Defining ourselves and others (The Like button)

 

Relevance.

Noun.

The quality or state of being closely connected or appropriate.

 

How we see ourselves regarding relevance shapes a great deal of what we say, do, interact with, and create as well as how we see the contributions and well being of others. We may even love someone, yet do not fully see their relevance to things around us anymore “I love you Mom, but you just don’t understand”.

Maybe someone is viewed as too old to be relevant anymore. Or too young for that matter.

When I was young, I was angry when what I said got dismissed. That has continued until fairly recently. It even shaped what I found I had to learn in order to BE relevant. Or how I had to communicate when saying something. I found times where diplomacy worked. And times when screaming was the only method to engage with.

Now as I get closer to the twilight of my life, I find myself worrying about this with more of a focus on viability of what I say: Am I saying, doing, or creating something that is important? 

Relevant to someone.  Anyone?

Self-doubt can become a horrible reason to do (or not do) something. We COULD use it to become better at what we do, or say, or create, but often we just flail about in the dark void of disconnection.

Today using such a wide array of social media and immediate responses, we are becoming even more insecure. The LIKE button is given a great deal of meaning now. We seek individual identity and purpose on one hand yet also find ourselves craving the comfort of our connections to others, to the point of diminishing our own self-esteem when we don’t have it.

Of course there are the introverts and self-balanced isolated folks who do manage to go it without much thought to relevance or the support found in maintaining it with others. Some of them have even found a higher purpose to connect to, even being able to create and do without the praise of others. But then that isolation can become a prison of its own, sometimes creating a cage that can also develop deep fears within individuals.

I have no idea when my relevance will either not be important or simply diminish and dim until it no longer matters, even to me. In the mean time.....

If this is important to you, then by all means, hit the LIKE button.

Hardcore

 

Hardcore

 

I have struggled with what this term means for the better part of my life. 

Maybe even before I heard it. My father was considered by most of the people who knew him to be an expert about it. He epitomized it to most people. He grew up pretty hard. He went to work at a young age. Went in to the army by lying about his age. Worked his way up to the rank of sergeant. Trained troops that fought in WWII. As he started to think about leaving the service of his country, he decided to step into the role of police officer. A motorcycle cop to be exact. In a city that was known to have some pretty tough folks as it residents. His home town of Asbury Park N.J.. He was a proud man. He was a loyal man. He was a man who held the ideals of truth and honor above most things. He believed in all those old adages like God and country and the ability for men to do right by each other. And if they didn’t he was willing to put himself in harms way, step between them and demand justice.

    He was doing that one night, directing traffic at a busy intersection in a black night when the power had gone out. A drunk driver never saw him. He ran over him and never even slowed down. Never saw the six foot four inches of him standing there waving a flashlight.

    My father survived that accident. He had a broken back, ribs, multiple lacerations over most of his body. Deep wounds to his knees. Scars he would carry from that accident and the surgeries he endured would be part of him for the rest of his life. This happened the year I was born. During my life I saw him struggle with the damage from that night. But in all that I saw him go through in the way of physical pain, I never heard him cry out, never saw him take the pain out on anybody else or blame the world for the hand it had dealt him. I saw him stand as tall as he could at all times. I never saw his spirit diminish even once from being the warrior he was known to be to others.

    Nothing can be said by me about me father without also saying something about the woman who stood by his side my entire life, my mother. If my father was seen as strong, then my mother was a rock. She had a spirit that would match his step for step. She was with him through the thick and the thin. The sickness and the health of them both. The good and the bad. With all the many challenges I saw her face I never saw her wince once. I only saw her shed tears three times in my whole life. One of those times was when my father crossed over. She was a person who had great ability to see into the souls of others. She had a tongue that could lash as quickly as the fastest rapier in the world. But she had a side that understood passion and art as well. If my father was the simple, strong hard working defender that he was, she was the balance with wisdom, intuition and tenacity that was the kind of strength that a man like him wanted to come home to every night. As a girl growing up during the depression in New Jersey, she had seen both suffering and opulence. But above all else she admired strength. Not just physical strength, which she liked, but more importantly strength of character. 

Guts. Determination. And she infused them into her children.

   These were my parents. Most of what I am today is owed to them, good or bad. My strengths and short comings are all there for the most part. I am proud of both of them and all that they gave me. They certainly did their very best. I often let them down. But they never gave up on me. When I achieved something of merit or value it was celebrated. But I was also told many times that I could do better. Giving up was NOT an option. There would never be a surrender allowed. 

Defeat maybe, but never a surrender.

Four of a Kind

 

Four of a Kind

 

 

A black poet writes the words for the caged birds song,

expressing the feelings of a suppressed race.

 

A red leader paints pictures of beauty,

not allowing captivity to imprison what his mind sees.

 

A yellow musician plays instruments trying to portray

the creation of a world that knows only harmony.

 

A white man builds a house that is one with nature

only to see the partial reality of his imagination.

 

We all look to express the inspiration that frees us

from the bondage of our captured existence.

 

Freedom found within the soul of each of us

is the only true sovereignty.

7/21/1997 (Rage On)

 

7/21/97

(Rage On)

 

One more day.  One more day to walk dazedly through the wasteland of my life. Occasionally, I find an artifact left over from a glorious time long past. The loneliness is crushing.  It is like a great void.  An emptiness that doesn't ever seem to go away. The hardest part is the waiting.  Not knowing if the phone will ever ring.  Not knowing if life has any hope.  Or any meaning.

The world is so fucked up.  People hate each other for no reason other than their own pain. We have all been tortured beyond any reasonable hope for healing.  We languish in our misery and we seem to wallow in the feeling of hopelessness that confronts us.  We are nothing but cannon fodder for an apocalypse long overdue.  If we had the guts, we would just cease our existence.  Instead, we trudge along waiting for something to end our suffering and take away the shattered dreams.  We cling to our precious few moments of joy like life jackets in twenty foot seas.  We know they won't save us, but what else can we do.

We are told we must have faith.  But where do we seek this distant shore?  Which way do we look for it?  Does it come to us like a hand suddenly thrust to us out of the dark?  Or is it an inner peace that comes with the final acceptance of our lot in life?  If we seek truth and are able to perceive to the moment of clarity that gives us a glimpse of it, how then do we not become cynical?  How then do we not say "fuck it, it just doesn't mean shit anyway"?  In looking at the glory of God that is left in this world, it is indeed a small flicker of light in a great field of darkness.  The yearning inside never seems to abate itself. The hunger never dies.  But, do we have the right to eat that sustenance which is so sweetly longed for?  Do we dare beg and reach for it like starving street urchins, just to have it yanked away at the last second?  Yet another cruel trick.  Or do we become arrogant and try to take what we feel is ours, only to be smashed to bits, our hopes crushed by our own insolence. 

I don't know how much more testing I can endure.  I hate the way I feel.  I feel like crying and laughing at the same time.  I want the gentle loving thing, but I want to rip the heart out of some of the people I see.  How can I pray for everyone and yet curse all I see.  I hate the conflicts within my being.  I feel weak and tired and I despise this.  I can not stand being weak.  I fear growing old more then I fear Death itself.  And I loath the lonely feelings I have had for so long.  These conflicts have driven every thing good away from me.  Damaged goods.  I wasn't keeping score of all the hits I had taken.  When I was little, I used to cry about them.  Then as I grew older, I fought over them.  Now I just try to tough them out or blow them off.  Sometimes, I ask God for the strength to carry things with me and I try to find a way to get rid of them.  But, it doesn't always work and my faith feels even weaker.  The dark side pulls at me very hard. It knows how much I liked it when I lived there.  It's a good place to hide.  Not safe.  Just good.  Nobody good ever goes there.  They never look for anybody there.  But, now when I go there I see faces that look at me as something that I am to them.  A hope for something better.  Because they look at me as a way out of the darkness, I know my being there hurts them.  I can't tell them the truth of what I see around me.  Or within me either.  Both would hurt them too much.  I care for them too much.  I guess I always have, but didn't admit it.  So I can't quite step into the darkness either.  No place to go.

 

No retreat...No surrender...No peace.