, but I know that my awareness of my grandmother’s death has yet to crystallize into a conscious acceptance.
My life up to this point has been blessed with limited tragedy. I lost three great-grandmothers before I was old enough to comprehend their deaths. Until now, my greatest loss had been my cousin Joey, an absolute sparkplug of a kid who was born with a tragic heart condition and died when I was eight. It was a devastating loss for my entire family and especially devastating for my grandmother.
As painful as Joey’s loss was at the time, as my grandmother looked upon her own death, he became her greatest solace.
If asked to rank the strongest people I have ever met, I would not rank my grandmother near the top. That says nothing of her character, but only the wheelchair, and the oxygen, the images that taint the enormity of a person’s strength. But in her final days, my grandmother rocketed to the top of that list.
My brother spoke to her one last time over the phone, and on the day of her funeral he shared his conversation with me.
“She said she was ready,” he told me. “She told me if it was time for her to go, then she would be up in heaven with Joey.”
As a devastated family surrounded her in the hospital, my grandmother smiled. She was content. She had been sick for so long, waiting for the inevitable day, that when it finally came she greeted it with unimaginable courage and grace. I can only hope to face death in such a fashion.
A week ago I wrote a rather inflammatory entry about the worthiness of faith in modern society. I have been thinking of my grandmother ever since. That essay would have horrified her. I still stand by my statements. I still feel completely justified in my opinions. However, my grandmother’s death has been their greatest rebuttal.
On her deathbed, the destination for which my philosophies offer no comforts, she displayed the utmost strength as a result of her faith. She left me with a lasting image of a woman solid in her convictions and her beliefs. Faced with the most frightening of life’s adventures, she stepped forward with open arms and a smile on her face. Her good-bye to her family was only temporary in her eyes, so she raced to kiss Joey again and take him and his Mickey Mouse fishing pole to the nearest, fish-packed pond.
It might discourage my grandmother to know that I will continue to debate the values and dangers of faith; the process of my life has lead me down that path. But I hope that she would smile knowing that because of her each one of my epic pronouncements will end with the faintest of question marks.
Because of you, Grandma, I will never be certain.
In Memory of Phyllis Rockwell. I miss you.
-- Job 12:12
I remember a brief time when my grandmother was well. My brother and I used to see her nearly every day. My mother would drop us off at our grandparents’ house on her way to work, and we would watch The Bozo Show and Woody Woodpecker until it was time to head to school. In that hour or so, my grandmother would find time to check our fingernails; no girl would want to hold our hands on the playground if we had dirty fingernails, she would say. For five minutes we would battle, our finger funk clearly too treasured a thing to cede without a tantrum. Eventually, we would relent, though our grandmother would have to do all the work. We slumped in our chairs, or hands dangling lifeless at the end of our arms, while she worked away with her toothpick. I wish I could say her tenacity kept my fingernails habitually dirt-free through the rest of my life. Sadly, I cannot. I will say this, though: I am constantly aware of their condition.
When she wasn’t harassing the Rockwell boys about poor grooming habits, my grandmother smoked in the kitchen. For some reason, I cannot recall that specific image, though I am certain of the practice. When I think of the habit that crippled her later life, I seem to only recall the purse: the tan leather pouch that housed her packs, with its external pocket for any number of rotating lighters. I remember it sitting on the kitchen table next to her as she snuffed out her last cigarettes before taking us to school. When I reached junior high, our my grandmother was no longer available to take us to school, the years of smoking having caught up with her. Emphysema spoiled her lungs, sending her to the hospital for an extended stay, the trauma permanently weakened her heart. We didn’t lose her then, but I can only imagine how close we came.
For the next several years she battled her own fierce pride, refusing to accept that she could no longer manage as she once had. At the start of my sophomore year in high school, she took me shopping for new clothes. Instead of letting me or my grandfather push her around the mall in a wheelchair, she walked; in most of the stores she sat outside the dressing rooms as I browsed, too winded to make the rounds with me. I would bring back an armful of clothes, and she would express her opinion when I came out.
As time moved on, it became harder and harder for my grandmother to get out of the house. She may have attended some early football games, but I can’t be sure. I know that once the temperature dropped late in the season she could no longer handle it. She didn’t miss my plays, though. Especially the musicals. She used to force my brother and I to see the Music Guild’s productions each summer, and I’m sure she took some credit when her grandson hit the big stage for “Luck Be a Lady.” But sadly, as her grandchildren’s programs, games, and exhibitions grew more frequent, her health forced her own attendance into decline.
Still, there was one place where her attendance was perfect. Every Sunday morning, my grandmother went to church. For a time, when I was searching for my own path through the religious experience, I regularly attended with them. I enjoyed the experience while it lasted. I watched my grandfather’s devotion to his wife as he wheeled her to a special, reserved seat. I noticed the glimmer in both their eyes when they got to introduce their grandson to their friends. I smiled listening to my grandfather roar through the hymns, projecting his booming voice around the church. I still cherish those memories, even with no place in my heart for the services themselves.
I never could get a strong read on my grandmother on those precious Sundays. She sat quietly next to me in her wheelchair, her hands folded sweetly in her lap. The faintest smile always spread across her face – not a smile of elation, but of pleasant contentment. As my grandfather took fervid sermon notes on one side of me, my grandmother simply listened, smiling, as she soaked up The Word. She always thanked me for coming after worship, as if it were a trouble for me to be there. But I relished that time in the church, when she only spoke in smiles.
I loved making my grandmother smile. The way she smiled each time I came in the door for a visit… I felt unworthy of her joy. And few laughs will ever match hers. She didn’t just laugh at my jokes, as is the common response to humor. Most of her laugh represented her delight in the comic. She never laughed specifically because I said something funny, but because her grandchild had said something funny. It’s a subtle difference I only now recognize.
Before I moved to Florida, I went to visit her. My dad had told me she wasn’t well, but I had been hearing that since the eighth grade. My grandmother had never been well, per se, but after ten years of edge-of-death talk I had convinced myself that my grandmother would toe the line forever.
Seeing her on that visit only helped confirm that belief. She sat in a recliner next to the window, her oxygen machine and her Bible by the side of her chair. We talked about my plans, and she expressed how proud she was of me. She expressed her optimism about my move, and told me to make the best of it. I promised I would, and before I left I gave her a hug and she kissed me on the cheek and told me she loved me. I returned the sentiment in the faint, uncomfortable way that young men often do, and I said good-bye.
Two weeks after my move, my grandmother went into the hospital. A week later she passed away. I didn’t go home for the funeral, and I only now regret it. In three days, I will return home for the first time since my grandmother’s death. Even still I imagine her in the house, and I know I am ill-prepared for the moment when I will walk into my grandparents’ living room and realize the person who always got my first hug is no longer there. The rest of my family has had time to grieve, to share the loss with each other, but I know that my awareness of my grandmother’s death has yet to crystallize into a conscious acceptance.
My life up to this point has been blessed with limited tragedy. I lost three great-grandmothers before I was old enough to comprehend their deaths. Until now, my greatest loss had been my cousin Joey, an absolute sparkplug of a kid who was born with a tragic heart condition and died when I was eight. It was a devastating loss for my entire family and especially devastating for my grandmother.
As painful as Joey’s loss was at the time, as my grandmother looked upon her own death, he became her greatest solace.
If asked to rank the strongest people I have ever met, I would not rank my grandmother near the top. That says nothing of her character, but only the wheelchair, and the oxygen, the images that taint the enormity of a person’s strength. But in her final days, my grandmother rocketed to the top of that list.
My brother spoke to her one last time over the phone, and on the day of her funeral he shared his conversation with me.
“She said she was ready,” he told me. “She told me if it was time for her to go, then she would be up in heaven with Joey.”
As a devastated family surrounded her in the hospital, my grandmother smiled. She was content. She had been sick for so long, waiting for the inevitable day, that when it finally came she greeted it with unimaginable courage and grace. I can only hope to face death in such a fashion.
A week ago I wrote a rather inflammatory entry about the worthiness of faith in modern society. I have been thinking of my grandmother ever since. That essay would have horrified her. I still stand by my statements. I still feel completely justified in my opinions. However, my grandmother’s death has been their greatest rebuttal.
On her deathbed, the destination for which my philosophies offer no comforts, she displayed the utmost strength as a result of her faith. She left me with a lasting image of a woman solid in her convictions and her beliefs. Faced with the most frightening of life’s adventures, she stepped forward with open arms and a smile on her face. Her good-bye to her family was only temporary in her eyes, so she raced to kiss Joey again and take him and his Mickey Mouse fishing pole to the nearest, fish-packed pond.
It might discourage my grandmother to know that I will continue to debate the values and dangers of faith; the process of my life has lead me down that path. But I hope that she would smile knowing that because of her each one of my epic pronouncements will end with the faintest of question marks.
Because of you, Grandma, I will never be certain.
In Memory of Phyllis Rockwell. I miss you.
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Fear and Self-Loathing
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the capacity for action despite our fears.”
-- Senator John McCain
Through the expansive windows of my uncle’s living room, I stared out at my first Florida sunset in two years. Streaks of pink and orange lined a handful of spotty black clouds. As the clouds eventually won over the day, the sun’s last gasp turned the world blood-red. Wispy winds rolled over the pond, making the world shiver in its reflection. The fronds on the palm trees swayed tauntingly, as if beckoning for the monster’s arrival. I turned to my uncle:
“It feels like God is coming,” I told him.
Fifteen years ago, the thought of being in Florida while a category four hurricane churned up the Atlantic would have paralyzed me. Yet I stared at the evening sky as the initial gusts of Hurricane Frances rolled over the house like dragon’s breath, and I felt a deep satisfaction being there. Though the idea of taking a break to go live in Florida for six months to a year seemed like a vacation to most of my friends, for me the act was as reckless as I get. And it required me to overcome a great deal of fear in order to do it.
It’s amazing how subversive fear can be, how sneaky. When I was suffering at a miserable job watching my blood pressure climb and my self-worth plummet, I didn’t blame fear for my idleness. I blamed good sense (jobs are hard to come by these days, especially with health insurance). Or I blamed greed (I make really good money).
But fear? Absolutely not.
I never quite understood self-destructive behavior until I discovered it in myself. It just didn’t make much sense to me. Why would a person consistently do themselves harm? Most of the time such behavior associates with alcoholism and other forms of substance abuse. I saw my fair share working on a riverboat casino. But I was a young man who rarely drank (never got drunk), didn’t smoke, and whose closest experience with drugs was seeing Half-Baked in the theater. Surely I had avoided the grasp of self-destructive behavior.
Despite a reasonably privileged and successful life, two fears kept me on a merry-go-round of doubt and self-loathing: fear of failure and fear of not getting a fair shot. It’s an interesting dichotomy being confident in your talent, and yet expecting to fail. For more years than I can remember I’ve known I was going into a tough racket. Writing, acting, directing – nobody has ever given me a satisfactory breakdown of just how much talent plays a factor; most of it seems to be luck. For somebody who doesn’t believe in fate, destiny, or the like, relying on luck does not a confident artist make.
It wasn’t until a year ago that I realized just how much my senior year of high school affected me. Watching my football career so bizarrely and so immediately come to an end showed me just how fast our greatest dreams can be quashed. Aware of the ever present ticking time-bomb of IGA Nephropathy running through my life, I know that despite taking immaculate care of myself, any other pursuit can end in a heartbeat if my kidneys decide to rebel against their host. So, what does one do with that information?
For a while, I let it own me. My self-destructive behavior was a middle finger to a godless universe. If life could screw me like it did with my football career, I wasn’t going to give it the satisfaction of taking away something I cared about. I wasn’t going to let the other shoe drop, damn it. I was going to be holding it myself... by one shoelace... over a cliff. For the last two years, I had nothing that could be taken away from me. I didn’t have a career. I didn’t have a love. I barely had a home. What could life possibly take away from me?
While that seems slightly logical in that context, it also means my life had little value. Sure nothing could be taken away, but that meant I didn’t have anything to begin with. As my wise and caring friend, Jasmyne, would say:
“That’s asinine.”
To this date, I have found no better to pull myself out of the doldrums of depression than to have a beautiful girl call me a coward. If there’s a ten-point scale of personal opinion, I can count on two hands the number of people I would rate at a 10. When a 10 speaks they get my utmost attention and consideration. Jasmyne is a 10. She has been for most of the time I have known her. Even when I’ve hated her (she actually turned my ears red with anger – a first for anyone in my life), it didn’t diminish what she had to say. Besides, she’s cute. So she can get away with just about anything.
I’m not always certain Jasmyne gets me, but because of how she works she doesn’t necessarily have to. She asks questions -- good ones -- that take me to a part of my brain that isn’t dizzy with philosophies and dramatics. She brings me back to Earth, in a gentle, and occasionally infuriating way. As I griped about my unhappiness, she plainly asked why I didn’t do anything to change it.
I sputtered and stammered, throwing out dozens of excuses I felt completely justified my self-destructive behavior. She cast aside each one with equally logical deconstructions, a mild expression of pity on her face. Here I was trying to impress the first girl in a long time to completely fascinate me, and not for one moment did I get a better response than “Eh.”
It wasn’t that I couldn’t impress her. I just wasn’t. She saw my increasing unhappiness and did not understand why I didn’t search for something more fulfilling.
“What are you afraid of?” she asked.
It turns out, quite a bit.
However, as I write this from my uncle’s living room, I can say that my fears no longer control me, as they did while I was at home. They are still there. I still have my doubts, but my doubts and uncertainty will not keep me from making an effort.
At nine o’clock this morning I sent out my graduate school applications, a defining moment on my current track. Am I afraid? Kind of. I’m afraid I may have forgotten something, even though I checked each envelope a hundred times over. But am I afraid that I might fail? Not really. The possibility exists; I sent one application to the most prestigious creative writing school in the country. I'm bound to fail there. However, my time in Florida has confirmed that life does not have to be as unhappy as it was at the Isle of Capri Casino.
Life is what you make it, and it's time to get my hands dirty.
-- Senator John McCain
Through the expansive windows of my uncle’s living room, I stared out at my first Florida sunset in two years. Streaks of pink and orange lined a handful of spotty black clouds. As the clouds eventually won over the day, the sun’s last gasp turned the world blood-red. Wispy winds rolled over the pond, making the world shiver in its reflection. The fronds on the palm trees swayed tauntingly, as if beckoning for the monster’s arrival. I turned to my uncle:
“It feels like God is coming,” I told him.
Fifteen years ago, the thought of being in Florida while a category four hurricane churned up the Atlantic would have paralyzed me. Yet I stared at the evening sky as the initial gusts of Hurricane Frances rolled over the house like dragon’s breath, and I felt a deep satisfaction being there. Though the idea of taking a break to go live in Florida for six months to a year seemed like a vacation to most of my friends, for me the act was as reckless as I get. And it required me to overcome a great deal of fear in order to do it.
It’s amazing how subversive fear can be, how sneaky. When I was suffering at a miserable job watching my blood pressure climb and my self-worth plummet, I didn’t blame fear for my idleness. I blamed good sense (jobs are hard to come by these days, especially with health insurance). Or I blamed greed (I make really good money).
But fear? Absolutely not.
I never quite understood self-destructive behavior until I discovered it in myself. It just didn’t make much sense to me. Why would a person consistently do themselves harm? Most of the time such behavior associates with alcoholism and other forms of substance abuse. I saw my fair share working on a riverboat casino. But I was a young man who rarely drank (never got drunk), didn’t smoke, and whose closest experience with drugs was seeing Half-Baked in the theater. Surely I had avoided the grasp of self-destructive behavior.
Despite a reasonably privileged and successful life, two fears kept me on a merry-go-round of doubt and self-loathing: fear of failure and fear of not getting a fair shot. It’s an interesting dichotomy being confident in your talent, and yet expecting to fail. For more years than I can remember I’ve known I was going into a tough racket. Writing, acting, directing – nobody has ever given me a satisfactory breakdown of just how much talent plays a factor; most of it seems to be luck. For somebody who doesn’t believe in fate, destiny, or the like, relying on luck does not a confident artist make.
It wasn’t until a year ago that I realized just how much my senior year of high school affected me. Watching my football career so bizarrely and so immediately come to an end showed me just how fast our greatest dreams can be quashed. Aware of the ever present ticking time-bomb of IGA Nephropathy running through my life, I know that despite taking immaculate care of myself, any other pursuit can end in a heartbeat if my kidneys decide to rebel against their host. So, what does one do with that information?
For a while, I let it own me. My self-destructive behavior was a middle finger to a godless universe. If life could screw me like it did with my football career, I wasn’t going to give it the satisfaction of taking away something I cared about. I wasn’t going to let the other shoe drop, damn it. I was going to be holding it myself... by one shoelace... over a cliff. For the last two years, I had nothing that could be taken away from me. I didn’t have a career. I didn’t have a love. I barely had a home. What could life possibly take away from me?
While that seems slightly logical in that context, it also means my life had little value. Sure nothing could be taken away, but that meant I didn’t have anything to begin with. As my wise and caring friend, Jasmyne, would say:
“That’s asinine.”
To this date, I have found no better to pull myself out of the doldrums of depression than to have a beautiful girl call me a coward. If there’s a ten-point scale of personal opinion, I can count on two hands the number of people I would rate at a 10. When a 10 speaks they get my utmost attention and consideration. Jasmyne is a 10. She has been for most of the time I have known her. Even when I’ve hated her (she actually turned my ears red with anger – a first for anyone in my life), it didn’t diminish what she had to say. Besides, she’s cute. So she can get away with just about anything.
I’m not always certain Jasmyne gets me, but because of how she works she doesn’t necessarily have to. She asks questions -- good ones -- that take me to a part of my brain that isn’t dizzy with philosophies and dramatics. She brings me back to Earth, in a gentle, and occasionally infuriating way. As I griped about my unhappiness, she plainly asked why I didn’t do anything to change it.
I sputtered and stammered, throwing out dozens of excuses I felt completely justified my self-destructive behavior. She cast aside each one with equally logical deconstructions, a mild expression of pity on her face. Here I was trying to impress the first girl in a long time to completely fascinate me, and not for one moment did I get a better response than “Eh.”
It wasn’t that I couldn’t impress her. I just wasn’t. She saw my increasing unhappiness and did not understand why I didn’t search for something more fulfilling.
“What are you afraid of?” she asked.
It turns out, quite a bit.
However, as I write this from my uncle’s living room, I can say that my fears no longer control me, as they did while I was at home. They are still there. I still have my doubts, but my doubts and uncertainty will not keep me from making an effort.
At nine o’clock this morning I sent out my graduate school applications, a defining moment on my current track. Am I afraid? Kind of. I’m afraid I may have forgotten something, even though I checked each envelope a hundred times over. But am I afraid that I might fail? Not really. The possibility exists; I sent one application to the most prestigious creative writing school in the country. I'm bound to fail there. However, my time in Florida has confirmed that life does not have to be as unhappy as it was at the Isle of Capri Casino.
Life is what you make it, and it's time to get my hands dirty.
Sunday, December 12, 2004
A Taste of Things to Come?
"The idea that any one of our religions represents the infallible word of the One True God requires an encyclopedic ignorance of history, mythology, and art even to be entertained."
Sam Harris -- The End of Faith
I sometimes feel a mild degree of shame for being a Midwestern man whose worldview came unraveled after 9-11. I did not live in New York or D.C., and at the time I had not even visited either of them. But I look at my family, my career, my faith – they all changed on 9-11.
I woke up on that Tuesday as I did on any other day. On Tuesdays my girlfriend and I shared a class together, and I was waiting for her to come fetch me for breakfast. As she came in the door one of our floormates rushed down the hall, flying into my neighbor’s room, and screeching that they get out of bed. As they struggled to wake she ran back towards her room, where my girlfriend grabbed her by the arm to ask what the drama was all about. I overheard bits and pieces about “The Towers” as I packed up my backpack. Somebody had bombed The Towers.
The student housing at Southern Illinois University is divided into two communities. The first, Thompson Point, where I lived, sat on a lake in the main part of the campus. The other sat down the hill by the recreation center. We called them The Towers. I rushed to the television expecting to see the dorms across campus in flames. Instead, I turned to NBC just as the first tower fell, along with the hearts of every American.
My girlfriend dragged me to breakfast, though I agonized through each second I was not in front of the television. My girlfriend seemed irritatingly uninterested, even calm, about what was going on out East. She packed up after our meal and went to class. I went home.
The events of 9-11 seemed so impossibly irrational at the time that it made it difficult for even the most grounded American to prevent Chicken Little hysteria. I have a penchant for irrationally creative thinking, so on 9-11 I took paranoia to a whole new level. I remember walking back from the cafeteria and looking up into the sky. Every jet trail, every sparkle of an airliner carried a sense of dread with it. And the uncertainty of that day made it impossible to reign in my fear.
I’ve only had one fear that ever bordered on becoming a phobia. When I was eight, on my first trip to visit my Uncle Joel in Florida, my family got trapped in an enormous line of thunderstorms. At the start, I lay on the floor, rolled up in my E.T. sleeping bag, as tornado warnings cut into the radio broadcasts. As things got more serious and my parents began to whisper covertly in the front seat, I sat up and looked out on a black mass of swirling clouds. Despite a flurry of intense lightning and blinding rain, we made it through the tempest without incident, but not without damage to my psyche.
For the next several years, every time I saw black clouds rolling over the horizon, whether at a Little League game or a boating trip on the Mississippi, I became impossible to deal with. Eventually, I got over my fear through education. I sought out all the information I could find on storms. When ominous skies foreshadowed a mean summer tempest, I sat myself in front of the Weather Channel to fully understand the threat posed to me. Fifteen years later, I raced down to Florida so I could be there when Hurricane Frances made landfall. And the entire credit goes to my insatiable need for information.
On September 11th, information was very hard to come by. Speculation was rampant. Paranoia abounded. Generally, it was not the best environment to keep my wits about me. So, I stared wide-eyed at the television for nearly twelve hours through rumors about the nuclear weapon on the Hudson, through the bomb threat at the Empire State Building, through the Where in the World is W saga. Much of the following continued in this vein.
After three years, it is hard to comprehend, with a more rational mind, just how terrifying that day was. I find it especially difficult because I have considered it on an intellectual level nearly every day since it happened.
My first line of attack for understanding was to write about it. The next month I began my senior thesis which turned into a fantasy screenplay examining the influences that led to 9-11. It started off with not a hint of nuance. The villains’ motivations were unapologetically evil – based purely on ignorance and envy. The heroes were merely trying to do their best, and were horrified, horrified, that somebody could do something so heinous. Three years later, that single screenplay has morphed into a series of novels that examine an epic struggle between two distinct societies – just like the conflict we find ourselves embroiled in. Though 9-11 was the impetus for my story, its influence has become more of an echo now – much like the day itself. Not a day goes by that I do not consider this story, so in a way, not a day goes by when I do not consider my own dire view of our world.
That dire view has put a strain on my search for an acceptable faith. After dismissing theistic religion as a source for my greater world view, I sought out other avenues through which to build my faith. A natural step after dismissing the heavenly is to turn to the worldly. I don’t mean worldly in a hedonistic way. I mean worldly in a humanitarian sense.
I never felt the love of God; the only undeniable love I ever encountered came from my family. Therefore, I came to believe that something greater than myself, greater than all of us, ran through the bonds of kin. I could not think poorly of humanity when such ties exist. Clearly, something greater was at work here. Before September 11th, I felt fairly confident in this general thesis.
However, watching such a ruthless attack paralyze a city and kill thousands of civilians required me to fiercely reevaluate my new faith. Clearly faith in humanity was as problematic as a faith in God. In the years since the attacks on New York and Washington, I have found many philosophical tangents breaking off from one central question:
Is the nature of man evil or good? It is an impossible question to answer, a difficult one to even consider, but no question is more essential to my future than that one.
Also on 9-11, my tolerance for religion began its slow but inevitable corrosion. Through most of my college life, partially because I was trying to steady the waters of my relationship with a born-again Christian, I was an apologist for faith. I used the usual mantras of those who have low opinions of religion but cannot bring themselves to offend friends and family.
I’ve proceeded to debunk the majority of those platitudes over the years. Nobody can defend religion by saying it does a lot of good for people, because there is nothing to say that this good cannot be had outside the purview of religion. For every person who needs religion to get by with the daily grind there is another person who uses religion as a narcotic, rising to magnificent heights of religious euphoria and crashing to nihilistic lows when their faith is tested. I used to view religion as harmless, but September 11th is proof that religion, and the type of thinking it espouses, is not.
On my drive to work on November 3rd of this year, the Wednesday after the election, I heard a startling statistic on the radio. Upon leaving the polls, Bush voters were asked what the determining factor in their vote was. 23%, almost one quarter, said moral values. The subject that received the least votes, at 2%, was education. I felt horribly alienated that morning; I lived in a country that elected their president based on gay marriage, abortion, and a naïve and uneducated understanding of stem cell research. The following day a school district in Georgia went to court to mandate that Intelligent Design (the new buzzword for Creationism) be taught in science classes. Based on the last place finisher in said poll, it is no surprise that a complex issue like stem cell research can be completely bastardized in the minds of the public and that a scientific clusterfuck like Intelligent Design can sit on equal footing with evolution.
Never in the course of my religious understanding did I ever feel that faith allowed for the advancement of the human race. Best case scenario, it allows us to tread water. In most cases, it hinders our knowledge and growth – as in the case of stem cell research. Stem cell research has the potential to cure a myriad of the most devastating diseases of our times like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s as well as physical maladies like spinal cord injuries. Because of the foggy argument of when life begins, we are allowing tens of thousands of cells to sit in a freezer where they will never become a human life, instead of using them to enhance the lives of the people we already have. Despite the hype, stem cell research is not comparable to abortion. It is not even close. And once again, a little education on the topic would do this country wonders.
But clearly, education is not one of this country’s major concerns.
Sam Harris -- The End of Faith
I sometimes feel a mild degree of shame for being a Midwestern man whose worldview came unraveled after 9-11. I did not live in New York or D.C., and at the time I had not even visited either of them. But I look at my family, my career, my faith – they all changed on 9-11.
I woke up on that Tuesday as I did on any other day. On Tuesdays my girlfriend and I shared a class together, and I was waiting for her to come fetch me for breakfast. As she came in the door one of our floormates rushed down the hall, flying into my neighbor’s room, and screeching that they get out of bed. As they struggled to wake she ran back towards her room, where my girlfriend grabbed her by the arm to ask what the drama was all about. I overheard bits and pieces about “The Towers” as I packed up my backpack. Somebody had bombed The Towers.
The student housing at Southern Illinois University is divided into two communities. The first, Thompson Point, where I lived, sat on a lake in the main part of the campus. The other sat down the hill by the recreation center. We called them The Towers. I rushed to the television expecting to see the dorms across campus in flames. Instead, I turned to NBC just as the first tower fell, along with the hearts of every American.
My girlfriend dragged me to breakfast, though I agonized through each second I was not in front of the television. My girlfriend seemed irritatingly uninterested, even calm, about what was going on out East. She packed up after our meal and went to class. I went home.
The events of 9-11 seemed so impossibly irrational at the time that it made it difficult for even the most grounded American to prevent Chicken Little hysteria. I have a penchant for irrationally creative thinking, so on 9-11 I took paranoia to a whole new level. I remember walking back from the cafeteria and looking up into the sky. Every jet trail, every sparkle of an airliner carried a sense of dread with it. And the uncertainty of that day made it impossible to reign in my fear.
I’ve only had one fear that ever bordered on becoming a phobia. When I was eight, on my first trip to visit my Uncle Joel in Florida, my family got trapped in an enormous line of thunderstorms. At the start, I lay on the floor, rolled up in my E.T. sleeping bag, as tornado warnings cut into the radio broadcasts. As things got more serious and my parents began to whisper covertly in the front seat, I sat up and looked out on a black mass of swirling clouds. Despite a flurry of intense lightning and blinding rain, we made it through the tempest without incident, but not without damage to my psyche.
For the next several years, every time I saw black clouds rolling over the horizon, whether at a Little League game or a boating trip on the Mississippi, I became impossible to deal with. Eventually, I got over my fear through education. I sought out all the information I could find on storms. When ominous skies foreshadowed a mean summer tempest, I sat myself in front of the Weather Channel to fully understand the threat posed to me. Fifteen years later, I raced down to Florida so I could be there when Hurricane Frances made landfall. And the entire credit goes to my insatiable need for information.
On September 11th, information was very hard to come by. Speculation was rampant. Paranoia abounded. Generally, it was not the best environment to keep my wits about me. So, I stared wide-eyed at the television for nearly twelve hours through rumors about the nuclear weapon on the Hudson, through the bomb threat at the Empire State Building, through the Where in the World is W saga. Much of the following continued in this vein.
After three years, it is hard to comprehend, with a more rational mind, just how terrifying that day was. I find it especially difficult because I have considered it on an intellectual level nearly every day since it happened.
My first line of attack for understanding was to write about it. The next month I began my senior thesis which turned into a fantasy screenplay examining the influences that led to 9-11. It started off with not a hint of nuance. The villains’ motivations were unapologetically evil – based purely on ignorance and envy. The heroes were merely trying to do their best, and were horrified, horrified, that somebody could do something so heinous. Three years later, that single screenplay has morphed into a series of novels that examine an epic struggle between two distinct societies – just like the conflict we find ourselves embroiled in. Though 9-11 was the impetus for my story, its influence has become more of an echo now – much like the day itself. Not a day goes by that I do not consider this story, so in a way, not a day goes by when I do not consider my own dire view of our world.
That dire view has put a strain on my search for an acceptable faith. After dismissing theistic religion as a source for my greater world view, I sought out other avenues through which to build my faith. A natural step after dismissing the heavenly is to turn to the worldly. I don’t mean worldly in a hedonistic way. I mean worldly in a humanitarian sense.
I never felt the love of God; the only undeniable love I ever encountered came from my family. Therefore, I came to believe that something greater than myself, greater than all of us, ran through the bonds of kin. I could not think poorly of humanity when such ties exist. Clearly, something greater was at work here. Before September 11th, I felt fairly confident in this general thesis.
However, watching such a ruthless attack paralyze a city and kill thousands of civilians required me to fiercely reevaluate my new faith. Clearly faith in humanity was as problematic as a faith in God. In the years since the attacks on New York and Washington, I have found many philosophical tangents breaking off from one central question:
Is the nature of man evil or good? It is an impossible question to answer, a difficult one to even consider, but no question is more essential to my future than that one.
Also on 9-11, my tolerance for religion began its slow but inevitable corrosion. Through most of my college life, partially because I was trying to steady the waters of my relationship with a born-again Christian, I was an apologist for faith. I used the usual mantras of those who have low opinions of religion but cannot bring themselves to offend friends and family.
I’ve proceeded to debunk the majority of those platitudes over the years. Nobody can defend religion by saying it does a lot of good for people, because there is nothing to say that this good cannot be had outside the purview of religion. For every person who needs religion to get by with the daily grind there is another person who uses religion as a narcotic, rising to magnificent heights of religious euphoria and crashing to nihilistic lows when their faith is tested. I used to view religion as harmless, but September 11th is proof that religion, and the type of thinking it espouses, is not.
On my drive to work on November 3rd of this year, the Wednesday after the election, I heard a startling statistic on the radio. Upon leaving the polls, Bush voters were asked what the determining factor in their vote was. 23%, almost one quarter, said moral values. The subject that received the least votes, at 2%, was education. I felt horribly alienated that morning; I lived in a country that elected their president based on gay marriage, abortion, and a naïve and uneducated understanding of stem cell research. The following day a school district in Georgia went to court to mandate that Intelligent Design (the new buzzword for Creationism) be taught in science classes. Based on the last place finisher in said poll, it is no surprise that a complex issue like stem cell research can be completely bastardized in the minds of the public and that a scientific clusterfuck like Intelligent Design can sit on equal footing with evolution.
Never in the course of my religious understanding did I ever feel that faith allowed for the advancement of the human race. Best case scenario, it allows us to tread water. In most cases, it hinders our knowledge and growth – as in the case of stem cell research. Stem cell research has the potential to cure a myriad of the most devastating diseases of our times like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s as well as physical maladies like spinal cord injuries. Because of the foggy argument of when life begins, we are allowing tens of thousands of cells to sit in a freezer where they will never become a human life, instead of using them to enhance the lives of the people we already have. Despite the hype, stem cell research is not comparable to abortion. It is not even close. And once again, a little education on the topic would do this country wonders.
But clearly, education is not one of this country’s major concerns.
Saturday, December 11, 2004
A Summer in the Land of Oz
“Nothing happens unless first a dream”
-- Carl Sandburg
I can’t say when it first occurred to me that I wanted to be a filmmaker. Somehow, I feel the idea existed before me. Not in any fatalistic way, but in a more general, biological sort of way. I just seem built for it.
I watched any number of friends and relatives drift into their first year of college and float to this class and that hoping a breeze might blow them in the direction of a fulfilling lifelong pursuit. The lucky ones found a place. The not-so-fortunate ones continue to wander to this day.
I once considered myself a lucky one. When I walked into my first cinema class, I felt a stunning sense of belonging. As I managed the confusion of high school, I had to coerce many of my disinterested friends to partake in my substandard cinematic efforts. This usually entailed elaborate action set-ups and GQ mugging. For the interested parties, my films became a massive vanity project; they volunteered for the shots that would get the most oohs and aahs upon their debut. For the less interested of my friends, my films were, at best, something to do.
But when I walked into my first cinema class, surrounded by men and women as dedicated as I, I knew I had made the right choice. I was on the right path.
Unfortunately, for any filmmaker, the path to success leads to Los Angeles. Looking back on my time in the Land of Oz, it served as a severe reality check to the young kid who ran on daydreams rather than oxygen.
As far as opportunity went, I could not have had a more delicious set-up. Thanks to contacts my roommate had accrued the previous summer, I easily landed an internship in NBC’s photo department. I ate lunch with the cast of Days of Our Lives, and I worked within a hundred yards of The Tonight Show. I met my hero at the time (WWF wrestler and best-selling author Mick Foley), and after one summer my name-dropping ability rivaled that of a Beverly Hills pizza delivery boy.
Still, even as I delighted in reliving my exploits for my friends and family at home, I could not shake the feeling of being completely alone. Living with three roommates, two who I hated and one who I alienated after I backed into his brother’s brand new SUV, I spent much of my time alone in my bedroom, chatting with friends back home.
I didn’t find L.A. conducive to making new friends. With each handshake, I met a person who was only interested in who I was and who I knew. Since an unpaid intern is about as low on the totem pole as a direct-to-video extra, I had nothing to offer those whose concerns did not venture past career opportunities. So while I enjoyed the work (and I did meet some legitimately pleasant people), it did not take long before I reached the conclusion that L.A. was not for me.
However, my career prospects would not be the only dream I would be forced to reevaluate in Los Angeles. My romantic philosophy would also take quite a beating from Hollywood. I admit to a rather egregious naiveté when it comes to relationships. I have still yet to find the proper balance between romance and reality in my execution. I’m quite exceptional at conceiving grand romantic gestures to impress whichever crush I happen to be pursuing. However, my limited foresight hampers my ability to consider the repercussions of these Say Anything moments. I have a sneaking suspicion that many of the girls who I never so much as dated can still remember my all-or-nothing attempts at their affection.
One such girl, my most appalling high school overlook, came to see me in L.A. Over the course of three years in college, we had both confessed our feelings for each other, but neither of us was in a place to do anything about it. Still, we kept in touch as we went about our separate lives, and I made sure to send her well-constructed love letters for her birthday. At that time in my life, I suffered from the delusion that despite the poor timing and unspoken yearning we both exhibited in high school, she and I were meant for each other. I take partial responsibility for this. The rest of the responsibility belongs to my father; of all the girls I ever brought home, as friends or otherwise, she was the only one for whom he volunteered his marriage approval.
I liked the idea of having a visitor, and the idea of bringing this girl to L.A.-- to impress as I never had -- seemed the perfect plan. Unfortunately, it had been a full school year since our mutual confessions (her first in college), and I was shocked by how much one year had apparently dampened our compatibility.
When I left this girl to attend college, she had been a somewhat timid, awkward girl on the cusp of a glorious late bloom. The girl who I picked up at the airport radiated self-confidence, due in part to a flowering that exceeded all expectations; she was a heartbreaker in every sense of the word.
It did not take long for me to realize that this girl had blown past me at the speed of light. Whatever dreams I had of meeting her at the end of the aisle evaporated as I put her on the plane back to Chicago. We still find time to talk occasionally, but I have not seen her face since that day. When it's been three years since you've seen a girl, it becomes harder to believe you are meant to be with her. Not impossible. But definitely harder.
I said good-bye to L.A. as well, and at this time I cannot imagine a scenario where I will return. My filmmaking aspirations have been pushed aside in favor of literature, and thankfully the path to success in that arena runs through no particular city. I’ve accepted that the route to my dreams may be a bit longer and a little more indirect than I would have thought at one time, but if the path to our dreams were clear to us, what would be the reward when we finally reached them?
-- Carl Sandburg
I can’t say when it first occurred to me that I wanted to be a filmmaker. Somehow, I feel the idea existed before me. Not in any fatalistic way, but in a more general, biological sort of way. I just seem built for it.
I watched any number of friends and relatives drift into their first year of college and float to this class and that hoping a breeze might blow them in the direction of a fulfilling lifelong pursuit. The lucky ones found a place. The not-so-fortunate ones continue to wander to this day.
I once considered myself a lucky one. When I walked into my first cinema class, I felt a stunning sense of belonging. As I managed the confusion of high school, I had to coerce many of my disinterested friends to partake in my substandard cinematic efforts. This usually entailed elaborate action set-ups and GQ mugging. For the interested parties, my films became a massive vanity project; they volunteered for the shots that would get the most oohs and aahs upon their debut. For the less interested of my friends, my films were, at best, something to do.
But when I walked into my first cinema class, surrounded by men and women as dedicated as I, I knew I had made the right choice. I was on the right path.
Unfortunately, for any filmmaker, the path to success leads to Los Angeles. Looking back on my time in the Land of Oz, it served as a severe reality check to the young kid who ran on daydreams rather than oxygen.
As far as opportunity went, I could not have had a more delicious set-up. Thanks to contacts my roommate had accrued the previous summer, I easily landed an internship in NBC’s photo department. I ate lunch with the cast of Days of Our Lives, and I worked within a hundred yards of The Tonight Show. I met my hero at the time (WWF wrestler and best-selling author Mick Foley), and after one summer my name-dropping ability rivaled that of a Beverly Hills pizza delivery boy.
Still, even as I delighted in reliving my exploits for my friends and family at home, I could not shake the feeling of being completely alone. Living with three roommates, two who I hated and one who I alienated after I backed into his brother’s brand new SUV, I spent much of my time alone in my bedroom, chatting with friends back home.
I didn’t find L.A. conducive to making new friends. With each handshake, I met a person who was only interested in who I was and who I knew. Since an unpaid intern is about as low on the totem pole as a direct-to-video extra, I had nothing to offer those whose concerns did not venture past career opportunities. So while I enjoyed the work (and I did meet some legitimately pleasant people), it did not take long before I reached the conclusion that L.A. was not for me.
However, my career prospects would not be the only dream I would be forced to reevaluate in Los Angeles. My romantic philosophy would also take quite a beating from Hollywood. I admit to a rather egregious naiveté when it comes to relationships. I have still yet to find the proper balance between romance and reality in my execution. I’m quite exceptional at conceiving grand romantic gestures to impress whichever crush I happen to be pursuing. However, my limited foresight hampers my ability to consider the repercussions of these Say Anything moments. I have a sneaking suspicion that many of the girls who I never so much as dated can still remember my all-or-nothing attempts at their affection.
One such girl, my most appalling high school overlook, came to see me in L.A. Over the course of three years in college, we had both confessed our feelings for each other, but neither of us was in a place to do anything about it. Still, we kept in touch as we went about our separate lives, and I made sure to send her well-constructed love letters for her birthday. At that time in my life, I suffered from the delusion that despite the poor timing and unspoken yearning we both exhibited in high school, she and I were meant for each other. I take partial responsibility for this. The rest of the responsibility belongs to my father; of all the girls I ever brought home, as friends or otherwise, she was the only one for whom he volunteered his marriage approval.
I liked the idea of having a visitor, and the idea of bringing this girl to L.A.-- to impress as I never had -- seemed the perfect plan. Unfortunately, it had been a full school year since our mutual confessions (her first in college), and I was shocked by how much one year had apparently dampened our compatibility.
When I left this girl to attend college, she had been a somewhat timid, awkward girl on the cusp of a glorious late bloom. The girl who I picked up at the airport radiated self-confidence, due in part to a flowering that exceeded all expectations; she was a heartbreaker in every sense of the word.
It did not take long for me to realize that this girl had blown past me at the speed of light. Whatever dreams I had of meeting her at the end of the aisle evaporated as I put her on the plane back to Chicago. We still find time to talk occasionally, but I have not seen her face since that day. When it's been three years since you've seen a girl, it becomes harder to believe you are meant to be with her. Not impossible. But definitely harder.
I said good-bye to L.A. as well, and at this time I cannot imagine a scenario where I will return. My filmmaking aspirations have been pushed aside in favor of literature, and thankfully the path to success in that arena runs through no particular city. I’ve accepted that the route to my dreams may be a bit longer and a little more indirect than I would have thought at one time, but if the path to our dreams were clear to us, what would be the reward when we finally reached them?
Friday, December 10, 2004
Back to Back
“Walk it off”
-- the Alpha Male
When I was eight, I broke my leg. I had finally decided to give up soccer (the first sport Midwestern boys have the opportunity to play), but when my parents arranged it so that I could play on the same team as my younger brother I came out of retirement long enough to break both bones in my shin
On the sideline, nobody, including my mother, could accept the possibility that my leg might be broken. That’s what shin guards were for. How could two lanky 8 year olds ever kick each other hard enough to break a leg? Encouraged by my caretakers, I decided to make an attempt at walking my injury away, but the game concluded and the excruciating pain continued.
After I broke down in tears in front of the neighborhood kids, my mother finally entertained the idea that I might have a serious injury. She took me to the hospital where my suspicions (and my mother’s horrors) were confirmed. I had broken both of the bones in my leg. Upon hearing the news my mother’s hands went to her face in shame, while my fists shot up into the air in celebration. Injuries meant status to an eight year-old. I’d get a cast and everything.
I immediately re-retired from soccer, swinging down the sidelines on my crutches in my Kelly Green shirt, watching my brother enjoy the season I never should have played in the first place. Excluding a might-as-well-have-been-broken nose, my life continued into high school without serious injury. Of course, I suffer from asthma and allergies to this day, but neither of those have the prestige of a bloody nose or a shattered tibia. But I’d quickly make up for ten impeccable years with back-to-back traumas that would put all previous incidents to shame.
I’m amazed that with a chronic illness like asthma, my mother has never been too inclined to take me to the doctor. It took some hysterical theatrics to convince her to get my leg X-rayed. They showed similar skepticism when I came home from landscaping for the Village of Milan with a steely ache in the pit of my stomach. I initially though I was merely dehydrated. I inhaled three Gatorades, but still found no relief. I called into work the next day and my mother accompanied me to the doctor.
At the doctor’s office, I ran off my list of symptoms buckled over on top of the examining table. Somewhere in all this drama I had also apparently picked up a rash, which I assumed was poison ivy, so I showed her that as well. When she saw it she asked if it itched (it did not), and then left the room. This would happen several more times. A question asked, followed by a trip out of the room. The pattern did not instill confidence.
Finally, the doctor returned with a diagnosis none of us expected: IGA Nephropathy – a kidney disorder characterized by blood and protein in the urine. The doctor then detailed what I could expect from the progression of the illness. Vomiting (which I had up until that point avoided), more sores (the rash was now characterized by lesions on the skin), and intense stomach pain. Since this disease was clearly not this physician’s forte, the vague description of the disease horrified my mother. Thanks to my cramps I was mostly oblivious, but I was able to make it all the way back home before the operatic fits of vomiting began.
IGA Nephropathy represents a wide spectrum of outcomes and scenarios. They run the gamut from nothing to renal failure, but the doctors were powerless to help me. We just had to sit back and see what happened. What ended up happening was I spent the entire month of July in bed on a strict diet of pedialyte. At the beginning of the summer, when my weight-lifting regimen had been at its most intense, I weighed a shade over 195. When I strapped up for football camp in the first week of August, I weighed 170. I had not weighed that little since junior high, and for the first month of the football season, I got my ass handed to me.
Though the intensity of my illness wore off as time went on, it would still bounce back for a surprise visit every now and then. I missed two starts early in the football season because I was too sick to attend school. But I finally put a full week of practice together for the game against our Catholic school rivals, Alleman.
On the first play, I leapt over a fallen lineman and onto the helmet of the opposite tackle. I immediately went down to one knee, and when I tried to get up I thumped down into the grass. I rolled onto my back and tried to suck the air back into me, astonished that I felt no pain. I was relieved to tell my coaches that I had merely gotten the wind knocked out of me. But after walking to the sidelines to conciliatory applause, I realized I was not ok.
Though I had been hit in the gut, there was excruciating pain in my lower back. I crumpled up on the sidelines until the trainer escorted me into the locker room. After breaking down in the equipment cage, I told them I needed to go the hospital.
When I got there, the emergency room was packed. The fact that I was still standing meant that I could wait. After trying to sit up for ten minutes in the hospital‘s chairs, I slumped onto the floor. I listened to the sound of Just Cause playing on NBC and stared at a cute brunette who had been brought in with a broken wrist, as I tried to find a way to arrange myself to stop the pain.
After a while, I had to pee. My father escorted me to the restroom and waited outside until I came out a few minutes later to tell him:
“There’s blood.”
Clearly I had suffered a fairly intense internal injury and tests needed to be run. However, any pain killers they gave me could corrupt the results. So, I suffered through a CAT scan and a few other examinations (I began to black out by this point) and four hours after I first set foot in the hospital they finally gave me painkillers.
I missed two weeks of school and the rest of the football season. I had suffered a deep kidney bruise. The lineman had hit me so hard that my kidney had crashed up against the inside of my ribs. My problems over the summer only compounded the problem.
It’s a difficult thing to be that young and lose something you love so dearly. At first, the injury seemed mildly romantic -- a good story. But the value of the story could not replace being on the field and I ended my time with the Rock Island Rocks angry and bitter.
The bruise healed, but I will always live with the IGA Nephropathy. The nature of the disease requires me to limit my protein intake, eliminate dairy (which kills me), and take fish oil horse pills and vitamin E vitamins every morning. And still there are no guarantees. If the disease wants to get me, it’ll get me. There’s very little I can do.
-- the Alpha Male
When I was eight, I broke my leg. I had finally decided to give up soccer (the first sport Midwestern boys have the opportunity to play), but when my parents arranged it so that I could play on the same team as my younger brother I came out of retirement long enough to break both bones in my shin
On the sideline, nobody, including my mother, could accept the possibility that my leg might be broken. That’s what shin guards were for. How could two lanky 8 year olds ever kick each other hard enough to break a leg? Encouraged by my caretakers, I decided to make an attempt at walking my injury away, but the game concluded and the excruciating pain continued.
After I broke down in tears in front of the neighborhood kids, my mother finally entertained the idea that I might have a serious injury. She took me to the hospital where my suspicions (and my mother’s horrors) were confirmed. I had broken both of the bones in my leg. Upon hearing the news my mother’s hands went to her face in shame, while my fists shot up into the air in celebration. Injuries meant status to an eight year-old. I’d get a cast and everything.
I immediately re-retired from soccer, swinging down the sidelines on my crutches in my Kelly Green shirt, watching my brother enjoy the season I never should have played in the first place. Excluding a might-as-well-have-been-broken nose, my life continued into high school without serious injury. Of course, I suffer from asthma and allergies to this day, but neither of those have the prestige of a bloody nose or a shattered tibia. But I’d quickly make up for ten impeccable years with back-to-back traumas that would put all previous incidents to shame.
I’m amazed that with a chronic illness like asthma, my mother has never been too inclined to take me to the doctor. It took some hysterical theatrics to convince her to get my leg X-rayed. They showed similar skepticism when I came home from landscaping for the Village of Milan with a steely ache in the pit of my stomach. I initially though I was merely dehydrated. I inhaled three Gatorades, but still found no relief. I called into work the next day and my mother accompanied me to the doctor.
At the doctor’s office, I ran off my list of symptoms buckled over on top of the examining table. Somewhere in all this drama I had also apparently picked up a rash, which I assumed was poison ivy, so I showed her that as well. When she saw it she asked if it itched (it did not), and then left the room. This would happen several more times. A question asked, followed by a trip out of the room. The pattern did not instill confidence.
Finally, the doctor returned with a diagnosis none of us expected: IGA Nephropathy – a kidney disorder characterized by blood and protein in the urine. The doctor then detailed what I could expect from the progression of the illness. Vomiting (which I had up until that point avoided), more sores (the rash was now characterized by lesions on the skin), and intense stomach pain. Since this disease was clearly not this physician’s forte, the vague description of the disease horrified my mother. Thanks to my cramps I was mostly oblivious, but I was able to make it all the way back home before the operatic fits of vomiting began.
IGA Nephropathy represents a wide spectrum of outcomes and scenarios. They run the gamut from nothing to renal failure, but the doctors were powerless to help me. We just had to sit back and see what happened. What ended up happening was I spent the entire month of July in bed on a strict diet of pedialyte. At the beginning of the summer, when my weight-lifting regimen had been at its most intense, I weighed a shade over 195. When I strapped up for football camp in the first week of August, I weighed 170. I had not weighed that little since junior high, and for the first month of the football season, I got my ass handed to me.
Though the intensity of my illness wore off as time went on, it would still bounce back for a surprise visit every now and then. I missed two starts early in the football season because I was too sick to attend school. But I finally put a full week of practice together for the game against our Catholic school rivals, Alleman.
On the first play, I leapt over a fallen lineman and onto the helmet of the opposite tackle. I immediately went down to one knee, and when I tried to get up I thumped down into the grass. I rolled onto my back and tried to suck the air back into me, astonished that I felt no pain. I was relieved to tell my coaches that I had merely gotten the wind knocked out of me. But after walking to the sidelines to conciliatory applause, I realized I was not ok.
Though I had been hit in the gut, there was excruciating pain in my lower back. I crumpled up on the sidelines until the trainer escorted me into the locker room. After breaking down in the equipment cage, I told them I needed to go the hospital.
When I got there, the emergency room was packed. The fact that I was still standing meant that I could wait. After trying to sit up for ten minutes in the hospital‘s chairs, I slumped onto the floor. I listened to the sound of Just Cause playing on NBC and stared at a cute brunette who had been brought in with a broken wrist, as I tried to find a way to arrange myself to stop the pain.
After a while, I had to pee. My father escorted me to the restroom and waited outside until I came out a few minutes later to tell him:
“There’s blood.”
Clearly I had suffered a fairly intense internal injury and tests needed to be run. However, any pain killers they gave me could corrupt the results. So, I suffered through a CAT scan and a few other examinations (I began to black out by this point) and four hours after I first set foot in the hospital they finally gave me painkillers.
I missed two weeks of school and the rest of the football season. I had suffered a deep kidney bruise. The lineman had hit me so hard that my kidney had crashed up against the inside of my ribs. My problems over the summer only compounded the problem.
It’s a difficult thing to be that young and lose something you love so dearly. At first, the injury seemed mildly romantic -- a good story. But the value of the story could not replace being on the field and I ended my time with the Rock Island Rocks angry and bitter.
The bruise healed, but I will always live with the IGA Nephropathy. The nature of the disease requires me to limit my protein intake, eliminate dairy (which kills me), and take fish oil horse pills and vitamin E vitamins every morning. And still there are no guarantees. If the disease wants to get me, it’ll get me. There’s very little I can do.
Crisis of Faith
“O, that way madness lies; let me shun that! No more of that!"
-- King Lear
One of the most influential changes in my worldview came when I could no longer look at faith without seeing the seams; its construction can’t help but show. Where you are, how old you are, who sells the goods to you – these aspects are more essential to a person’s belief system than the beliefs themselves. I can’t say for certain that my parents are atheists, but without a doubt their encouragement of my faith left too many holes to hold back the floodwaters of inquisitiveness that became the driving force of my intellectual development. Had we been an every-Sunday type of family, I’m certain my beliefs would have taken a different shape. As it stands, my parents spoke of a belief in God. They even set up a proper introduction to many of the traditions of Christianity. I was baptized, though I can’t say how well it took. My brother and I attended Sunday school through our elementary years. For a while we said the Lord’s prayer at bedtime. Still, even as a child I could feel my parent’s half-assed commitment to the process.
During the fall of my sophomore year in high school, the death of my great-grandmother sparked a startling increase in my spiritual examinations. I suddenly found myself on a disturbing new plane of understanding; I was smart enough to ask the tough questions about life, God, and the like, but nowhere near smart enough to appease my anxieties myself with satisfactory answers. Christianity proved no match for my irrepressible rationalization, and I quickly realized that faith, blind faith, would never again have a place in my worldview. As this realization hit me, another clubbed me with a much darker and horrific possibility: there was no God. There was nobody looking after me, nobody keeping me safe. And if there’s no God, there’s certainly no heaven; when you’re dead, you’re done.
Suddenly, at 15 years old, I felt I was going to die the next day. I found myself doing the oddest things, like staring at the sun waiting for it to explode. If God was not there to watch out for us, who’s to say the sun can’t just blow up and wipe the entire planet out of existence? My newfound nihilism paralyzed me with a incessant sense of dread and fear and depression. In those few months, I thought I was headed for a complete mental breakdown. I slept almost 12 hours every night just to stop the noise in my head.
My parents, for all of their successes with my brother and I, didn’t quite know how to handle things. I broke down in front of my mother after finally confessing to the source of my odd behavior.
“So, you don’t want to die?” she asked, simply.
“No,” I whined.
“Well, you’re going to, Phil”
Thanks, mom. Your bluntness did wonders.
My dad had an even more difficult time, since clearly my strong adherence to reason came from his side of the family. He didn’t try and persuade me that God existed. He merely tried to make me more comfortable with the idea of death. Not the most effective line of attack for a fifteen year old who thinks the sun is about to explode.
Still, somehow the shock of God's absence slowly diminished into a numbing of the soul. I was able to start sleeping normally. I was able to stop staring at the sun. I became a regular teenager, turning my attention back to success on the football field and to my crush on a senior cheerleader.
Still, next to my quest of becoming a successful writer, my quest for faith ranks a close second. I have spent much of the past 8 years studying, reading, and questioning, in search of an understanding of the world I can live with. If I’m lucky, I might one day find one.
-- King Lear
One of the most influential changes in my worldview came when I could no longer look at faith without seeing the seams; its construction can’t help but show. Where you are, how old you are, who sells the goods to you – these aspects are more essential to a person’s belief system than the beliefs themselves. I can’t say for certain that my parents are atheists, but without a doubt their encouragement of my faith left too many holes to hold back the floodwaters of inquisitiveness that became the driving force of my intellectual development. Had we been an every-Sunday type of family, I’m certain my beliefs would have taken a different shape. As it stands, my parents spoke of a belief in God. They even set up a proper introduction to many of the traditions of Christianity. I was baptized, though I can’t say how well it took. My brother and I attended Sunday school through our elementary years. For a while we said the Lord’s prayer at bedtime. Still, even as a child I could feel my parent’s half-assed commitment to the process.
During the fall of my sophomore year in high school, the death of my great-grandmother sparked a startling increase in my spiritual examinations. I suddenly found myself on a disturbing new plane of understanding; I was smart enough to ask the tough questions about life, God, and the like, but nowhere near smart enough to appease my anxieties myself with satisfactory answers. Christianity proved no match for my irrepressible rationalization, and I quickly realized that faith, blind faith, would never again have a place in my worldview. As this realization hit me, another clubbed me with a much darker and horrific possibility: there was no God. There was nobody looking after me, nobody keeping me safe. And if there’s no God, there’s certainly no heaven; when you’re dead, you’re done.
Suddenly, at 15 years old, I felt I was going to die the next day. I found myself doing the oddest things, like staring at the sun waiting for it to explode. If God was not there to watch out for us, who’s to say the sun can’t just blow up and wipe the entire planet out of existence? My newfound nihilism paralyzed me with a incessant sense of dread and fear and depression. In those few months, I thought I was headed for a complete mental breakdown. I slept almost 12 hours every night just to stop the noise in my head.
My parents, for all of their successes with my brother and I, didn’t quite know how to handle things. I broke down in front of my mother after finally confessing to the source of my odd behavior.
“So, you don’t want to die?” she asked, simply.
“No,” I whined.
“Well, you’re going to, Phil”
Thanks, mom. Your bluntness did wonders.
My dad had an even more difficult time, since clearly my strong adherence to reason came from his side of the family. He didn’t try and persuade me that God existed. He merely tried to make me more comfortable with the idea of death. Not the most effective line of attack for a fifteen year old who thinks the sun is about to explode.
Still, somehow the shock of God's absence slowly diminished into a numbing of the soul. I was able to start sleeping normally. I was able to stop staring at the sun. I became a regular teenager, turning my attention back to success on the football field and to my crush on a senior cheerleader.
Still, next to my quest of becoming a successful writer, my quest for faith ranks a close second. I have spent much of the past 8 years studying, reading, and questioning, in search of an understanding of the world I can live with. If I’m lucky, I might one day find one.
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