Tears? Yeah, so what?

Every year it happens.  Without fail.  I watch the ultimate Christmas movie and I am moved to tears.  Not just at the end, but scene after scene stirs something in my soul that I cannot explain.  I try to break it down every year, but as of yet I have not figured it out.   I know that my wife thinks that something must be wrong with me (in a playful way).  And I think she may be on to something.

I have no idea if there are other people out there that do the same thing.  I have never really asked my friends.  But time after time there will be a seemingly innocuous scene in a movie that will stir emotions I did not even sense were there.  It can be a reaction to a truly emotional moment or not at all.   A boy and his dog...a father and son...and EXPLOSION with someone looking on.

I am sure that there is something in my past that I have yet to recognize.  If not in this lifetime, perhaps one from long ago.  Whatever it is I am almost certain (yet as I said I have not figured it out) that it has something to do with the fact that my childhood was spent exploring the desert of Arizona and NOT spending a whole lot of time with family members.

As family's go, I would not consider mine dysfunctional in the extreme sense...but certainly there was somewhat of an emotional disconnect.  One that follows me to this day.  So much so that when I see a reenactment of an emotional moment it moves me.

I get a lot of jabs from people that accompany me to the movies.  My stepson is always commenting on my "pain."  But secretly?  I think he's just hiding his own emotions!

So I am sure that I will continue to watch movies, continue to emote randomly, and continue to be razzed by my friends and relatives.

To that I say: "SO WHAT!"

I am okay with it.  In fact...I feel alive when it happens.  

Not Happy Holidays...this year!

The Christmas Spirit.

I have it.  For the first time in many years I think I have achieved nervana in the Christmas sense.   I helped, even encouraged, the pulling out of the boxes in storage to set up the decorations.  I have watched my fair share of Christmas movies, and also threw out my share of Merry Christmas to random people that I would normally “humbug” silently.

But the Piece De Resistance (make sure to pronounce the french version) was when I agreed to sit down and participate in creating handmade gifts.  It was the stuff of Holiday Stories.

I did not, however, participate in the commercialization of Christmas.  The spirit I am feeling is of the joyous kind.  It has not been a particularly booming year financially and there has been a fair share of turmoil in moving across the country with no sense of how the landing would feel and yet I am surprisingly upbeat about it all.  I don’t know whether to attribute it to age or just a lack of fighting the wave of debt filled spending that often results in buyer remorse when the first credit card statement appears in the mail in January.

I don’t know if I can call it love in the traditional sense, but there is this overwhelming rise in emotion when I look at family, friends, and even those I don’t know and have never met.  I almost don’t know how to react.  It’s not virgin territory, but certainly not something I am as familiar with as say…Breathing.

I don’t know how long it will last.  I am hoping that it is not just a holiday thing, but a true rekindling of that soulful connection to the universe that I haven’t been nurturing in some time.  My guess is that it will stay around as long as I allow it to; as long as I feed it; as long as I don’t allow the world to try to crush it out of me.

But for the time being…whatever may come…Merry Christmas!  Happy Chanukah!  Joyous Kwanzaa!

Oh…And Festivus for the Restivus! 

For my Kids...and anyone else!

An Open Letter to my Kids.

Dear Kids,

As I take the time to look back on life I do so not with regret, but with reverence.  I look at the ups and downs, the great times and the times of struggle and I see a uniformity to life.  In that I mean that while we all experience these same patterns from time to time, we are not defined by them, but on how we learn from them and continue.

I have to say that many of the most important lessons that I have been taught were after you were grown.  Which is to say that in your formative years when the information would have been  useful to you I didn’t have it available.

I look at the struggles that you have been through (are going through) and think “if only I had said this…or said that!”

So I decided that instead of thinking that I was too late, I would lay out some important things that you may already know…

LOVE is the most important gift.  The more you do it the more you receive it and the better off you are for it.  You can have everything else the world has to offer, but without love it means nothing.

(When I say love, there is no need to add words like: Compassion, kindness, forgiveness, and understanding…it is all part of love.)

MONEY is not evil.  Money is a tool!  And you cannot build things without tools.  If you use money properly than there will be enough for you and for helping others.

TIME is something you need to mete out carefully.  You need time for work, time for others (not just children, but those who need help), but most importantly you need time for yourself!  Now this may sound contrary to what you have been taught or believe, but TIME for yourself needs to be first and foremost.  Because if you are not properly taken care of then you will be no use to others.  It’s okay to be a little selfish.  You will know when you are ready to help the rest of the world.

CONSISTENCY!  If your thoughts and your actions and your words are not saying the same thing, then you will not be able to move forward with your life.  It is like a recipe.  Not only are the ingredients important, but how you mix them, what temperature you cook them at and how long you cook them all have to be consistent with the recipe.

If you believe you are broken…if you believe you are less than…if you believe you can’t…then you are…and you wont.

So choose to believe that you are perfect!  You are More Than!  And you Can…and you will!

Understand that sometimes when people tell you NO…it may be about them and not about you.  So be aware, understand your surroundings, and the energy that people are putting off.  And BE who it is that you have always wanted to be!

Love, DAD!

Hack this!

hy·poc·ri·sy

: the behavior of people who do things that they tell other people not to do.

North Korea hacks into the internet to attempt to disrupt Sony Pictures and the release of “The Interview.”

Did NO ONE at Sony see this coming?  This movie is talking about the killing of a leader of a Sovereign nation.  Forget about whether or not we agree with their politics.  It DOESN’T MATTER whether or not we agree.

Of course the argument is that this is fiction and a comical take on what one government might do to exact a revenge on an enemy state that is not a democracy or a friend to the U.S.   But come on!

In films, that are intended to be a farcical, screenwriters rarely use an actual living person to be the antagonist.  If they do some director or producer changes it by the time it becomes a finished film.

If I were Kim Jung Un I would easily be as livid.  But what I would be livid at is the Hypocrisy.  Hell, Natalie Maines (Dixie Chicks) couldn’t even make a negative comment about Bush without completely destroying her career.  If you were to even hint about doing danger to our President you would be locked up for life and never heard from again.  But I guess the writers and producers of the film thought it would be okay to do it to the North Koreans.

I haven’t seen the film, obviously, (though it was on my hot list for Christmas), So I don’t know if they actually go through with it (the assassination) in the movie, but my sense is that they don’t get to finish the job.  So perhaps Kim Jung Un was a little hasty in his condemnation.

Trust me, I get the whole argument about Human Rights violations and dictatorships.  Nuclear weapons and threatening their neighbors to the south, but we have got to find a better way to be self-righteous.  It just doesn’t work for me to say one thing while practicing another.

Would I go interview Kim Jung Un?  Hell yeah!  Would I kill him for my government?  Hell No! 

We could really use Dennis Rodman to step it up and help out on this one!

Okay, maybe not.  But I hope that someone, with better sense, comes up with an answer for this one.