song2

just a song that goes where my life went and ends where it is (a week or 2 ago from February 21st, 2010).

A summer day, I’m seven years old
In a windswept field just off a dirt road
standing next to trees that seem so
tall…
they seem so tall..

And in a campsite far from the city lights
where the fire’s warm and the stars are bright
We’re the only ones in the world tonight
that’s all…
oh that’s all.

I’ve been here for a while now
through sunny days and starry nights
it’s so nice to be a child now
and this is all there is to life

Well I learn to write and think and pray
I learn to love and learn to hate
And I decide to learn to play
guitar…
And I love my life most every day
but I find it’s true about what they say
for many this is not the way
things are…

I’ve been here for a while
the radio tells of wars and pain
another spin of the dial
I know I’ll make this world change

I ace exams but find life’s test
to be much harder than all the rest
And through it all I’m so depressed
somehow

I’ve been here for a while now
Here to help the world, but I need some help
I think I need some more style now
I think I need to change myself

things change,
lives change
only one remains the same
things will not change as had been planned
but understand all things will change

I didn’t mean for this to be
I always thought that I’d be free
But when you’re with me I cannot leave
here…
I’ll be here..

Once I had my life arranged
but then you came and then it changed
So I will stay if you remain
near…
please stay near..

I’ve been here for a while, girl,
standing in the cold cold rain
and when I’m greeted by your smile, girl,
I’d do it a hundred times again

It’s funny how love can stay
for so long, but once you say
“it’s here” it’s gone or that’s the way
it seems…
that’s how it seems..

when that lovely thing you think you’ll find
was already found but left behind
for something only in your mind
my friend…
we’ll stay friends..

I’ve been here for a while, Lord
with no idea what to do
carry me for one more mile, Lord
to the only thing that’s true

And things progress another year
of happiness and things almost pure
and someone feeling almost near
again
but with a clever smile college calls
and the trees have been replaced with walls
and life has been with narrow halls
choked…
it’s all a joke..

I’ve been here for a while, sitting
in a dirty room with a dirty mind
staring at the ceiling tiles, wishing
I had something to seek, if not to find

things change,
lives change
only one thing remains the same
things will change but not as planned
but understand all things will change

I look at what I had and what I got
and life and God is what I want
decide to give my money but not
my soul

I’ve been here for a while Lord
I’ve given all except my heart
I’ve walked a thousand miles Lord
Still I arrived back at the start

I’ve been here for a while Lord
I’m nineteen and I can barely stand
I’m too old to be a child Lord
Here I was, here I still am
I want to be – I’m afraid to be – I want to be – please make me – a man.

Beautiful Loser 2010

Thirty years ago, Bob Seger sang a song with the lyrics

"He wants to dream like a young man
With the wisdom of an old man
He wants his home and security
He wants to live like a sailor at sea

Beautiful loser
Where you gonna fall?
When you realize
You just can't have it all

He's your oldest and your best friend
If you need him, he'll be there again
He's always willing to be second-best
A perfect lodger, a perfect guest

Beautiful loser
Read it on the wall
And realize
You just can't have it all
You just can't have it all

You just can't have it all
Ohh, ohh, can't have it all
You can try, you can try, but you can't have it all
Oh yeah

He'll never make any enemies, enemies, no
He won't complain if he's caught in a freeze
He'll always ask, he'll always say please

Beautiful loser
Never take it all
'Cause it's easier
And faster when you fall

You just don't need it all
You just don't need it all
You just don't need it all
Just don't need it all"



...Well....

I've noticed lately that we live in an unprecedented age where, though we perhaps still cannot have it all, we can come a lot closer than ever before in any other culture and time period that has ever existed. Period.

Far from being a sailor at sea, where in order to follow that romantic notion you must leave home without a second glance for months.. years.. maybe even forever, now you can show up on the other side of the world in a day and contact your family back home in a second. And that's not even figurative language.

Even since those amazing lyrics were penned thirty some years ago, times have changed so much in favor of the "beautiful loser." The internet and all of its applications could hardly have been conceived then, yet exist now. I think the changes came on so fast that the culture hasn't been able to keep it's head above water. All the beautiful losers out there don't even realize how good they have it.

You can now "couch surf," in other words, participate in a safe way to live like a sailor at sea with all the comforts of home and security provided for you by a nation-wide network of people.

WIth ride-sharing sites, the beautiful loser can sit in his comfy host home and find transportation to his next little adventure without even looking at a road.

He or she can pull off at a Panera bread, whip out the laptop that's been charging in the cigarette lighter and have a nice chat with everyone back home. Someone really extreme, someone who sets the new-age standard for ruggedness, might even occasionally sleep in the car and plug in a $20 a year magicJack phone to the cig lighter along with the computer.

The thing that really blew me away, that caused me to finally write about my thoughts on this subject, occurred when I was perusing a website called eRideShare.com. Suddenly I am looking at an offer from a woman for someone who speaks Spanish to drive her to Panama (the country); she will pay for the return trip. Naturally, I asked for more details.

But it's ok. If that falls through, I could get a ride to Fairbanks, AK for $20, or to Seattle, WA, for free. And there's some college guy who "has money, will travel" - wherever.

Really? Why go to Alaska, or Panama, or Washington? Why not? It's not often you get to travel to Alaska for twenty bucks or go to Panama for free. Thirty years ago I would have been a beautiful loser. Right now, I'm thinking, "this way of life is not normal. It's not natural, and it can't last long. So I'm gonna get it while I can!!"

an ode to high school

So I've been afflicted by a moderate case of melancholy.
It started to show up when I sat down to email my old band teacher Mr. Rushing about some recommendation letters I asked him to write for me. But then I took a moment to be sincere with him. I haven't done that kind of thing in a while, so I was a bit out of practice; I think that may have played a part in triggering the melancholy. I've been a bit out of touch with people. My comfort zone is becoming much more comfortable - yet also much smaller. Back in high school, situations used to arise that called either for sincerity or total withdrawal from normal social interaction. I've never been the most social person, but I never wanted to miss out on what life has to offer, so I practiced sincerity. When a friendship became borderline "something more," sincerity. In order to have a more enjoyable lunch-time experience, I could spend it with Larry and Aaron discussing things close to our hearts - namely writing, poetry and art. Those were some great times - and the key was sincerity. It seems like going beyond your comfort level in the short run usually results in a more fulfilled life in the long run.
I got a lot of practice with sincerity my junior and senior years in high school. But lately, I've been out of practice. You might notice that I'm being pretty sincere right now - but it is a lot different when you are addressing a single person. As I'd imagine is true for most people, I find it very easy to pour my heart out onto a computer screen with the vague knowledge that someone on the other end might be reading my writing at some unknown point in time. But since leaving high school, and even, to my surprise, since taking a gap year from college, I've found myself deficient in interaction with people. Oh yes - I am doing a lot. I'm doing a ton of things that are really ME. Playing sax for a couple hours a day, playing guitar for a couple hours a day, reading a novel in Spanish, even making my own website that I'm beginning to feel rather proud of, though it still needs lots of work (tourofpoverty09.org). Yet all these things don't seem to amount to very much in the human experience when they are lacking that ingredient of unexpected, spontaneous, and sometimes even uncomfortable interaction with other people of all sorts.
Yes, my life is very comfortable. I know exactly what I'm going to do every weekend (visit my best friends at Spring Arbor University), and I know that I am going to greatly enjoy it. I know what I am going to do each day - and the things I do are going to be the things I enjoy most in life -- at least if they aren't, I have no one to blame except myself, since I have devoted this year to staying at home and accomplishing and doing those things which hold the greatest importance to me.

But let's get back to the melancholy I was experiencing. It started off with my sincerity towards my band teacher - about how much band had meant to me. Because once I got writing and thinking about it, I couldn't even imagine what my life might have been had my father not convinced me to join band back in the 6th grade, and if I hadn't had such a great band teacher. Half of my high school experience - no, perhaps much more - could be defined by things that came about entirely because of my role in the band and it's role in my life. Some of the best moments of my life, the experience of being truly looked up to, my best relationships, the indescribable feeling that sums up the dozens of fall nights spent at the football field or away games; that incredible feeling that results when the mind tries to remember the highest highs and lowest lows as if they occurred in a single moment... the infamous and always amazing band trips.. before even coming to my love of playing music.
All these moments.. all of them shared. Not a single memory stands on its own unless it was shared with someone. I think I've figured out what they say about that. It's not actually that you remember it longer because they also remember it and can remind you. You just remember it longer.
I look at high school and see -- high school was when you just went to school and life happened to you. You didn't have to build your own path up in front of yourself. The path was already constructed, and you could decorate it, or you could stray from it, but even if you strayed from it you could return to it, and even if you decided not to decorate it too much it was still somewhat interesting as it was. I strayed from it ... I found other paths.. I spent all my time in another town developing different relationships with different people than those who were set there for me by virtue of what school system I attended. Then some things happened, the other path I was blazing turned rough, and I came back to the path set up for me at Hillsdale High School. It didn't seem like much at the time - but at least it was there for me to return to. Not anymore. Meanwhile, back in my senior year of high school, I returned to high school from a crazy summer, not feeling like decorating my path at all. I just wanted to walk the remaining portion and be done with it. But then all these beautiful things kept happening to me. It's crazy. In high school all you have to do is go to school and life happens to you. I know "life" is not always a good thing. But unless you are literally starving or caught in the middle of a war or something (which it should be acknowledged many people in the world are), there is always good in life, and probably more than there might seem on first glance.
Now, though, my melancholy is initiated by an email to my old band teacher. It's deepened when I look at my shelves and see a gift I was given by a classmate during my senior year. Because I'm doing so many meaningful things right now - but they seem to mean very little when they are not being shared with anyone.
I mean, I share it with my best friends. And it's true - I am blessed to have a few truly good friends rather than a multitude of acquaintances. And not that anyone could replace the incredible friends I have right now. But I think that the human spirit is always seeking something more than what it already knows. And not an incremental increase, like "today I know 18 more Spanish words than yesterday" or "I am a little bit better of a musician." Those things are good. But there comes a point when the only thing that is truly new is a new person, or a new experience with an old person. Hanging out at a college and already knowing what you are going to talk about doesn't do it. We've gotta be making progress in our lives, or no matter how good they are they don't feel good. I took a year off to make progress in things that were important to me - music, Spanish, fighting poverty. But I kinda missed the human factor in all of that. You see, before I took a year off college, I thought that what I missed about high school were all the things I did in my spare time. I inexplicably had a massive amount of spare time in high school; probably explained by the fact that I never did homework at home. So I managed to find time to practice and become relatively good at tennis, art, guitar, saxophone, photography, writing, driving just because I could, and a hundred and one other things that I used to do - and enjoy - because of all that spare time I had to fill. I thought I missed doing all those things - and all those things were extremely enjoyable and even worthwhile on their own. But what I really missed was being able to fill all of my time outside of school with all of those things - yet still have life happen to me anyways. All of those things have a meaning when they come in addition to life, not as a substitute. They form an amazing addition and make an already good life better, but they can't make an already good life. It's time to give up the substitutes and give up the comfort and go reinvent that already good life... as well as just getting out there and letting it happen to me.

Wow. I never meant to pull a conclusion from this bit of writing, but I guess I just did. Hold me to it, please.

This is a really long rambling note and I didn't express some things I intended to express, and I expressed many that I had not intended to express. So if you read it know that, and I am going to arbitrarily end it now cause I don't have any direction to go with it. I'd say that in the whole thing there are maybe 3 or 4 sentences that I actually like. But if you read it, please feel free to let me know what your thoughts on those subjects are.