Things have gotten pretty political around here lately, and I know that doesn’t interest everyone, so we’ll put that on hold for a while for your sake, and frankly, for mine. I just can’t take it for too long. I just find myself getting worked up over it all, and I need to take a break, to step away for a bit.

In that vein, I’ve decided it’s time to talk about something a great many people don’t understand. Depression is a very real medical and psychological condition, which isn’t solved by “a little more Jesus,” or “Just get over it,” or “He really should just grow up.” I have heard each of these responses to the topic of depression, and how it’s not real, it’s “just in your head,” and if you were stronger it wouldn’t be a problem.

I think a lot of the ignorant comments surrounding this disease comes from, well, ignorance for one, but it’s a very difficult thing to understand when you don’t know how it feels. I will attempt to dispel the fog surrounding how it feels to be depressed. Understand that how /I/ experience depression may be very different than someone else, but generally, many of the hallmarks are universal. This post is one I have tried to write a number of times, but have never quite been able to come up with the words, but after a particularly tough morning, I sent what follows to a friend, and for the first time, I felt like I had a decent glimpse of what it feels like:

Some days everything just goes wrong all at once and it feels like everything you have is just slipping away into nothingness, and you’ll be left standing there staring into the void wondering what you did to deserve this, what you could have done differently to avoid it. But then you realize that it doesn’t matter anyways, because it’s all gone and there’s no getting it back, no recovery, there’s only you and you have two choices: pick up and move on or stay put and let the void consume you, and you wonder if there’s even a difference.

Imagine you’ve gone to a soothsayer, who has a penchant for never being wrong, and she tells you that “Tomorrow, your world will end. You will not go to heaven, you will not go to hell. You will cease to exist, and everything about you will be forgotten forever. You will leave no legacy, you will simply never have existed.” The opportunists in the crowd will take this advice as carte blanche to have a ball. But really think about it. Look around you at everyone you love, everything you’ve done. All the lives you have touched, and all the lives who have touched you. Nothing. NOTHING will remain. Your life and all the hard work you’ve put in amount to nothing. And nothing meant anything. Why did you even bother?

Pretty depressing, huh? Now imagine waking up with that feeling every morning. Imagine taking a shower, brushing your teeth, doing any of the hundreds of mundane little things you have to do just to get ready to, what, go to work? And what for? Does it matter? Will it ever?

It’s those thoughts that fester in the mind, that gnaw and eat their way through any barriers of thought and reason. They form an impenetrable downward spiral, neigh impossible to stop, even when you know it’s happening. Fear leads to doubt, leads to anxiety, leads to self-doubt, leads to loathing, leads to nothing. All roads lead to Nothingness.

These are feelings that I have lived with since I was about 9 years old. It started off with my just not feeling quite right. I remember not really feeling like all the other kids /looked/ like they felt. So I started to fake it. I kept it to myself because I didn’t understand it, and it was easy enough to keep up the act, but when I got to high school, I began to wear thin. I spoke with a mentor about everything, and started seeing a counselor. I didn’t like him, and quit going. I also got on medication, which I took for a while and quit. That song and dance was repeated often. I’ve been through more medications than I can remember, and I’ve seen a handful of counselors, most of whom I ended up quitting, disappointed in their inattention and silly games. I have continued to quit the medications cold-turkey when I get on them.

It has been a long process, and I have not been the best patient, but I will, this coming week, be visiting the doctor to get back on the medication. It’s occurred to me that maybe I need to get this depression in check, because there are too many people who it affects. My ability to keep up the act 24/7 has waned, and I’m beginning to lash out and hurt people around me. So it’s time to swallow my pride, and get the help I need.

But as for depression itself, some people are depressed because of some major life event they can’t get a handle on. Some people are depressed because of neurochemical imbalance. Some people are depressed for, well, the list goes on and on.

There’s good news, though. Our good friend Science has given us a plethora of anti-depressant medications which fiddle with your brain bits and help you feel normal again. There are counselors, and therapists, and pastors, and gurus, and friends, and chocolate. It’s not the same for everyone, but it’s no less insidious, and it can cause some very real life-altering problems.

So let’s talk. Do you know someone who is clinically depressed? Are you? How do they deal with it? How do you? Do you have any questions about depression? If so, please ask, and I’ll do my best to answer them. So let’s talk. Let’s all gain a little understanding.

I use my name in my URL. I use my name as the author of these posts. I am not afraid of being found on the internet, nor should anyone who uses Facebook, twitter, etc. Especially if you have ever (even accidentally) left the GPS information in a picture you posted, or a tweet you made. Let’s face it: in this day of unending connectivity, we are more identifiable than ever.

That said, the Internet lends itself to a great sense of anonymity if you choose. Domains can be registered under any name (for now), you can post to websites under any number of pseudonyms, and you can tell anyone anything you like, because, you don’t have to connect your real life to the internet. This has its positives and negatives, to be sure.

On the positive side, it allows people in oppressive countries to voice their concerns and complaints in a forum everyone can see, and not become a prisoner of the state in the process. On the negative, it allows people to get away with any number of heinous acts of abuse and depravity against people, children, etc. I don’t think anyone can say that it wouldn’t be good if we could do something to stop these acts, particularly those involving children.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the very same representative who introduced SOPA, has introduced a new bill right on the heels of the suspension of PIPA and SOPA. It’s called H.R. 1981 or the “Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011.” The bill would be more aptly named “H.R. 1984,” but I suppose the PR fallout would be a bit much.

I linked the bill there, but The Atlantic explains it well enough.

In short, the bill would require your ISP to keep records of everything you’ve done on the internet, attached to your IP address and YOUR NAME, along with financial information and any other personal identification. These records would be kept FOR 18 MONTHS. So, now, your ISP has a big database of your personal information tied to everything that’s been done through your internet connection.

There are a number of perfectly legal activities one could engage in online that one would rather not be remembered. While perhaps offensive to the moral sensitivities of some, the fact remains that pornography or adultery or what have you are perfectly legal. These should, in no way, be able to be used by your government against you in any way. But under this new legislation, they could be. Suspicious spouse? File a divorce, and get a subpoena during discovery, and your entire browsing history is suddenly public record.

As it stands, the reasons for which a person’s data could be subpoenas are extremely lax, leading to a government by fear, which in fact, is a tactic the Atlantic points out was used quite effectively by Russia’s communist leadership. But the lax position on subpoenas is really a minor problem. The problem is in the requirement for a database to begin with.

Let’s put aside for a moment the absurdly heavy-handed approach to catching a very small number of criminals, and focus on the track record of companies keeping our data safe: Sony is hacked for months before they notice, Bioware was hacked, exposing EA data, Zappos, Sony again, and . . . well, do you get my point? Intrusions happen. And they are happening a lot. Perhaps they’re just getting more press, but the fact remains: data is NOT secure, no matter how hard they try.

So, when someone hacks your ISP and gains the data in this master database of you, it’s just a matter of contacting you (using all that fun information they have about you), and blackmailing you for whatever they want, really, or they’ll tell the world you have a latex fetish. Or you meet up with people from Craigslist. While maybe not wholesome, these actions are not not illegal, and they’re certainly no one’s business but your own. Certainly not the hacker’s, and certainly not your government’s.

Don’t get me wrong: child pornography is a dastardly, disgusting thing, and it really should be stopped. However, as I said with SOPA, the loss of liberty of an entire country for the capture of a few is NOT justice. It is, in fact, the opposite, and I don’t believe for a second that these congressmen believe this (and any other similar) bill is for the greater good. This bill is hiding behind abused and defiled children, in the interest of increased government surveillance. Shame on Rep. Smith, and shame on our government for trying.

Lamar Smith has shown a clear disregard for the safety and protection of any of his constituents, and it is a symptom of a government who assumes it no longer has bounds, or a commitment to its people. It’s a symptom of a government, of a leadership, so used to getting exactly what they want, they will do what best serves themselves, not the people they represent. It’s a disgusting glut, and as we enter election time again, we must keep that in mind.

SOPA and PIPA may be dead, but the fight for the safety of the internet and privacy from our government is far from over. Stay vigilant, and don’t let up.

So let’s talk about what we can do. About what steps we can take, who must we contact, and where do we go from here?

I’ve posted about SOPA and PIPA before. It’s a pretty big deal, mostly due to the rather wide berth it gives rights-holders in censoring and redefining the flow of information on the web. This needs to be stopped, and the only way we can do that is by letting our elected representatives understand where we stand on the subject. Below, you will find a sample letter (and, in fact, the letter I sent to my congressmen).

But, keep in mind there is another evil. The rights-holders who are pushing this legislation and some new ICANN rules (about which you can read more on Adam Curry’s Blog) are really the target of our ire. While our elected officials should certainly not be pushed around by corporate lobbyists, we must also understand that they pay those lobbyists with the dollars we spend on their entertainment. We, as a people, have fought Big Tobacco, Big Oil, Big Medical, and now we need to add Big Entertainment to the fight.

We need tell them that it is NOT okay to push for a decrease in our freedoms. It is NOT okay for them to dictate national and international policy for the internet. What they’re trying to do is NOT okay. And we shouldn’t stand for it. Just keep that in mind as you consider SOPA, PIPA, and any other legislation proposing to do the same.

Sample Letter:

—-
To whom it may concern:

Currently, under your watch, two bills are being considered which will be detrimental to the free Internet as we know it. One in your purview, one in the other half of congress. The bills are SOPA and the Protect IP Act. These bills mean to allow corporate and governmental censorship across the globe, based on the flimsiest of accusations and without judicial review. They must not be passed.

Understand, my objection lies not in the purported reason for the bills. Online theft and piracy have grown to ridiculous proportions, and the rights holders have a right to justice. I do not have a problem with that. However, many acts of atrocity have been leveled against mankind under the name of truth, of justice. And while SOPA and PIPA are no genocide or ethnic cleansing, they do pose a significant threat to the future of innovation, of the Internet, which the UN has declared a basic human right. How can you reasonably assert that the destruction of a global commodity, which enables global communication and cooperation to an extent unheard of before, is a fair and just way of dealing with an effective minority of misfits and misanthropes?

First, for such a law to be reasonable, it must learn from the mistakes of the DMCA. These bills do not. Under their provisions, there still exists no judicial review, the accused still stands guilty and punished before being sentenced, and that goes against our most sacred law: The US Constitution. Secondly, these bills give wide and far-reaching punitive powers to rights-holders, which can affect websites far outside of the (expansive) jurisdiction of the United States. The method outlined in these bills would change the backbone infrastructure of the entire internet: DNS records. These records are what tell your computer where a website is located. They translate that “google.com” into an IP address which is how computers tell other computers where they are. A bit oversimplified, but good enough. By altering these records, you threaten stability and efficiency of a global communications medium, which has enabled people world-wide to protest cruel and oppressive governments. Is endangering that means of communication worth the few dollars in sales you would protect for Warner Brothers?

Further, the method outlined is largely ineffective. While you may block access to a website by its name when you change the DNS records, that website is still entirely functional and reachable by its IP address anyway. So what good have you done, other than to make ever so slightly more difficult, but still entirely possible to navigate to an infringing website? All the while, opening up the internet to gross exploitation of these bills for corporations to shut down (even if temporarily) rivals and competitors. This isn’t justice for anyone; it’s a business strategy for media companies.

This country was founded by a group of people with a radical sense of individualism. Granted, many of the people wanting freedom from British rule had business interests in mind, and we cannot forget that, but they also believed in those rights for everyone else, including their competitors. These two bills, and their sponsors, are a shameful mark on the face of our country’s history, showing blatantly and obviously that we are now willing to kowtow to corporate money and interests, rather than being vigilant to protect the interests of the people. And in this case, the interests of the world itself.

You walk a dangerous precipice. This is a watershed moment for our future: do we uphold freedom and protect the greatest means of global community ever invented, or do we protect private interests and trust funds, the world and the internet be damned? We voted for you. We dislike SOPA and PIPA. We trust you do make the right choice and vote against SOPA and PIPA as they stand.

Thank you for your time.

—-

These last few days, largely as a part of my renewed kick to be healthy, I’ve taken to going for walks after work. I go for about an hour, which end up being a little over 3.5 miles. In that hour, I plug in my headphones, queue up some music from my phone or Spotify and just walk.

It’s become apparent to me that this activity is healthy in a way other than for my heart. It’s a salve for the soul, really. A moment of peace in an otherwise hectic day. I know a good number of you already know this. But it’s a new sensation for me. Rather than getting bored with the monotony, I look forward to a chance to de-stress and decompress at the end of the day. A chance to just drown out any other problems or pending issues, and it just gives me some time to relax. And pant a little. But that’s okay too.

It got me to thinking as I walked this evening, how much such a routine could be beneficial for everyone. My wife has recently purchased a rabbit which lives in our guest room. Before bed, she goes to let it out of its hutch, run around a bit, eat some hay and oats, and just generally be cute. Don’t believe me?

See? Told you so.

When she gave that as a reason for purchasing the rabbit, I scoffed a bit, but now I see the value in it. You’ve got to have something to release, to switch-off, at least for a while. It helps you re-focus, re-evaluate your position, and just generally be a little more content than with what you’ve got, and where you are.

It gives you a chance to think, too, if you like. To work out a problem in a non-threatening, non-pressing environment. During that time of meditation, whatever form it may take, lets you take a fresh look at whatever’s been bothering you lately, and often, you can find a solution, or at least figure out something to try. Somehow, not being under pressure allows you to think a little less “in-the-box”, allows you to be a little more creative.

Let’s talk. So how about you? What’s your outlet? Your time of meditation? What do you do so you don’t have any responsibility, and can just relax for a while? If you don’t have that time, I’d challenge you to try it for a week. Even just a few days, and report back with what you’ve found out about yourself. Let’s all just sit back, relax, and enjoy ourselves for a few minutes a day.

I have been overweight and lazy about it for far longer than I care to admit. I never much liked it, but I never much wanted to do anything about it either. Like I said. Lazy. My weight stayed more or less in check through middle school, when I was pretty active playing Basketball, but when I got to high school, I stopped playing basketball, started playing golf, largely with the use of golf carts. We’d walk occasionally, so it wasn’t terrible, but nothing near the activity level I had when I was playing basketball.

The drop in activity level, plus an increase in junk food and increasing amounts of TV led to a pretty major increase in weight, and then came college. OH GOD. College. With the unlimited fried food in the cafeteria, the long nights munching snacks, drinking soda, and let’s face it: beer. My weight ballooned. I went from a pretty solid 250 to 300, then when I finished school, I spent 10 months unemployed, eating too much frozen crap, and I ended up around 330 by August of last year.

I started having chest pains in early May, sometimes pretty severe. And while the symptoms weren’t exactly matching heart attack symptoms, it was pretty scary. Scary enough, in fact, I left work and drove myself to the ER. After a series of blood tests, EKGs, and chest x-rays, they decided to keep me over night to run more cardiac tests the following morning. I was easily the youngest patient on the cardiology floor, and it was, to say the least, embarrassing. Being wheeled around, heart monitors attached, at 24 years old was a wake-up call.

After I got a clean bill of health, I went home with a very real motivation to actually lose some weight. After looking at a number of options, I decided that just plain old calorie counting was probably the best way to go, so I signed up for a site called My Fitness Pal. You can input foods and it will track calories, protein, carbohydrates, etc. It’s pretty great, and they even have apps for the iPhone and Android, which make it even easier to track your calories.

Through calorie restriction and exercise (Walking, a little jogging, recumbent bikes), I lost 40 pounds between May and August. It was decided that my chest pains were a result of a non-functioning gallbladder, and I had surgery to remove it. With the recovery period, some ridiculous situations at work, and some added stress due to some other family health problems, I fell off the wagon. between August and January, I went from the 291 I had dropped to back up to 317. When I discovered how much weight I had gained back, I was pretty discouraged, but my wife and I decided to get back to it.

So here we are again, counting calories, and exercising. I’ve already lost 12 pounds of that, and will soon be under 300 again. I can’t wait. I was looking at a few things on the MyFitness pal site, and I noticed they make progress banners. like this one:

Created by MyFitnessPal – Free Calorie Counter

I’ll be adding this banner to my About page, and I hope you all will help keep me honest. It’s a long road, but eventually, I’ll be hitting that 220 mark at the end of the banner.

This one, I think, deserves discussion more than most things. I know that many of you are in similar positions, though maybe not quite as extreme. So let’s share some ideas, some thoughts, some encouragement, and let’s all get healthy together. Every so often, I’ll post an update, and maybe some particularly good recipes I come across. I hope you’ll do the same.

So let’s talk. How healthy are you? Could you stand to lose a few pounds? Have a story of fantastic weight loss? How’d you do it? What could we all learn from your journey?

Of course, there’s no way to cover such a broad topic at once, so I imagine this one will be spaced out over many posts and over much time. But seeing as we’re in some pretty sketchy economic times, with people struggling to get by, it seems an appropriate topic. So, today, let’s talk about (very) basic money management.

“A penny saved is a penny earned,” says the wisdom of old. And it’s true, no doubt. But it, like most things in life, is a far cry more difficult done than said. But there are a number of things we can do to make it easier to get by, even prosper. I’ll outline a few of those today.

First and foremost, you HAVE to gain an understanding of your own financial situation. How much do you make a month? How much do you spend? Is the that first number smaller than the second? If so, you’ve got a problem. But don’t worry. You aren’t alone. And while I know that seems elementary, my time spent working as a bank teller taught me that there are a vast number of people who fail to understand this. There are a few useful tools to do this. Mint is an excellent tool, which lets you add all of your various bank accounts, credit cards, loans, investments, etc. If anyone else knows of another tool that works as well as Mint, please let me know. If you’re not too keen on giving all your bank account login info to a third party, I understand. I’m not either, but I did it anyway, and I have not had any problems so far.

So. Look at your income. (If you’re an hourly employee who doesn’t always work quite the same number of hours, average your hours/week for the last few months and go from there). Look at your expenses. Subtract the two, and that’s how much available or liquid money you have. If you don’t like the look of that number, don’t worry. You aren’t alone. It’s an easy place to be these days. We’ve entered a subscription hungry era in technology. Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, Web Hosing, Internet, Cell Phones with Data plans. There’s a lot of little expenses that can really add up. Plus, gas and food costs are constantly going up, so it’s a hard game of which to stay ahead. And if you’re discovering you don’t have quite the liquid income you’d like, you’ll have to cut back a little bit.

So. Look at what is NECESSARY. Rent/Mortgage, Car Payment, Electric, Water, Food, Gas: these will keep you alive and with a job. What’s pretty important for your professional life / livelihood? Cell phone (Or some phone), internet, . Now, add all those up, and subtract it from your income. How’s that look? Better? Good.

Now, what’s completely unnecessary that you’d like to keep? Data plans? Hulu? Netflix? Cheese of the Month Club? What of these things can you live without? Consider this when looking at what you might cut: if you make $10/hr at your job, those Hulu and Netflix subscriptions will cost you at least 2 hours of your life a month. Have discs with netflix? You’re looking at 3 or 4 hours of your life a month. Is it worth that much to you? How about that Cheese of the month club? You’re donating 3 hours a month to new and exciting cheeses. It makes it easier to decide what to live without.

Now, here’s another thought: What if your car breaks down? You get a ticket? Did you include that up there in your list of necessary expenses? Probably not, and you’re not alone with that either. So you’ll need to make sure that you have enough “free” money left over to save up a little for those unfortunate surprise expenses.

If you don’t have one already, I suggest you go talk to your bank or credit union about a savings account. Find out what the requirements are, and figure out how quickly you can meet them to avoid having any fees. Then, every time you get paid, take some small amount from your paycheck and put it in the savings account. $5, $10, $500. Whatever you can afford. It may seem insignificant, and that’s good. You want it to be. It needs to be money you won’t notice as missing. If you do too much, you risk having to pull from savings, and if you get in that habit, you’ll never save anything. So, make it something you know you can handle, and as you adjust to the change, you’ll find you can keep doing more. That way, when you do have an emergency situation, you don’t jump for the credit cards or worry where it’s going to come from.

Now. I realize this is not always possible. Sometimes, those necessary expenses are bigger than your income without anything left over for the kind of necessary ones and certainly none for the unnecessary ones. In such instances, I’m afraid I may not be much help. Your options are slim, but you have to look for ways to reduce the expenses to fall more inline with your income. Is there somewhere with cheaper rent? Do you have a car payment you can reduce by trading in/down? Can you get enough internet in your area for free without having a subscription at home? I’m open to lots of input here.

This post hasn’t even scratched the surface, but it’s give us a good starting point. The biggest thing to remember is so simple its ridiculous to say, but its implications are far reaching, and it’s often very difficult to put into practice. SPEND LESS THAN YOU MAKE. That’s it.

Am I full of it? Let me know. Got a strategy that works for you? Let all of us know. Worried that I didn’t cover a topic? Let me know, I’ll get to it some time. Let’s talk. What’s troubling you about your financial situation?

No. Not like that. I mean people we meet, spend time with, befriend, and ultimately, drift apart from. It’s a fact of life, not everyone you were friends with back in elementary school is still your friend now. Not your first crush, not your second crush, not your best friend who you dodged all kinds of trouble with back in high school.  People move apart. Simple as that.

A recent conversation with Rachelskirts brought a lot of thoughts about this phenomenon to the surface, and I think it’s something worth visiting, as we enter a new year, when we’re all usually feeling a bit over-nostalgic anyhow. She pointed me to this post by Sarah Brown  (who I think we can credit as being a major influence for Rachelskirts). It’s short, so it’s worth a read, but to summarize: letting go of people is tough because they impacted you so deeply, you hold out for hope that you can always be close.

This is an exceptionally sunny and, potentially, heartbreaking approach to the matter. And this way of coping with these events is not without merit. It espouses a more optimistic outlook. It makes your memories more keen, less dull. It allows for the full spectrum of emotion in your thought-life as you reminisce when you pass an old haunt: coffee shop, school, perhaps even motel. You feel deeply, but it also means that when things come to an end you hurt deeply. You long for those good times again, and you have trouble letting go. A deeper felt hurt lends to more fond memories of the past. You live in the moment, and then in the past. But in the moment, you’re really living. You just have to make sure not to get stuck in the past.

I, on the other hand, don’t really deal with the situation that way. I’m not very good at living in the moment. I tend to live in the future, always looking for what’s next. I don’t mean to say I’m constantly unhappy with my present–quite the contrary, I feel like I’m in a pretty good position in life right now–but that does not mean that I stop and try to look into the future for what’s next. The same goes with people. I suppose I always have some subconscious reticence to forge deep ties with my peers.

I have had any friends, many good friends along the way. Many people who have left impregnable marks upon me and who I am, as I have upon them. But people are transient. Many of these people I’ll never see again, never even talk to again. Sure, there’s maybe the odd “Happy Birthday” on Facebook, but that doesn’t really mean much. And while some would view it as sad that these connections are lost, I just see it as a naturally occurring part of life. People flow in and out of our lives, no one more or less important than any one else, just some sticking around longer than others. We learn from, grow with, and impress ourselves on each other, but then it ends. They go do the same with someone else, and so do you. Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work.

I guess maybe it sounds cold and cynical, but that’s not really it at all. It’s just an acknowledgement that maybe, just maybe, it’s okay to let someone grow into who they’re going to be, and it’s okay to let yourself grow into who you’re going to be, and that often means you’re growing in two different directions. In many ways, you helped shape those paths for each other, if you’re feeling the cosmic irony of it all.

But every person from the past is worth remembering, worth thinking about, but ultimately not worth regretting the decisions you’ve made that led to your separation. Because those decisions got you to where you can make new friends, as long as you’re willing to let the old ones go. These too will likely not last forever, but you know what? That’s okay. It’s just another step, and it’s your job to help each other get where you’re going, wherever that may lead.

So. Let’s talk. How do you handle the ebbs and flows of people and friends through your life? Do you cling for dear life, or do you just see where it’ll take you. Do you mourn the loss, or do you get excited for what’s next? Am I full of crap? Maybe! Let me know.

Let’s talk.

After 7 years of being online as the pseudonymous “Thursday’s Child,” I have decided to do away with anonymity, because, let’s face it, I wasn’t that hard to find anyhow. And, well, I guess I’ve just outgrown it.  While it was fun, and I’ll still be keeping the other domain, I’ll likely just use it for email, since I have a number of things attached to that email address.  I’ll be posting here.  And with new focus.

My blog has always been about me. But it’s becoming readily apparent, that road has been trod a few too many times, and the pickings for posts has grown perilously thin. Indeed, I have come to accept that I am not an interesting individual, nor will I probably ever be. The only thing I’ve got going for me, in the regard of interest, is my brain, and well, I guess I keep that to myself.  But not any more.  My brain is filled with all manners of fantastical, mythic, and ridiculous thoughts just like yours is. That’s what makes brains so special. They’re grey and squishy, and all look about the same, but they contain within them infinite worlds.  Words and pictures and smells, all different, all new and novel to anyone else but you.  And then there’s the internet.

Websites all look relatively the same. There’s some flashing something, some rectangles, some words, some pictures. But they’re all drastically different. You’ve got photo blogs, news blogs, science blogs, personal blogs, fiction blogs, artist portfolios, Facebook, Google Plus. All of them the same, but all of them unique and novel to anyone who hasn’t been there before, and each one novel every new day when you log on, filled with the brain matter of other people. So let’s all put our brains to it, and see what we might do to help each other out, eh?

We’re all good at something. So we all have something to contribute. Some of us are good at contributing boring, but necessary, things. Some of us are good at contributing exciting, but unnecessary, things. Some of are good at contributing boring, but still unnecessary things. And the world goes on.  Me? I’m a problem solver. I look at problems and try to break them into component parts, and solve a piece at a time. It doesn’t always work, and for that, I’ve got other people who are good at other things to help me along.

So let’s talk. Let’s talk about money. About credit. About debt. About investing. About cooking. About that nasty English paper you’ve got coming up. Let’s talk about photography and poetry. Let’s talk about love and about hate and about that mean guy two cubicles over.

Maybe, just maybe, together, we can get through this big ole nasty world together. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll be all the better for it. I’ll offer what tips I can. You can correct me if I’m wrong. I will often be wrong. I will often be right. There will often be no right answer.

For those of you who know me, you’re probably wondering who’s taken over my blog, and what they’ve done with the real me. I assure you, I’m of sound mind. I just want to try something new. So bear with me as I work out the kinks. Go ahead and help if you like. That’s the idea.

This will continue to be my blog where I make posts sporadically about any number of things. But I want to experiment with it being your blog, too. When you want to say something that doesn’t fit on your own. Or that you can’t fit in 140 characters.  Go ahead and send them to me. My email is in the about page.

I’ll go through them, post them either alone or smashed up with others, giving credit if you want, or leaving it anonymous. I’ll respond to each one here, so that maybe someone else having that problem might benefit. Let’s see what we can do.

When it comes down to it, what do you have you lose? Besides. Trust me. I’m from the internet!

*NB: The thumbnail image you saw is a painting by a Cuban artist who painted three of those, as commissioned by my father. They’re a representation of the scripture which says to bear one another’s burdens. While I may not really be a religious guy, it’s a pretty good way to live, and is kind of the idea of this experiment.

I am a young man. Impetuous, a true idiot, and far from wise. I say this not to be self-deprecating, or to garner any specific sympathy or support. I say this so you may forgive me if I come across as glib or overly morose. I also say this to make it clear how obvious this situation is.

10 years. A milestone for myriad occasions. High school graduations, marriages, employment. A nice round number: long enough to have seen many changes, not so long as to make you forget where it all began, so you can still recognize change. 10 years since two planes flew into NYC skyscrapers, one into the Pentagon, and one into Terra Firma, PA. Truly a turning point for our nation, but in retrospect, it seems like we may have made a wrong turn.

Historically, tragedy has been a force of growth and definition for our country. Pearl Harbor, for example, galvanized a nation to war, proving beyond doubt our military and economic prowess, which netted us global dominance in many arenas. Granted, we already held international respect for many of our accomplishments, specifically our burgeoning trade and industry. WWII, though, showed the world that we meant business, and while the attach in Hawaii was tragic, it slingshot us to greatness. At least for a time.

Countless regional disasters have also served to gird the loins of American prosperity. The Chicago fires, the major earthquakes in California, etc. Each of these led to a reanalysis of laws, policies, and they were expanded–sometimes created–to create a better place, safer and more conducive to our lifestyle. And after these, we succeeded. We became wealthy, successful, and respected. Not by everyone, of course, but what country is? Then came 2001. We were coming off of a largely economically successful presidency (and there are always arguments on either side of that issue), and hopes were high that it would continue. Then came September 11.

The events of that day plunged our country into a panicked frenzy. Mobs were attacking any brown person around. Merchants were gouging consumers, who were equally scared. Our people were hurting our own out of fear, and maybe even a little greed, but even with that, we eventually learned to quell the violence. But many never learned to quell the hatred. Our news media, the purported voices of reason, spread fear and hate for ratings, and what’s worse, there are people who take the pundits at face value. They spew hatred and intolerance, and people just eat it up. Internalize it. Realize it. As a result, our reputations has become that we are the pulse of intolerance and ignorance. And, simply, it’s repulsive.

It’s now 10 years later, and a lot has happened. We entered two unending theaters of war, we found and captured one dictatorial leader, who was hung amidst celebration by his mistreated people. Then, we actually found and killed the man believed to be behind the very attacks that happened 10 years ago. We killed him, too. Amidst these military victories, we have also given up a number of civil rights, and pieces of our sense of decency. We’ve allowed our disabled and elderly to be humiliated at the hands of under-trained and overzealous airport security guards. We are as confused and scared and flummoxed as ever, and this is after 10 (T-E-N) years.

The media will be talking all day about how we should be honoring the memories of the people who died. But we’ve done a pretty poor job of that in the last decade haven’t we, then? Our grand memorial at ground zero has barely been started, largely due to money grubbing and squabbling amongst contractors. We have let fear take over our media. There is still wide-spread and unilateral hatred of anyone with brown skin. What have we become, really?

We have not honored these peoples’ lives. And we won’t ever, not until we step back and reprioritize. We are losing money hand over fist to two wars, despite our crippling debt, which is made worse by inactive political leaders, too powerful corporate lobbies, and corporations grabbing for every last dollar without giving back to the communities which fostered their grown from their infancies. It’s made worse by desperation and frustration of the millions looking for jobs. It’s made worse by helplessness and hopelessness in change. We really need to just step back and look at what it means to be American. To be us, not to police the world, not to tell any other country what government is good and what is bad.

We need to just “do us,” for a while, at least until we’re back on our feet and not still reeling from poor decision making and a sucker punch that happened 10 years ago. We need to regroup, refocus, and look at what we lost. Then, we need to move forward. Build from that loss, and do what we’ve always done: come back better and stronger than ever before. But how?

I don’t know. How do you get out of the wars we’ve started? How do you step back and regroup? I have no idea, but something’s got to give, and it cannot be the already flagging American vigor and livelihood. The successful plan is the plan which brings us back to our roots. The plan that reignites the ingenuity and sheer force of will that brought us through so many tragedies in the past. That’s the plan I’ll be looking for.

**NOTE: I understand that not everyone who will read this is an American. I am, though, so please excuse me when I say “our country.” I do not mean to imply that you are included in the collective, just me and the rest of the Americans.

It’s rare I find myself in a state of utter surreal disbelief that I have to wonder if I’ve somehow exited the confines of our universe and am somehow observing the interactions or people almost but not quite like ourselves in some bizzaro universe, replete with people almost but not quite as jaded and sad as our own. But today was one such day.

As I left work, I decided to stop in at Walmart to pick up a few intra-grocery trip items that we tend to run out of. Cereal, soda, milk, etc. In the soda aisle, I found myself soundly affirmed that my cynicism and jaded perspective was justified, and the wanton disregard for self as well as others I witnessed left me gobsmacked.

As a man, in his late twenties or early thirties, slim with nary a gray hair upon his head, reached for some chips, the young woman behind him objected. “You won’t buy her juice,” she said, pointing to the little girl in the shopping cart, “But chips are okay?.” He responded, “Look, if you’re going to do shit like this, I’ll have the divorce papers drawn up tomorrow.” “Do that, then,” she replied.

Then a silence, as they looked into each others eyes, devoid of passion, devoid of compassion, devoid of, well, everything, which buffeted me. I caught my breath. I stared at these two for what seemed like hours, but it was only a few seconds when they began to move again, as if reanimated. Eyes still lifeless, faces stoic as the Easter Island statues, the mother picked up her little girl out of the basket and walked away. The man turned towards me, and walked in the opposite direction of her, leaving behind the disarray in their basket.

Neither was mad. Neither looked as if they were suddenly carrying the weight of the world. Just a small sigh, and he strode past as if he had just been given new life. The mother, too, for that matter looked refreshed and relieved. Their relief was distressing. Relief without passion.

I know marriages end, and I don’t mean to say that this is always a bad thing, or that it is always the wrong decision. It was just this situation was so surreal, it got me thinking about more than just any old divorce. I also know that these two were not flippantly deciding their future over a bag of chips, and I also know that the may stay together. But to see the wave of relief at the mere thought was distressing enough. I’m not nearly so conservative as I used to be, but I still believe that people should stand behind their commitments. That if they promise to each other they’ll be there, well, dammit, they should be. Especially when they have a child.

Perhaps its naïvité speaking, but it just boggles my mind how such an insignificant event can be the final straw. How, even, they could have ever gotten married, had a child, and yet be so obviously happy for the thing to be over. I know that for me, should I ever find myself amidst divorce proceedings, I would be in another one of those surreal existential quandaries, wondering if this was actually happening. I imagine I would be a lot of things, none of them relieved.

Is this where we are? A throw-away culture, obsessed with today, ignorant and disillusioned by our parents, with throw-away values, throw-away promises, throw-away sincerity? Well, it’s all rubbish and it should be, well, thrown away. If this is us–our culture–I’m not so sure I want any part of it. Call me prudish or old fashioned if you will, but I’m going to stand by the idea that people mean something. That promises mean something. That life means something, and it’s about more than today. More than now. More than what I’m going to have for dinner.

Life’s about making a difference, no matter how big. About bettering yourself and others because in the end, that’s your legacy. What did you DO? What did you just toss away like so much garbage? Who did you leave in your wake, and who will remember you fondly? Who will pay it forward, and who will just toss you away like so much garbage?

In a land of toss-away philosophy, I suppose none of that matters. Well, it does to me. And it should to you, too.