Acceptance

If there's something I can look back on in my life and be genuinely happy about, it's that for the most part, I've been very accepting of the people I've let into my own little sphere.

That's not to suggest I don't have my biases or prejudices or that I am somehow immune from being judgmental of people. I wish I could say such a thing and keep a straight face, but the fact is I am no less capable of it than any of you. I guess that makes us even in that respect.

I've had friends and acquaintances who are gay, straight, bi, Black, white, Asian, Hispanic, handicapped or fully-functional, crazy and sane.

I also am keenly aware that we all come into every new relationship, plutonic or otherwise, with the baggage we carry from what our lives have been up to this moment in time. A theory I have is that we also hope that the people who we encounter going forward can accept that we are shouldering that baggage and not have it impact their overall view of who we are.

When I was a kid, I had a friend who suffered from spina bifida which left her paralyzed from the waist down, and one night she shared with me some of the more embarrassing aspects of what such a life entails, all the while completely horrified that I would be so repulsed by her revelations that I would no longer want to be associated with her.

When she finished, I responded with a a single word. "So?"

I was working at a local mall in my early 20's when one day, an old friend from high school came into my shop to check out some movies. Naturally, we started chatting about other people we knew and when one particular name came up, she asked me, "Have you heard what happened to her?"

Not having the slightest clue what she was insinuating, I told her as much, hoping I would be told something other than our mutual friend was dead, horribly maimed, or rotting in a Hungarian prison.

What I got instead was told to me in rather terse whisper as to apparently not alarm anyone else in the store, "...she's a lesbian!!"

Now I'm pretty sure those other customers had to wonder what I found to be so funny when I started laughing like I did, because it was truly one of those moments you can't script, especially when I gave the same exact response.

"So?"

When asked why I could be so nonchalant about it, my reason was really quite simple. If a person can figure out these sorts of things about themselves and not only find acceptance, but also happiness in reaching that level of self-identification and awareness, then who the hell am I to tell them they somehow got it wrong or not accept them on that same level?

In many ways, I am profoundly envious of those people because it's something I've never really been able to do for myself.

I'd like to tell you that I know who I am and what I'm about, but the truth is for the majority of my life, I've only accepted the negative aspects of myself and a lot of that came from being conditioned to do so. Growing up, it wasn't a case of getting reinforcement for what I did right as much as for what I did that people found wrong.

I won't go so far as to boast that I was a genius or prodigy at an early age, but I knew my stuff and I was proud of that knowledge. But when I'd express that knowledge either in class or even at home sometimes, it was perceived me showing off or being a "smart-alec," thereby making other people look bad.

So I'd shut up and became conflicted for a long time about how I could express the fact that I wasn't an idiot and wasn't trying to talk down to others simply because I knew more than they did about a particular subject. It falls under the Pavlovian principle of repetition building truth. If you hear something enough times, from enough people, you learn to internalize it so that becomes something you live by.

It wasn't a matter of my intelligence either. Over the years, I accepted virtually every fault that I seemed to possess when it came to my looks, my social skills, ability to do jobs, write a book, go to college, all of it. Not only could I not see any hint of positives in myself, but I shunned the people who tried to convince me that I had them as well.

I couldn't accept that there was anything else in here but some diseased, half-mad freak who knew things no one wanted to hear and had nothing to offer anyone else. That had been my life for nearly 30 years.

Even now, with the realization that there is more to me than just all the negatives lodged firmly in my mind, it's still very hard for me to not look at myself in a similar way. Mistakes are still magnified and the moments where I think I should do something the "right" way and don't still bring a high level of self-scrutiny.

I guess the important part, though, is I'm learning how to undo that programming and become able to accept the fact that despite everything, I'm not as terrible a person as I've been convinced of for so long.

Eventually, I'd like to think it's okay to finally come to the realization that there's more to us than just the ugly things we become convinced exist inside us.

Cerebral Overdrive

It may be a cliche, but in the realm of my existence, there is more truth to it than I often want to either accept or admit.

There just aren't enough hours in the day.

I've always had an active mind, even when I was a toddler. My family would always tell me and friends that I'd been a precocious, constantly active child. I'm sure nowadays I'd be classified with high-end hyperactivity, Attention Deficit Disorder and whatever other maladies we like to tag modern children with these days.

As I grew up, it became clear to me that I was obsessed with the concept of learning. I wanted to assimilate as much information in a given day as I possibly could through whatever means necessary. If I could read about it in a book, I would devour it, then try to commit it to memory as fast as possible. If I had to learn it through physical repetition, I would do it over and and over until I was content that I'd gotten it right.

I was a small but potent engine of osmosis and assimilation as I realized I wanted to learn about everything. It wasn't a matter of being smarter than the next kid and I bristle at the notion of it being all about my ego. Contrary to popular belief, I really don't have all that much of one to be honest, and my ego is much more an anti-ego given its profound ability to point out the negative aspects of myself.

It was just a matter of satisfying my extreme curiosity and my almost manic need to just experience as much as possible first-hand.

The big issue, though, is when that mania gets going, my brain just doesn't want to stop processing the incoming data. While there is a benefit in that wanting to stay active in a particular stream of consciousness, there is also a danger for such a hungry mind too.

There's only 24 hours in the day, which means at some point you need to stop, rest, and recharge the cerebral batteries. Yet, for reasons that I don't really understand, 24 hours just isn't enough time for my day.

I realize this whenever I'm sitting at work, or at home, and I don't feel like I'm doing anything I'm considering "productive." Yes, I may be writing a story for the paper, or conducting an interview, or washing my dishes, or researching and writing out parts of the book I'm working on, or even sleeping. There's nothing wrong with doing those things, but somewhere in the back of my mind, exists a construct which is always pointing out that I'm running out of time in the day and I should be doing something else.

I should be exercising, reading a new book, traveling, taking photographs, talking with friends, learning something I haven't learned before or changing a perspective which has become calcified and stale in my mind.

This realization has returned to the fore of my consciousness in the last couple of weeks as I was once again made aware of how absolutely fantastical the age in which we live has become. I used to joke with my friends that, "Everything we need to learn can now be found on YouTube." and as I had just bought a very cheap guitar for the process of finally learning the instrument, I would prove my point by learning it not from another person, but by going online and doing so there.

Well, sadly my guitar is sitting the bag I bought for it and I haven't picked it up in some time because I have yet to find a YouTube channel with lessons that work for me. However, earlier this week, I discovered something much more potentially profound in TEDTalks.

TEDTalks, for those unaware, are a series of short lectures from a diverse collection of some of the more prominent thinkers across all areas of global culture. They're updated nearly every day and at this point, there's more than 1,000 of them online, and I am completely hooked on them.

At the same time, I've also rehabilitated the part of my brain that has always fed off the act of reading, so now I can pick up a book and not only get through it, but I can also take considerable enjoyment from each new one I open up. Combine that with my desire to finally get my own book moving and start discovering more and more of both what's out in the world and what exists in myself, and I'm usually climbing into bed at night wondering if I can squeeze a few more minutes out of the day to do just a little bit more that I hadn't done the day before.

It's both an exhilarating and disconcerting place to find myself again, however, because of the simple and inescapable truth.

There just isn't enough time in the day to fit it all in. Not yet, at least.

Passions

I came to a realization over the weekend which I find quite alarming.

There's a lot of things in this world which fascinate me and that I am passionate about, and for reasons that defy logic, I'm ashamed of that.

Off the top of my head, the list is long and somewhat distinguished:

Music
Movies
Books
Writing
Video Games
Astronomy
History
Philosophy
Travel
Photography
Cooking
Boxing
Fencing
Swords
Baseball
Cars
Culture
Anime
Art
Computers
Technology
Aircraft
Friends

Like I said, not a bad list, and while it may not be as comprehensive as it could be if I gave it more thought, I could probably add a good five or ten more.

There's also nothing I can see on that list that can be considered taboo or somehow inappropriate in "civilized" society. I also know there's a lot of people who like these things just as much as I do and have no inhibitions about it at all.

So why do I?

When I'm hanging out with my close friends, I'm perfectly fine getting into hardcore geek-fu discussions about all that stuff (so much so, we started a podcast about most of them last year. Here endeth the shameless plug.) But when it comes to meeting new people or engaging in casual conversation, when they start moving into any of these topics, my first impulse is to just clam up or else I risk opening my mouth and portraying myself as a colossal dork who knows so much trivial crap I will dominate the conversation and leave the other parties looking for the closest available exit.

This is going to sound incredibly flippant, and that is certainly not my intent, but it's the best analogy I can think of at the moment to define how I feel about it.

I feel like I'm in the closet when it comes to the things I'm really passionate about.

I know I shouldn't have to either, but for whatever reason, I've got it in my head that I can't like the same things everyone else does. Like somewhere along the way, I got disqualified from being part of such interests and that as soon as I do join in, they somehow become less "cool," because I'm now attached to them.

But I like them. A lot. I love talking, experiencing and learning about all these things and I shouldn't see that as a source of embarrassment, but rather as a point of pride.

I like the fact that I have such a wide range of interests and passions that fill my life. I would rather have that than find nothing interesting at all or being delusional and assuming I already know everything.

That would be a much more shallow existence, I'd think.

Love and Marriage

While going through my morning ritual of checking Facebook and social media between bites of slightly soggy cereal, I saw a post from a former co-worker that she and her husband are getting divorced.

I'd like to say this was an anomaly of news I've seen as of late, but if I think about it, since my own divorce two years ago, I've know half a dozen people who've gone through the same thing, and at least another dozen who were in non-married relationships that fell apart as well.

Considering I don't have that many friends to begin with, it's not a great statistic.

Now I'm not going to make this a political rant and I am definitely not one of those condescending, sanctimonious clods who stands on a soapbox and bangs the ol' "Family Values" drum when it comes to marriage. But as someone who suddenly found himself thrown into the dating pool while the relationships of people around me continue to come unraveled, it leaves me feeling very conflicted.

As a guy who wants to be in a relationship and can say I'm in love with an amazing woman, with how fragile such things have become in the 21st Century, is it really worth it to try finding that person anymore?

The reason I got divorced was actually quite straightforward. Seven years into my marriage, I was tired of my life being nothing but jumping from trivial job to trivial job every year or so, making tiny salaries and barely being able to contribute to the plans my wife and I had for our future. So I made the decision to go back to college, and my wife wasn't thrilled about it, but I didn't give her a choice.

When we first got together, we'd made an agreement that I would quit school to work and help pay the bills while my ex finished her college education and at some point, we would reverse it and I'd get my opportunity. So I called in the favor and were it not for the fact that I'd already started the ball rolling on it, I truly feel she would've done everything she could to make sure I didn't do it.

In hindsight, that decision sewed the seed for the destruction of our marriage, because my days went from working in sterile, mind-numbing cubicles to being in class eight hours a day, then working one of three jobs at night or on the weekends, and doing homework until I finally passed out. I threw myself into getting my education and our relationship suffered because of it, because I wasn't home very much and when I was, I was preoccupied with other things to not give my wife the amount of attention she wanted.

And she wanted a lot of it.

Because I was also going to a college where women outnumbered men 2-to-1, there was also the not-so-subtle inferences made by my ex that because I would sometimes have to spend nights on campus and I was making new female friends, I just HAD to be sleeping with at least one of them.

*For the record, in my 16 years as part of a monogamous relationship, I never cheated. Not once. Nor did I ever even consider it, no matter how many female friends I had. I will have words with anyone who says otherwise.

On this point, I want to be crystal clear. Yes, I realize my decision was selfish. I wanted to have my life be more meaningful to me than it was, and I didn't care what anyone else said about it, including my wife. But I also did it because I knew (as most of us think we know) that having a more advanced education will lead to better opportunities and help not only me, but my wife because the burden wouldn't be entirely on her to bring home the proverbial bacon.

Ultimately, the final straw in our marriage, sadly, was when we made the decision to start a family. With college over and my journalism career underway, the expectation was we would have a child, now that we were both approaching our mid-30's. So we did, even though we were in massive financial debt due to my college loans and fiscal irresponsibility on both our parts (I'm as guilty of it as she was and I will freely admit it), and even though I'd hoped to be able to work one job after I graduated, I was still working three of them.

Keep in mind, this was 2010-11, when we were up to our necks in the Great Recession and that had a HUGE impact on not just us, but a lot of other people, whether we want to admit it or not.

By the end, we both instinctively knew that we were in trouble, and tried to talk about it. Unfortunately, it didn't work and when I finally imploded and suffered a total nervous breakdown following the birth of our son, my wife was done. So she left and the rest is history.

Divorce is complicated. It's messy and I don't care who you are, it puts your heart and self-identity in a blender and then hits "Pulverize." And I don't know a single person who ever went looking for it when they made the promises and commitments to their spouse. We don't, because we want to love that person, unconditionally, and we've all grown up knowing that "lucky" couple who managed to stay together for 30, 40, 50 years or more and thought if they could do it, why the hell can't we?

I have no idea. As I said before, I'd like to think I'm as worthy of being in a stable, loving relationship as anyone else on this planet. But with how gut-wrenching it can be when those relationships fall apart, I also have to consider whether or not it's better for me to put myself back out there and try again.

At this moment, I'm really not sure about that either.

Naked Singularity

I absolutely love astronomy.

One of the first books I ever had in my library as a child was this gigantic picture book all about the solar system, and even though I couldn't pronounce the planets at that age, I distinctly remember sitting in my room for what felt like hours, just totally immersed in things like Jupiter's Great Red Spot, or the Asteroid Belt, or even little Pluto, which I consider a planet even if we're not supposed to anymore.

By the time I got to middle school and began studying astronomy in earnest, I became fascinated with the concept of a supernova. As far as we know, there is no greater destructive force to exist in this universe than when a star explodes.The amount of energy released can annihilate whole planets, change the orbital paths of entire solar systems, create nebula and comets and is the true unstoppable force matched only by the immovable object of its counterpart, the black hole.

I suppose in some ways, it can be considered the ultimate Yin/Yang expression, but as we human beings are always trying to confirm our place in the universe, as well as our connection to everything outside our own tiny speck of interstellar real estate, I keep coming back to a question that I'm not entirely sure how to answer.

Why do I seem to feel things so much more intensely than the average person?

I know that's both a generalization and an assumption because it's impossible for me to truly gauge my own emotional combustibility versus everyone else. At the same time, however, I can only go by what I feel from day to day.

And what I feel, more often than not, is like I'm two breaths away from erupting in a cyclone supernova that will tear this place apart.

*Editorial Note: Don't ask me why, but I find Cyclone Supernova to be a killer name for a rock band. Anyway...

It's not just relegated to the times where I'm angry or frustrated, though they are often the times in which it manifests most easily. On those rare occasions when I'm happy and can relax and enjoy myself, I do all I can to soak it all in and project what I'm feeling back into the mix so I can keep my Yin flowing through me as long as possible.

The times I've felt truly, passionately in love, the intensity of it has been so strong that more often than not it actually becomes a detriment to forging any type of relationship, much to my chagrin.

And when my feelings become brooding and fill my head with self-loathing and the full strength of my Yang is unleashed...well...I've already explained what that's like.

To me, it seems like such a cop-out to say that my emotions are like this because I truly don't know any other way how to feel what I feel, but in actuality, based on what my life has been to this point in time, how can I honestly not be expected to have more emotional volatility than someone who's had a more easy-going life?

I've been told I don't know how many times that I need to learn to keep my emotions in check, but here's the catch. Emotions are both autonomic and subjective. Yes, it is completely possible to react in a particular way to an external stimulus, be it a person, a thing, or a situation you find yourself in. But there is the other side of the emotional coin where your mind reacts to the same stimulus without so much as a thought.

It's those instants where in a nanosecond you can go from being perfectly relaxed and calm to being so enraged or excited or amused that after you've had a chance to step back from it, you're left scratching your head a little bit wondering, "What did I get so angry about?" or "Why could I not stop laughing about that?"

I realize there is only so much about myself and how I feel about things that I can functionally control. A lot of that has to do with my own self-expression and perception when it comes to emotional reactions of other people. At the same time, however, it is incumbent upon those around me to understand and accept the fact that for whatever reason, what I feel is so strong that it's often takes all I can to restrain myself so as to not overwhelm them.

Because I really don't know any other way, and that is the best I can figure out at this point in time.

Scars

Okay, let's cut to the chase, if you'll pardon the expression.

Yes. That is my arm, and yes, those scars are real.

I know they're real because I put them there, though at two very different points in my life.

The bottom one came into being when I was about 17 years-old. The top one came not even a year ago.

I'd like to tell you I got because of something noble like fighting off a bear or defending a lady's honor from a gang or something, but no. I got them because...in those moments, I hated myself so much that I didn't even really think at all. I just acted.

You may ask why in the name of common sense would I do something like that? The simplest answer is common sense had nothing to do with it.

It came down to cause and effect. I screwed up. BADLY. And just feeling as terrible as I did on both accounts wasn't freakin' good enough. A more severe and lasting symbol of punishment was needed. In all honesty, I don't remember how much they both hurt, or the blood, or how long they took to heal.

I just remember feeling with every fiber of my being that they belonged there. They serve as a reminder to me of just how much I can hurt someone I care about, as well as how dangerous an unrestrained mind can be.

According to the Mayo Clinic, whom I would like to think know what they're talking about when it comes to this stuff more than most junk you find on the internet these days, defines such an act as:

"Self-injury is an unhealthy way to cope with emotional pain, intense anger or frustration. While it may bring a momentary sense of calm and a release of tension, it's usually followed by guilt and shame and the return of painful emotions."

Their assessment isn't wrong, at least not from where I sit. When I made the reflexive decision to go grab a knife and gash myself with it, I was emotionally as far down in the abyss as I think I'd ever been, even with everything I've gone through (which, sadly, is quite a lot). Except in this case, where I could say it was another example of how dangerous and twisted I became while being completely folded into my Yang, there is another aspect which I cannot overlook either.

The reason why those scars exists is because I was completely and unbearably heartbroken. I wish I had a better excuse, but there it is.

In those moments, I felt so alone, so dejected, and in so much mental and emotional pain that in my mind, I needed some kind of physical marker to identify what I felt and why I felt that way.

Did I feel better afterward? A bit. I've heard people who get tattoos tell me that while it hurts like hell for the first few minutes, there comes a point where the body and mind begin turning that pain into something akin to an endorphin high, which is why they say getting inked can be somewhat addicting after a while.

When I look at them now, though, there is also the guilt that comes with why they exist in the first place. I will say I've been able to let the first one fully heal in the years since I put it there. It took almost 15 years, but it got to the point where I didn't mentally tear it back open anymore.The second one may take as long, I don't know. In some ways, that's not entirely up to me.

We all bear our own scars, either on or underneath our skin, and each one tells a story of times where we weren't as careful as we should've been. And the lesson we take away from them is often to not put ourselves in such a position where we can stand to get hurt like that again.

Obstacle Course

I knew I'd go through times like this.

The times where my Yang would mount a comeback, like a dictator overthrown in a rebellion and determined to make a last-ditch, all-out effort to reclaim the power they believe is rightly theirs.

This last weekend was an interesting test of my resolve. As I wrote on Saturday night, when I actually should have been asleep, I was angry about being in the middle of what was a truly ludicrous situation.

Someone who'd been a good friend decided I was now an enemy because I called her out on her own self-loathing and lack of motivation in her life, and for reasons that defy logic, she tried to pull in my best friend from college, (whom I had a major falling out with about two years ago) into our argument.

*Editorial Note: It took me nearly ten minutes to write that last sentence because every time I tried to come up with the most concise way of explaining it, I actually broke out laughing because it gets more ridiculous the more I think about it. Seriously, I expect those who read this to roll their eyes and shake their heads along with me because of how genuinely silly it is.

Now as I said, my college friend and I are not on speaking terms. Right now, she's on the other side of the country attending grad school (in my hometown of Boston, of all places). But we reached this point in no small part because of me and my wonderful Yang just taking a great friendship and burning it to the ground.

That said, I found myself with a big problem. Since we're not on speaking terms, do I risk contacting her to at least convey the truth of the situation or do I just try to ignore it altogether and hope it snuffed itself out on its own?

Then something truly unexpected happened. She contacted me.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite shows to watch was called "Superstars" in which professional athletes from all sports came together to compete in a series of Olympic-style events and it always ended with an obstacle course.

I've never run one personally, and given my current physical condition, I'm not exactly Ninja Warrior material yet. But last weekend is about the closest thing I've come to running one in a while.

I talked to friends, sought advice, weighed the options and more importantly, I just sat down with my Yin and tried to figure out what to do. Sure, the Yang was there too, offering the usual sledgehammer tactics in a situation where subtlety and a calm head was necessary.

So I sat down at my laptop and hammered out what in reality was a badly-written email (in my defense, I was so freaking nervous I could barely think straight long enough to just get the damn words out), explaining the situation, offering some facts and clarity, then sent it off.

I didn't get a response, nor do I honestly expect to get one. I guess it's like that classic trope of two warring factions putting aside their grievances long enough to deal with a mutual threat. Once that battle is over, however, the likelihood is the factions will return to their sides and while coexistence was briefly possible, they're just not ready for that yet.

It definitely was not how I had hoped to reestablish contact, but I'd like to think I handled it as well as I could've under the circumstances. It wasn't perfect, but it's also a first step, and having watched my dear son get his feet under him as a baby, first steps are always small.

Ultimately, I know where I want things to be between us but I'm not ready to get there yet and I know that too. I don't see that as a personal slight either as much as I see it for what it is.

A goal at the end of a big obstacle course.