A Man and His Dog

I had a very odd yet comforting dream about 3.45 this morning. I was sitting in what would be a back living room or TV room in what felt like a 50s to 60s era house. The walls were darkly paneled and I was sitting in a recliner. Beside me was was my dog with lots of grey hair, content in his old age. The sliding glass doors to the yard were open and a warm breeze was flowing in billowing the curtains silently and softly. I could smell the outside and I walked out onto a small concrete patio. The sun had that blinding freshness to it that springtime has sometimes. I could see the houses on either side, the lawn was a vibrant green, and everything was perfectly quiet in a serene and calming way. He was standing beside me and everything felt so absolutely immediate. I felt completely and utterly present and the moment seemed to last in a weird sense of "arrival" as if this was the moment I had been moving towards my whole life. I understood the past and how it helped propel me to the exact moment on that back patio, and it all felt so right and comfortable. Almost like wrapping it all up around me like a nice blanket. My dog looked up at me as if to say, "Yup. This is where it's all supposed to be, and it's just you and me sharing it and we don't need any words to understand what it means."

It was such a powerful (only word I can think of, even though it's way overused!) image that even now it brings a lump up in my throat thinking about and feeling how profoundly serene it was.

The Shopping Cart Theory

The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for whether a person is capable of self-governing. To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task and one which we all recognize as the correct, appropriate thing to do. To return the shopping cart is objectively right. There are no situations other than dire emergencies in which a person is not able to return their cart. Simultaneously, it is not illegal to abandon your shopping cart. Therefore the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether a person will do what is right without being forced to do it.

No one will punish you for not returning the shopping cart, no one will fine you, or kill you for not returning the shopping cart, you gain nothing by returning the shopping cart. You must return the shopping cart out of the goodness of your own heart. You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do. Because it is correct.

A person who is unable to do this is no better than an animal, an absolute savage who can only be made to do what is right by threatening them with a law and the force that stands behind it.

The shopping cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society.

Do you put your cart back?

Brought to You by the Letter C

When Tom Cruise says, "You complete me," in the movie Jerry Maguire it sounds so romantic. He found the love of his life. He's complete now! Not so fast. Nothing could be further from the truth. A friend explained this notion of completeness (what I choose to call wholeness) to me, and it hit me square between the eyes. It's so profound and clear in its simplicity, and once I understood it, my whole perspective changed. It goes like this:

If we are not whole with ourselves we look like the letter "C." We have gaps in our make up.

If we're like Jerry Maguire and we find someone (or something) that we feel makes us whole, we look like this: 

The catch here is we feel whole but we're not. All we've done is fill in the gap with something external and temporary. It's a guarantee that feeling of wholeness will disappear when the novelty of what's filling the gap wears off.

If stop looking outside ourselves for fulfillment and we start looking internally we eventually will look like the letter "O."

We have a sense of wholeness independent of any other factors. Then and only then can we go forward as the whole person we've been trying to be. Pretty simple, huh?
And pretty profound if you ask me.

Family Tapestry

I've spent a good deal of my Shelter in Place COVID quarantine time working on my family tree project. Researching one's family history can be tedious, exhausting work. It is however also incredibly fun and satisfying. It's like eating potato chips, you can't have just one. I found myself late into the night saying to myself, "Just one more. Just one more clue to look into. One more census record to review." It becomes like a jigsaw puzzle. The picture of my family, the mysteries of what was beyond my immediate great grandfathers starts to take shape with each piece I find that fits.

I've found people I've never heard mentioned before or had any inkling of. One member is my third paternal great-grandfather Orange, born in Virginia in 1775 and died in Ohio in 1824. My eighth paternal great-grandfather was Thomas born in 1623 and died in 1690 and was a resident of Jamestown! I've even gone back as far as my 11th paternal great-grandfather John who was born in Twickenham, Middlesex, England in 1517 and died there in 1558.

In researching my family I've come to think it not so much as a tree but as a tapestry. Every thread is someone who has created this precious work of art. And each one, even as far back as 500 years ago, has had a direct influence on who I am, the man sitting in this very moment typing these words on his laptop. As I've uncovered more and more family members the same set of questions and ideas always comes to mind. What would they think of me? What would I think of them? What would we find we have in common? What would we talk about? Would they be as fascinated by me as I would be by them? Would the distance of time between us be a rift so great that my 500-year old ancestors could not possibly relate to me or comprehend the world I live in? Would we even like each other? As I fall asleep at night I imagine all of us in a room together. All of us anxious with our questions, excited and fascinated by what the answers might be.

Criticism

A simple and profound truth.