Old Shadows

'The greatest of leaders is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.
Next comes the one they love,
then the one they fear,
and finally the one with whom they take liberty.'

["Tao Te Ching", Lao Tzu]

In the summer of 1988, I spent six weeks in Cold Lake, Alberta, attending the Air Cadet "Senior Leadership Course".  It was done like a military-style boot camp that had us polishing the 48 little brass knobs in our rooms at night and in the morning making hospital corners on our beds tight enough to bounce quarters.  There was plenty of marching and plenty of yelling and occasionally washing buses that had returned from a bog as punishment for the quarters not bouncing high enough.  It was hard.  It was very hard.  And there were plenty of times when I thought I'd fold, but I persevered.  I learned a lot.  I learned a lot about leadership and a lot about myself.  By the time the end of summer rolled around they had produced 187 proud, cocksure graduates well-acquainted with the age-old mantra "Mine was the last good year; it was easy after that."

The year following, I was hired as a staff cadet in Greenwood, Nova Scotia, to be a drill instructor.  I arrived with a smile on my face, proud to be one of the select few chosen to be part of the prestigous parade square crew.  Drill instructor was the first choice of most who applied but only 14 could be selected.  Boots shined and well-pressed uniforms donned, drill manuals tucked into our clipboards and god-complexes bursting in our chests, my 13 comrades and I went to that parade square on the first day of the indoctrination period ready to become the new overlords of the parade square.

But what we found was not what we expected.

The Parade Officer was unimaginably frightening.  He bellowed in our faces scant inches away, and with a hell-bent fury that made all the confidence borne of those six weeks in Cold Lake shrivel away into the darkest recesses of memory.  I'm not even sure what the difference was.  It's not like any of us weren't used to being shouted at, but somehow, from him, it felt like being struck with the hammer of Thor.  We squirmed and quivered.  We felt less than ants.  Nothing we did was good enough, not even remotely close to good enough.  Our drill was not satisfactory in its performance.  For our theoretical knowledge he had us writing exams on the finer points, and everyone failed miserably against his unimaginably high standards.  We retreated in fear at day's end, and the next day was no better.  More marching, more shouting, more re-writes.  Each day was worse than the last.  We fell asleep each night at 3 AM, our cadet drill manuals on our drooling faces, though the sleep-deprivation helped dull our senses against the bawlings-out we were sure to face the next morning.  We rose each day at dawn with three hours rest and scrambled to polish and press and - god help you if you were late - make it to the parade square on time.   He would get up in your face so close when dressing you down that attempting to maintain eye contact with him would make you go cross-eyed, and his two eyes would appear to merge together into large angry one on the bridge of his nose.  I still remember scrambling for answers to his questions in my head while being distracted by that one, terrible, cyclops eye.  In secret, someone dubbed him 'The Cross-Eyed Cunt' for this.  How we hated him.  I cannot describe the depth of the spite that we developed in mere hours of meeting him.  If he'd turned his back just once we'd have painted a scene from a William Golding novel with his entrails.

And he broke me.

He broke us all, but he broke me the worst, and first.  Teary-eyed, I marched into the Deputy Commanding Officer's office - skipping about five rungs in the chain of command - and demanded I be returned home.  I was not returned home.  None of us were.  We were told to suck it up and endure.

Then something different happened.

Having been broken, we were rebuilt.  With his assistance and some additional counsel from others, we were rebuilt to be better, stronger, and more confident.  We were sharper in every way.  There was no such thing as good or even good enough.  There was only correct or incorrect.  Accuracy and precision were the order of the day.  We became exacting. Drill had never been performed so well, or more importantly, so correctly.  We became the lords of the drill square we'd dreamed, only far sharper than we'd dared aspire.

In the year that followed, I returned again for drill staff.  On the very first day, when the new Parade Officer ordered us to fall in, I did.  I marched to my position and remained at Attention.  The others all halted and Stood at Ease.  The Parade Officer ordered Right Dress, and the others did not move, but I did.  (You cannot perform a Right Dress from Standing at Ease.)  He came at me, screaming in my face asking why I'd performed Right Dress, and I answered that he'd ordered me to.  He pointed out that the others were Standing at Ease and asked why I'd been standing at Attention.  I responded by quoting page and paragraph.  There was an awkward pause.  He consulted his drill manual.  He returned to scream at the others asking why they were all Standing at Ease.  It took all my self-restraint to keep from smiling.  He never again confronted me on the accuracy of my drill.

More importantly, we all began falling in at Attention, after years of doing it incorrectly.  In the camp, in our home squadrons, to my knowledge all across the country, we'd all been doing it incorrectly for as long as anyone could remember.  But now, the drill staff of Greenwood 1990 were doing it the way the manual said.  We taught it the way the manual said and sent cadets back to their home squadrons saying 'but no, it's right there on pages 19 and 34...'.  Within a year or two, throughout the region - likely across the country - everyone was doing it correctly. 

Like a pebble in a pond, it rippled out.

Years later I moved from instruction into the Standards department, and then in the private sector into a career in Quality Assurance and Quality Control.  Many of my skills in QA/QC are self-taught, cobbled together from things going back as far as my time in cadets and adapted for use with software, hardware, or firmware testing.  I've been doing this for 15 years now, or 20 if you count the time I spent in Standards (and I do).  I am regarded by many as an expert in my field.

Now and then I think back to where certain ideas or attitudes of mine began, and how I came to be the person I am today.  Which experiences, great or small, easy or hard, have contributed to my success?  Where did the things that brought me here begin?

I look for the pebble, you could say.

I remember how I hated "the cross-eyed cunt" but later came to respect and even admire Lieutenant Essiembre.

I think about how I effect change in the workplace not simply by teaching my coworkers skills, but by injecting them with contagious ideas about the importance of accuracy and precision, of not just good enough, but correct.  I know they take a little amusement - and admiration - in the passion that I have for what I do; I, meanwhile, take amusement in overhearing them repeat my ideas to others and watching how infectious these splinters of the mind can be.

I watch things change slowly for the better around me.

I look for the pebble and I know that inside me, deep down, a shadowy presence lurks where a little part of my soul was changed forever during one particular week of the summer of 1989.

So I aspire to influence others the way he did me.

"JC", as his friends call him, has made ripples in a larger pond than he may ever realize.

The Skill of Happiness

"O Fortuna (O Fortune),
velut luna (like the moon),
statu variabilis (you are changeable),
semper crescis (ever waxing)
aut decrescis (and waning);
vita detestabilis (hateful life)
nunc obdurat (first oppresses)
et tunc curat (and then soothes)
ludo mentis aciem, (as fancy takes it);
egestatem (poverty)
potestatem (and power)
dissolvit ut glaciem (it melts them like ice)."

--- "O Fortuna", Carmina Burana ---

The older I get the more I realize that the Buddhists are right about one thing:  happiness is not something that simply happens, but something for which we must strive.  Part art, part science, the fact is that being happy requires a certain skill, or set of skills, that many of us don't bother to develop.  We are born not knowing how to walk, and we even change the way we breath as we move out of infancy, yet we seem to think that "being happy" is as natural as existing, that it's the right set of external conditions that will allow or disallow it to occur, and that it's our birthright.

It's not, and in failing to give it the respect it's due, most fail to give it the necessary effort it's due, and forever wander aimlessly in its shadow instead.

Don't get me wrong: I'm just as subject to stress as the rest, just as cranky in the morning before I get my caffeine, and I find reading the news just as depressing as anyone else.  But whenever I take a breath and a step back, I count my blessings and consider myself really fortunate.  Well, "fortunate" is not really the right word.

You see, I love my life.  I love Liza-Ann and Olivia.  I love my friends and family.  I love my home and our lifestyle.  I love my job.  I feel very content with it.  I live in fear of losing any of these things I love so much, and then I reassure myself that a life without fear is a life devoid of anything worth having.  Then I work very hard to keep them, and to improve them.

But this is not a lucky accident.  I'm not lucky to have a good relationship; we work toward maintaining that relationship, together, as partners, by mutual respect and responsibility, and to mutual benefit.  I'm not lucky to have a job I enjoy.  I work hard at that job and at keeping it moving in directions I will find satisfying and rewarding.  I try to cultivate my friendships as best I can, and to choose my friends carefully.

Many years ago I wrote My Treatise on Life.  I didn't really presume to think others were going to read it, commit it to memory, and somehow be all the much happier for it.  It wasn't a blueprint for the world; it was a blueprint for me.  I shared it because if it helped anyone else, even the littlest bit, it makes the world a slightly better place, and I get to reap the benefits of that too.  But looking back now, nearly 13 years later, I can honestly say I've tried very hard to live by all the advice I gave myself so many moons ago, and that I'm a much happier - and better - person for it.

I find myself of late surrounded by not just a few, but several people going through break-ups of long-term relationships.  There's a lot of anger, resentment, finger-pointing, and crying to go around.  And in some of these cases, I want to take at least one, if not both, of these people and shake them, shout the third paragraph of Pursue Your Own Happiness from the Treatise at them, and tell them they'll never be happy until they 'grow the fuck up'.  Now I don't know all the circumstances of these relationships, especially since most of the people involved are acquaintances and not close friends, but what I can say is that try as I may to listen, it seems a lot of what I hear contains more 'he/she' than 'I'.  And it's not truly that I want to slap them, it's that I want them to be happy, and I feel like one or both of them is just cocking it up with confused or unrealistic expectations, especially of their partners.

It is no one else's responsibility to make you happy:  not your parents', not your teacher's, not your god's.  That's why Buddha told you to kill them.*

And you know what?  The next time you catch me bitching and whining about something, feel free to quote this at me and remind me it's my own responsibility to make myself happy.  I'll deserve it, and I'll probably thank you for it.

Every now and then, when I tell Liza-Ann I love her, she responds by asking "why?" and puts me on the spot.  And you might think it sad or odd that I don't immediately respond with "you make me happy" (though she really, really helps, and I try to help her), but it's not her job.  The first, and best, answer that always springs to mind is "you help me be a better person".  That's a great thing to do for someone, and it's why I work to keep her.

But being happy - that's my own responsibility.

Accepting that fact was the first step in getting here.

"It's a fragile thing 

This life we lead 

If I think too much I can get 

overwhelmed by the grace

By which we live our lives 

with death over our shoulders"

--- Sirens, Pearl Jam ---

---

*Note: that's not actually what he said, from what I've read.

Thank You, John

"My fathers house shines hard and bright 

it stands like a beacon calling me in the night"

(Bruce Springstein, "My Father's House")

I just got home from getting my new tattoo.  I haven't removed the bandage and washed it yet, but of course I saw it when he was done, and I know I will be pleased.  Once it heals and I have a good photo I'll be sure to add it here.

Every day when I get out of the shower, it will be there in the mirror, looking back at me and reminding me of the important lesson my father's life taught me.

Thank you, John.

 "Manifest plainness; embrace simplicity"

(Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching")

This and That

"Something lives only as long 
as the last person who remembers it."

(An ancient Indian saying)

I didn't want it to be that.  I knew it was supposed to be that.  I knew from the Facebook profiles and posts of my siblings it was that, at least for them.  I've only just broken the habit of waking up every Sunday morning to thinking "I should visit... nevermind."  I've no desire to make Father's Day an unhappy experience for myself the way Mother's Day took me the better part of 20 years to get over.  My birthday will never quite forgive.

I just wanted it to be this.  And from some of the events in the days leading up, I wasn't even sure it would be this, exactly, as odd as that might sound.  I'd endured a few 'not my real dad' comments from a little girl who, as much as we love each other dearly, isn't old enough to understand the power language has, or at least can have, if we don't know when and how to steel ourselves.  I know she and I have drifted a little of late, partly because we're not having as many shared activities, and partly because I think she naturally withdraws from me a little as summer and time with her biological father approaches.  I think she feels a sort of strange guilt deep down about loving us both, but differently, and in a way she's too young to reconcile.

But that reconciliation of confused feelings will come to her in time, as will a clearer understanding of what is or is not 'real'.

It didn't even matter that much if it was this, so long as it wasn't that.  It could be nothing, so long as it wasn't just that.

Ok, that's a lie, it needed to be this too, and I'm glad, and grateful, that it was.  She did some really nice things for me, and I'm glad that she did, especially when I wasn't certain she would this time 'round.  In hindsight, I suppose, that made it more special, though I'd braced myself to accept that I might be entering a short era where I would be kept at a distance while she grew and changed some more.  Parenting is confusing and exhausting and comes with a well-understood empathy from anyone who is and head-scratching from anyone who isn't.

But try as I might to keep it from also being that, it was that too.  And maybe I'll have to simply begrudgingly accept that it'll just have to be a bit of this and a bit of that for a while to come.

We visited the graveyard.  I saw my father's headstone for the first time.  It's lovely, I suppose.  I'm not sure what the benchmark for "a good headstone" is, really.  Graveyards have never touched me.  Beneath six feet of earth is the empty husk that once housed a peculiar magnificence.  I don't mourn the vehicle.  I don't miss the vehicle.  I mourn the great spirit it once held.  

I miss the way he leaned in as if he was revealing a secret even when it was a story he'd have told anyone who'd listen, and laughed at himself every time even though I'd lost count of how many times he'd told me already.  "Red Rover.  Red Rover.  She came through the door with the axe from the shed."

A little bit of that.  The oddest of times.  Now and forever.  I'm ok with that.

Dry Monkeys and Uncarved Blocks

I've booked my consultation for my next tattoo.  I'm bouncing with excitement about it.  (Ok, I'm bouncing on the inside.)  It'll be on my chest, and as I looked in the bathroom mirror today, I tried to imagine what it will look like there, a daily reminder.

It will consist of four simplified Chinese characters, a passage taken from the Tao Te Ching, one of my favorite quotes and in honor of my father.  I've read many translations for this passage, though the sentiment always remains the same, and the one in a frame on the wall of the den has it as:

"Manifest plainness; embrace simplicity"

 

In the original text it was in traditional Chinese of course, so the version I've picked takes it a little out of context, but given what it says, using the simplified form seems even more fitting.  That said, I had a chuckle this morning when I realized that, taken out of context, it could also be construed as my having "treehugger" written on my chest.

 

The last of the four symbols is pu: 朴.  It translates as "the uncarved block" (or sometimes "tree").  "The Uncarved Block" is an important symbol in Taoism.  'Pu' means simplicity or purity, and is a reference to our 'pristine selves' before the experience of the world shapes and changes us.  When I wrote about my father following his death, I spoke a little about this Taoist ideal of "forgetting" as a path to enlightenment.  It's not the forsaking of knowledge so much as it is the forgiveness of slights, the reduction of complexity, an attempt to return to a child-like acceptance of the world as it simply is.  Keep things simple.  Find joy in simple things.  It is an effort (or an effortless-effort, but that's a discussion for another day) to forgive, to forget, and to dispense with the various prejudices we've accumulated over a lifetime.  It is to put the past in the past and to live in the present, looking forward to the future.

 

Most people have a difficult time with that, of course, and most of us, in thinking of ourselves as 'the sum of our experiences' think of that sum as a good thing.  But if some of those experiences are bad ones - vague, confusing, unpleasant, mistaken, unfortunate - then that sum must surely include a lot of things we're better off forgetting (and forgiving), and not necessarily as a gesture of goodwill toward those we feel have wronged us, but as way forward for ourselves toward happiness and tranquility.  Something I've often said to myself silently at difficult times (I don't recall where I found it.  Maybe I made it up?):  "If we fill our hearts with hate, what room is there for love?"

 

I've been using the story of The Monkeys and the Hose at work lately as a metaphor for how, particularly within a large corporation, certain processes become ingrained and people become very resistant to change.  In the work that I do, the social resistance is often a bigger hurdle than any technical one.

But last night, as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and waiting impatiently for the sandman to find me (he was late, very late), I found myself thinking about those monkeys in terms of human relationships.  Often, people find themselves in unpleasant, uncomfortable, or all-out "dysfunctional" relationships.  And often people stop to wonder how they got there.  "An inch at a time," I say.  Relationships are like journeys, and lengthy relationships are like long journeys.  It's not uncommon to wake up one day and feel like you're a long way from where you were, or where you hoped to someday be.

[Note:  In the interest of nipping any false rumors in the bud, Liza-Ann and I are happy, and right where we want our relationship to be. :) Ok, thanks.]

But if we are the sum of our experiences, often - as with the monkeys - experiences we've assimilated without even truly understanding, then our relationships must be the sum of our shared experiences, good and bad, and again even those we didn't understand or cannot clearly recall.  Perhaps you don't like someone and can't even clearly remember why.  Perhaps someone gives you the cold shoulder, and neither of you know why. 

We're just dry monkeys, scratching our heads and wondering where that uncarved block is.  Can we get back?  Should we go back?

The Dalai Lama believes that compassion is the ultimate key to relieving all human suffering, but if you've spent decades "learning" from shared misunderstandings, how far is the journey back?  If one has the desire, and if one mustered the courage and compassion to make the trip, and if both worked together, would it take as long... "back"... as it did..."forward"?

"Nobody said it was easy
Oh it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I'm going back to the start"

("The Scientist", Coldplay)

 

Serenity Now

"Express yourself completely, then keep quiet.
Be like the forces of nature:
when it blows, there is only wind;
when it rains, there is only rain;
when the clouds pass, the sun shines through."

(Tao Te Ching)

That's not the best translation I've found for that section, but it will do.  It's always been my intention (thus the name "The Tao of Patrick") to use this blog as a place to come and share my Taoist views.  I've done that off and on, though mostly indirectly.  And I'm not professing to be an expert, just someone willing to share his thoughts and experiences with those who might find it fascinating, inspiring, or entertaining, or even who simply have nothing better to do with some time.

Some years ago, a few nice young Mormon(?) boys came to my father's door.  I met them with a big grin, determined to have a little fun (at their expense, I admit).  When they opened by asking how my day was, I exclaimed with great flourish that it was absolutely wonderful.  When one, taken aback, asked if that's because I'd found Jesus, I said "No!  I'm a Taoist, and MY FAITH SUSTAINS ME!"

What followed was about 30 or 40 minutes of education in Eastern philosophy for them, and absolutely nothing I didn't already know.  And I did make them stand out on the step the whole time.  I can be a dick, I know, but they expect others to be willing to listen when strangers prattle on about religion, so I don't see why I shouldn't demand the same of them.

Lately, as was the case following my mother's death, I've perhaps been a little more in tune with my religious/philosophical beliefs.  For those who understand Taoism, and understand me, they know what that entails (mostly quiet reflection and discipline).

Today, I've been pondering serenity, and the passage above.

Yesterday, a coworker had a panic attack when he became very frustrated with the fact that he was trying to raise what he considered a very serious issue, but felt as though no one was hearing him or appreciating the gravity of what he was saying.  His reckless passion reminded me somewhat of a younger, more energetic, more naive version of myself.  I appreciate his frustration completely, but I think my expectations for the outcome have become a little more realistic as I've aged.

Years ago, when I was only nine, an incident happened at school where I felt I'd been wronged by the people in authority.  In spite of the fact that most would have characterized me as a "quiet child" (I've often said the same of myself), I stood up to my Grade 4 teacher and attempted to leave class and walk to the principal's office, "going over his head", when he refused to hear me out.  Of course, Catholic boy's school and all, I was dragged back into the classroom and flung into my desk where I would sulk for the rest of the afternoon.

In my teens, when there was a great deal of confusion at cadets about a fight amongst the NCOs, and when our Warrant Officer was conveniently absent as our defender, I again stood up for what I felt was right.  I was demoted.  I would later still make First Class Warrant Officer (and joke "and I had to do two ranks twice!"), thanks to the unswerving loyalty and willful obedience of those beneath me I'd defended that day.

As a young officer I "crossed the line" a few times with superiors and had to be "put in my place".  I was a "no man".  It was well understood.  I got on a lot of nerves, I'm sure.

And yesterday, I was at his side briefly, and when he was gone I was quietly approaching the powers that be and - albeit much more calmly - trying to express those same concerns he was.  I chose my words carefully.  I spoke them softly.  And when all was said and done, I retreated, accepting that nothing was likely to change, that things would proceed in a way that would leave me feeling dissatisfied, and that I would make my peace with it.

Taoism has taught me that 'if even the winds of heaven cannot rage forever, how can you?'.  One must pick one's battles.  One must know when to speak, and when to shut up, and when to lead, and when to follow.  They're not paying me to have the headaches (or at least not that headache), so I should leave it to someone else.  Some day, when it's my turn again, when I have the power of the wind at my back, perhaps things will be different.  Until that day, I simply remind myself that no one has ever said on their deathbed "I wish I spent more time at the office".

So I will find ways (such as this) to put the stress of work out of my head, and welcome my personal life back in to my heart.  I can't control the situation outside; I can control myself.

Dreams of Butterflies

"Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly,

a butterfly flitting and fluttering around,

happy with himself and doing as he pleased.

He didn't know he was Zhuangzi.

 

Suddenly he woke up and there he was,

solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi.

But he didn't know if he was

Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly,

or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi."

(Chuang Tzu)

 

The 20th anniversary of my mother's death came and went last weekend.  I did not write because I did not feel compelled to.  Indeed, it was only a passing, recurring thought that day.  I went about my day with much normalcy.  I did not take the time to sit and dwell on it, to reflect and to express.  Why?  Because I didn't feel like it.  It was that simple.  I pushed the thought aside and did what I would usually do on a Saturday.  I've had a lot of "not-normal" of late.  I wanted more "normal" that day.

 

But I knew in time I would eventually write.  One can only push a thought away for some time.  Truth is like an unstoppable flame that can only be contained for so long.  It will see the light of day.  I knew I would write.  The question was "what?"

 

I'm typing, and yet I'm still not sure.

 

On Sunday night I had the dream.  It was about Dad, not Mom.  I'd half-expected for weeks that I would have the dream but after so long I thought perhaps it was not coming.  After Mom died I had it many times, but my mother's death was a much bigger shock to the system.  I wasn't sure I'd have it at all with my father's passing.  If I was to have it, I'd have expected it to come on a Saturday night.  Falling asleep on Saturday nights and waking up on Sundays is when I miss my father.  I typically relax on Saturday and put off errands, housework, and so on until Sundays.  So usually, falling asleep each Saturday night and waking each Sunday morning I would be formulating a list of all the things I should do on Sunday, and deciding the best timings and order for them. 

 

"Visit Dad".

 

"Visit Dad" has popped into my head as I drifted to sleep every Saturday night and woken every Sunday morning for a long time.  Now it's been replaced with "Visit Dad.... can't visit Dad.  Dad's dead."  It may be a little while before I've broken myself of the habit.  I am a creature of habit.

 

I think I have described the dream before, but just in case I haven't:

 

After a loved one dies, and in your grief your mind is struggling to make sense of it, you may experience the dream.  You have a dream in which everything seems normal and grounded in your modern life.  There are no zombies or flying cars or topless biker-babes (unless topless biker-babes are a part of your normal life).  Everything seems... mundane, typical, normal.  Everything feels very real.  The dream may become lucid.  You bump into your loved one.  You are surprised to find them alive, but they provide you with an explanation which, while it would defy all waking-logic, is somehow not just acceptable but welcome in this context, and you are joyfully re-united for a time.

 

And then you wake.

 

This mental house of cards your subconscious has created cannot withstand the waking-logic your opening eyes let in, and the weight of grief you'd somehow set aside in your stupor comes crashing back, suddenly, undeniably.

 

The first few times I experienced the dream after Mom died, it was soul-crushing.  On waking to realize she was still dead it felt like she'd died all over again.  For a time, I went to sleep each night fearing the dream, hoping with all my heart that it would not find me.

 

But after a time, when the pain of her passing had lessened, I came to welcome the opportunity.  It was, in a strange way, a chance to visit with her once more, to talk to her, to experience her presence.  In my waking mind my memory of her was clouded and felt distant, but there, in the midst of a lucid dream, she was larger-than-life, vivid, and it felt so very real.

 

When I woke from the dream on Monday I was not crushed.  The dream was lucid and I'd immediately recognized it for what it was, eschewing false explanation in favor of enjoying the moment, however brief.  He was as I remember him best: middle-aged, pot-bellied, face bright with devilish expression and full of mischief.  He was happy.  How welcome was his laughter.  He was happy.  If anything, my only disappointment was that it was too short.  Waking came quickly after the realization that I was dreaming.  I'd have liked to stay a little longer.

 

I can say with confidence that I cannot believe in life-after-death (in the most common sense, a 'heaven' or 'hell'), because I know nothing will ever make it sound more appealing to me than the thought of my parents re-united and happy, and yet as alluring as that is, it does not compel me.

 

I've given a lot of thought lately to what Dad's reality must have been like, how it differed from my own.  He experienced the world in a very different way than I, and than most.  I'm reminded a little of the movie Memento.  It'd not have been like that, but perhaps a little closer to that than to my own experience.  It'd be something very different.

 

And who is to say that my experience of the world is more "real" than his, or than any's?  I trust in my own, because it's the only one I can. 

 

But then, maybe I'm just a butterfly.

 

Someday, I'd like to visit with them both at once, in one of the few afterlives my experience does contain.  I'd like to hear them talk and interact.  I'd like to hear her laugh at his crazy antics.  It would be a laughter I've not heard in more than 20 years.  Some day, maybe...

 

A guy can dream, can't he?

 

"We are not humans beings on a spiritual journey;

we are spiritual beings on a human journey."

(Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

The Blue Fish Special

"Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on pulling, gotta row
Don't know where I'm going I just keep on rowing
I just keep on pulling, gotta row
Moving is breathing and breathing is life
Stopping is dying
You'll be alright
Life is a hammer waiting to drop
Adrift in the shallows and the rowing won't stop"

("Rowing", Soundgarden)

 

 

"He's dead.  He's dead.  He's dead.  He's gone.  He's not coming back.  He's dead.  No more visits.  No more smiles.  No more chuckles.  He's dead.  Dad's dead.  Dad's dead.  Dad's dead."
 

That's the shit that goes through my head a few times a day for the last two weeks.  It's like a littany, a chant of sorts, but a silent one.  It's not designed to steel me against a tide of fear or sadness the way the prayers of the faithful are intended.  This invocation is quite the opposite, it's meant to open a floodgate of emotion, to dive right into the swell and let myself drown a little.  But the congregation in my head remains unresponsive.  So I keep working.  I keep playing.  I keep vacuuming and dusting and fixing things around the house. 

I knew long before Dad died that it would not be as earthshaking for me as my mother's death some 20 years ago.  I was prepared this time.  Our relationship was different.  It would not be a surprise.  I understand mortality in a way I didn't at 21.  But I didn't know what it would or wouldn't feel like exactly.

"He's dead.  He's gone.  He's dead.  You're an 'orphan' now, right?  Isn't that what that word means?  Does that even mean anything when you're 41 or does it only apply to young children?  He's dead.  That's all it really means.  He's dead and he's gone and he's not coming back."

People keep asking how my family is doing.  I guess I appear to be doing fine.  Am I doing fine?  I guess I'm doing fine.  I'm at work.  I'm back to my routine, mostly, except in that I'm in an odd headspace I can't seem to punch my way out of.  I'm not sure I want to.  I do, I do want to.  I'm just not sure how to.  I'm listless.  Mostly I want solitude, to lose myself in video games or Netflix, or some quiet time with Liza-Ann and Olivia.  There is a comfort in Liza-Ann's presence, even when we're really not up to much.  Olivia made me laugh out loud yesterday.  "I heard a rumor...", I said.  "... from a girl named 'Mom'?", she replied with an impish grin.  It was a momentary reprieve.  It was catching your breath between strokes of the oars.  It is the immeasurable power that children have.  It is a reminder of something Kahlil Gibran wrote in The Prophet, about how life looks only forward, and so must we.  The day after Mom died was sunny.  The day after Dad died was also clear.

"Gone.  Dead.  No more conversations.  Did you say all you needed?  No more chances.  Gone."

Usually when I sit down to write, it's because I have something I feel is worth sharing.  Not so today.  There is no great moral lesson to be found, or even any useful advice.  That wasn't how I started out writing either.  Years ago, when I sat down to write, it was because I 'needed to exorcise the demons'.  Writing back then was about my own personal catharsis.  I guess today is a relapse back to that, driven by a need to get what's in my head out.

I wonder sometimes if half of what I wrote back then even needed to see the light of day, or if I'd have been better for typing it and then never hitting a publish button.  But I don't regret what I wrote.  Indeed, I regret none of it.  I regret accidentally deleting some of one of my blogs along the way, or losing track of a few obscure entries.  Sometimes I consider editing and reposting long lost entries.  I still have most of my previous blogs, stashed away on a backup disc, waiting to either rise again or be forgotten and lost.

As always, I am unashamed of who I am and how I feel.  I made peace with myself long ago.  Others should be so fortunate.  If ever there was one gift, one thought I could teach others, one worthy of sharing above all other lessons, it would be that: make peace with yourself and stop judging.  The war for your own soul takes too heavy a toll.

"Dead.  Dead.  Dead.  Done.  Over.  Gone.  Dead."

Nowadays, I don't always feel the need to dig so deep as I did back then.  My heart no longer dwells unnecessarily in past unpleasantries, but instead lives in the contentment that comes from a happy life I've made for myself.

I have an awesome life.

I count and appreciate my blessings.

But I find myself wondering lately if, before I move on, perhaps one more short visit to the dark well is required, one more uncorking of an old, angry bottle, before past is past.  Perhaps.  But then, perhaps not.  That water vessel has a hole in it, and success is the sweetest revenge.  I don't know there's anything I could say my brother hasn't already.

I'm not satisfied with feeling nothing.  Despite all I've written in the past few weeks - much of it with blurry eyes - I still feel as though something is unfinished.  I feel stuck.  I don't feel the pain, but I don't feel the happiness again either.  Most of the time I feel... nothing.

And nothing is no way to feel.

"He's just... gone."
 

"Rowing is bleeding and bleeding is breathing
Breathing is feeling, burning, and freezing
Keep getting dirty but I started out clean
I keep on rowing, I keep on rowing
I keep on pulling, I keep on pulling
I keep on rowing, I keep on rowing"

("Rowing", Soundgarden)

The Measure of a Man

"Good-bye Max.
Good-bye Ma.
After the service when you're walking slowly to the car
And the silver in her hair shines in the cold November air
You hear the tolling bell
And touch the silk in your lapel"

("Gunner's Dream", Pink Floyd)

 

As I walked briskly from the grave to the car, snow falling gently around me, there was a couple edging along just up ahead.  My footsteps muffled by the layer of thick white powder beneath my shoes, I silently approached and made my way to pass them.  They didn't notice me, but I heard them speaking.  I didn't look.  I can't tell you who they were, only that they were a couple and that she held tight to his arm to steady herself on the uneven ground.  The whole scene reminded me of that stanza from the song above.

 

But I heard what she said, and it was simple and it was true and it brought a smile to my face and a tear to my eye.  I said nothing.  I walked on past.  Proud.

Over the last number of years, as I've become a step-parent and a homeowner, as I've started into my 40s and as I've gone from referring to my partner as my 'girlfriend' to referring to her as my 'wife', I've reflected a lot on what "being a man" really means.  What should be the measure of a man?  What should be the measure of a 'successful' lifetime?  What is a 'good life' exactly?

I could be called an atheist (by most definitions), and while I sometimes still describe myself as religious (in my own terms), most would think me quite the opposite.  I could explain, but this is a subject for another day.  Regardless, my particular beliefs don't include the promise or threat of an afterlife, nor do I susbscribe to any code of conduct passed down by an anthropomorphized divinity.  So my benchmarks for "what makes a man?" or "what makes a good life?" cannot find footing in any sort of otherworldly mandate.

Being an atheist - even if I accept that moniker - does not make me a nihilist either. Even after you've stripped away all religious belief, notions of goodness and morality still remain. While I do believe certain aspects of morality are relativistic to the culture and historic era in which we find them, "malum in se" is still a very real concept to me. Religion is not the foundation upon which morality is built; the opposite is true, or at least should be.  It is no coincidence that every major religion has at its centre some version of "The Golden Rule".

And while the works of men like Stephen Hawking have shown me how infintesimally small my role may be in the grand scheme of a monstrously large and utterly indifferent cosmos (dishearteningly, indeed), I still feel that my role within the smaller domain of my family, friends, and community remains worthwhile.

Common earthly pursuits don't find themselves on my list of personal priorities.  Wealth?  Power?  Fame?  I'm far more interested in a simple and comfortable existence, and that's not easily quantifiable.  Even if I did accept these as benchmarks, the inequity of starting positions lends itself to poor comparability.

I once heard it said that a man should be measured by the number of friends he keeps, but I've always preferred fewer, richer relationships to a large following of acquaintances.  Again, this doesn't quite meet the mark.

So like a sculptor who takes away clay until he finds what he's trying to create, after I discarded all the notions I felt did not work, I was left with a simple concept, a rule my mother passed on to me as a child:

Always leave things better than you found them.

It was a rule about borrowing.  But in our time here, are we not "borrowing"?  We take up a little of everyone's time, energy, and resources.  We "borrow" from the planet, do whatever it is that we do, and then depart, leaving both planet and people behind in whatever condition we do.

I think of the generations of man, of families, as much like a relay race.  Each generation, each person, takes the baton for the period of a lifetime and sees how much farther ahead they can move it.  The delta - how things were when you found them as opposed to when you left, how much you contributed positively to the lives of those around you minus whatever harm you caused - this is the "measure of a man" (or woman).

My brother said of my father 'he gave four children a much better life than he ever had'.  It resounded with me when I read that. 

I heard an unknown stranger say in a graveyard last week:

"He raised four beautiful children while taking care of his disabled wife.  You can't ask much more than that."

No.  No, you can't.

"All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy,
beg, borrow or steal.
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say."

("Eclipse", Pink Floyd)

Terms of Disengagement

"I wanna race with the sundown
I want a last breath that I don't let out
Forgive every being
The bad feelings, it's just me
I won't wait for answers
You can't keep me here"

("Can't Keep", Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam))

My father had a quality of life with which (I believe) he was content up until he got pneumonia a few weeks ago.   And while he could have recovered, I suspect he thought that this new bed-ridden lifestyle was all that was left to him, and that wasn't something he was prepared to endure.  He refused to eat, and in a few days he was dead.  I believe he made this choice.  Some tell me it was not a choice, and that human instinct and illness and "time to go..." and blah blah blah...  but I believe it was a choice, and that it was his choice, and I trust in my own experience of the world.

I respect his choice.  In fact, I applaud it.  He met his fate with courage and acceptance.  We should all be so fortunate as to choose our own time and find the grace and strength to do so with dignity.

It's been a little over a week now, and the time between has gone by in a blur.  So many things happened so fast that I can't remember half of it.  I can tell you little bits about the weather because it reminded me of my mother's death.  It was all strangely appropriate.  And there are some things, both good and bad, that I know will stick with me:  the welcome comforts both offered and expected from true friends, the conspicuous silence from those I apparently held closer than they hold me, the pleasant surprises from those who held me closer than I'd held them.

Times like these tell you a lot about your life, and about the quality of the people with which you surround yourself.  I understand that many people, particularly those who've never felt such a loss themselves, don't know how to react.  I appreciate that we all know, on both sides of the equation, that words feel somewhat hollow when faced with the deep sadness such an event brings.  But nonetheless, just as I'm entitled to my grief at Dad's passing, I'm entitled to the happiness, anger, or disappointment that comes with the presence or absence of others in all this.

I won't name names but don't take this as a passive-aggressive outpouring.  The reality is that some of my relationships will be changed forever; they can't not be.  Cry fair or cry foul, but I cry "moment of clarity".  It was part of the silver lining of the dark cloud of my mother's passing.  It will be this time too.

Today, I'm mostly just tired.  I feel ok physically, but I feel exhausted emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.  I'm numb and disconnected.  I can tell when my brain is not working at full capacity.  I know when I'm not as sharp or organized, or when I'm being forgetful about simple things I wouldn't otherwise miss.  I want my brain back.  Being unable to think straight, for any reason, makes me very vulnerable and uncomfortable.  I need to get back into my groove at work.  I need to get back to my normal home life.  I want my routine.  I want my day-to-day comforts.  I want my life back.

I want to get back to feeling like myself again, even if it's a sadder version for a while.

At the same time, I also feel like it just hasn't even hit me yet, but that it can't or won't until I'm back to that routine.  Without that routine, it's just a whole different life, and not the same life with a little piece missing, a hole that needs to be plugged or smoothed over.  Until I reach that point, I can't be sure it's really hit home with me.

Until I'm done falling apart, I can't put myself back together.

"You can’t go home, no I swear you never can
You can walk a million miles and get nowhere
I got no where to go and it seems I came back
Just filling in the lines for the holes, and the cracks"

 

("Been Away Too Long", Soundgarden)

 

A Simple Kind of Man

"And be a simple kind of man.
And maybe some day you'll love and understand.
Baby be a simple kind of man.
Won't you do this for me son,
If you can?"

("A Simple Kind of Man", Lynryd Skynyrd)

In my head, I've written this post many times over the last number of years.  I've reworded it just about every time I've visited my father.  It's different every time.  Some things remain the same.  Years ago, I think it would have come out a little more angry (at my father's peers) and included a quote from "The Noose" by A Perfect Circle.  But instead, today, as I sit to write this, thinking on the man, I don't feel angry at those who looked down their noses at my father; I feel sorry for them, for what they've missed.

A few years ago, I first noticed the song above at Scott and Nina's wedding, and asked what it was.  It made me think of my father immediately, and of things I'd written about him in the past.  It's stuck with me off and on ever since, and today, the day of his death, it's been running through my head on repeat.

I'm a Taoist, and while I've read the works of Lao Tse many times, I've seldom found much use for Chuang Tse.  Most of what he wrote was far more... ethereal.  It's meant to be soaked in, slowly, moreso than absorbed and interpreted quickly.  It's strange, nebulous material.  But there was one particular passage I came across a little while back that made an impression on me, also because it reminded me immediately of my father.  It comes from a Taoist ideal that happiness comes more often from forgetting than remembering, that simplicity, not sophistication, leads to a better understanding of our world, and the tranquility that comes with enlightenment.  I paraphrase it as follows:

When the rabbit is caught, the snare is discarded.

When the wolf is shot, the bow is discarded.

When the words are truly understood, they too must pass.

I would like to meet the man who has forgotten all the words.

My father didn't teach me much carpentry, or plumbing, or how to tie a tie or build a deck.  He didn't help me with my homework.  In most ways we had little in common and often very little to talk about, but not because we didn't love or respect one another, just because we were so different.  The lessons my father passed to me are not those spoken in words.  They are a more important kind, of a sort that can come only by example.

Without words, he taught me things like loyalty, determination, commitment, resilience, fairness, dependability, and the importance of family.  He taught me to find joy in life, in the simplest of things.  When he was unable to walk or even speak, he could still find the strength to smile, and a way to flirt with the ladies.

John Basil Constantine was a simple kind of man.

The older I get the more I understand him, and the more I appreciate both him and that simplicity.  And in the coming weeks, as people ask me "how are you doing?", I will say "fine" or "I'm ok".  It will be a half-truth, of course, but the lying won't come from the fact that it conceals a deep sadness, that's to be expected.  It will come from the fact that the best answers might require some explanation, and right now I feel I've only a few words left:

Enlightened.

Grateful.

Proud.

And the road
The old man paved
The broken seams along the way
The rusted signs, left just for me
He was guiding me, love, his own way
Now the man of the hour is taking his final bow 

("Man of the Hour", Pearl Jam)