Wondering How I'll Die

Well, I suppose it's time to think about what kind of an old man I want to be. I'm forty-four. I'm not an old man, by any stretch, but, I'm sort of closer to old than young, when you think about it.

Nothing about that freaks me out, by the way. When I was a teenager, I used to think about being a dad some day. I used to think about what I was going to be when I grew up, like every other kid does. There was nothing weird about that -- so why would it be weird to think about being old -- or about dying, for that matter?

I'll die. I have no doubt. But I have come to two conclusions: 1) If I die, I don't want it to be my fault and (2), up to that great gettin' up day, I plan to remain a man.

Not-so-old Rocky.

There's nothing two-dimensional about my last statement. I don't mean I want to be able to beat up everyone in my class. What I mean is, I want to age with courage and grace. I want to maintain my dignity. To do this, I might well have to learn to keep my head up while people help me with things I can no longer do for myself. That will be hard, but I plan to do it if necessary. (I'd love to die of a heart attack while wrestling a grizzly bear at ninety, but the odds are against it.)

But the idea is to limit things that I will no longer be able to do. I don't plan to "go gentle into that good night."

I Couldn' t Have Said It Better

Every once in awhile, I do this: Someone has said something perfectly and I think you should read it instead of what I planned to say today.

Stephen Pentz keeps a wonderful blog called "First Known When Lost." He is dedicated to starting discussions about great (and often lesser-known) poems. Mr. Pentz always includes his own comments on the poems and those comments are always insightful. On many occasions, they are nothing short of profound.

Certainly, pay close attention to the poem he has selected, but I was most taken with Stephen's succinct and powerful statement about the trends of social analysis for the sake of social change  -- what he calls "that social engineering busybodyness...that seems dismissive of both Nature and Human Nature." Poets, lovers of poetry (and annoying types like yours truly) intrinsically know that any social change has to happen within the individual human heart, not as a result of lab coat studies or of eggheaded "think tanks."

Give me one poet for a thousand sociologists; one graduate school poetry discussion for a million social "task forces;" one earnest young person with hands clasped tightly in prayer, in a midnight bedroom, for a billion droning congregations...

Here 's Stephen Pentz's post: How To Live, Part Seventeen: "Balances"

The Faith of Our Children

As we get older, we get more sophisticated. We learn things and we unlearn things. We become disenchanted with certain other things. We lay down beliefs of certain kinds and leave them behind, especially the ones we had as children. But I wonder if that means we should take those beliefs away from our kids simply because we have outgrown them.

Clear, unambiguous and un-sarcastic statement: I believe in God.  I’ve said it before. In that respect, I have not changed since childhood. My concept of who God might be has evolved, certainly, into something much more complex than it was for me as a kid, but this is not a theological blog, so I won’t get into it. Let it suffice to say that my views have evolved into something much more logical than they once were.

There are many people, however, who lose their belief in God, even if they are people who once did believe, without questioning. For them, it would be hypocritical – perhaps even disturbing – to teach their children to believe. I get that.

But what about those who were brought up to believe who still kind of believe but…not for sure – the ones who have evolved into questioning things on a deep level – the ones who have come to question the things they were told as kids? What should they do with their kids?

"That's, Like, Almost Not Cool..."

I think the troubled trajectory of the future of humankind can be summed up by this video (Hat tip: Scott Stein) Sorry about the ad -- also part of that troubled trajectory:



(Here's the link to it -- doesn't look like CNN wants this to work on mobile devices.)

Behold, the mighty jungle beast.

Behold, the little, vulnerable zebra baby, blissfully ignorant to its endangerment.

The Lingering, Languid Lick

It had been a long day for my eight-year-old son and for me, as well. School all day, then a hard forty-five minutes at the karate dojo for him. We came home to a quiet house -- my wife and other son were off at baseball practice -- and we had a nice, quiet dinner. The boy had one of his faves: cold pasta and meatballs. (I know, I know....) I had that classic combination of a phony vegetable chicken patty on wheat bread and a bowl of reheated pork-fried rice. Nothing but the finest, when daddy provides dinner...

After dinner we partook of a square of leftover birthday cake each. I made my self a nice cup of Earl Grey.

We cuddled up together on the couch for a little TV and, the gods smiling upon us, we found that Raiders of the Lost Ark was being shown on the SciFi Channel. Ahhh! We high-fived and pulled up the blanket.

The upside of Raiders being shown on SciFi: HD quality (I still have the original three dilapidated video tapes I bought years ago). The downside: commercials.

Yvonne DeCarlo; from the
good ol' days when vampiresses
left a little to the imagination.

Yes, commercials. That's when it happened.

You think, as a dad: Commercials. So what? Product ads. Ads for new shows on the channel. Maybe a public service message of some kind with some lame celebrity telling us that we need to save music in schools because music helps kids to be good at math. (Its only really useful purpose, you know.)

But what you don't expect is that, eager to market their shows to a particular (and particularly libido-driven) demographic, the station execs would completely ignore the fact that children might -- through some weird alignment of the cosmic energy channels; some fluke of fate -- be watching Indiana Jones at five o'clock on a Monday night. What you don't expect is to see a horrifying ad for a new vampire series.

But, you figure, "Meh...he didn't react to it, so I guess he wasn't scared. No harm done." Then, the rapid-fire, attention-span corroding edits slow down so that the viewer can focus on a shot -- a slow, languid shot (in glorious HD) of a young, lovely vampire vixen lovingly running her tongue up the cheek of another lovely vampire vixen.