An open letter to my twin daughters…

March 16, 2012 Leave a comment


Babes, this letter celebrates your life and specifically, the win and loss you two have experienced today.

I am extremely happy for you Nina, for having been elected to a leadership position in your dynasty and, my heart aches deeply and in-sync with yours Emily, for not having received enough votes in your own dynasty.

Oddly, the two extremes; happiness and heartache, empower and do not conflict with the immense overall pride and belief I have in you two; the real joy and quality your distinct and unique selves have always brought into all that you two have done and touched. This event today was no different.

Clearly, I would have loved if you both had been elected but, it did not happen that way and thus… I do not wish to diminish neither the sweetness of the victory nor the heartbreak and pain we ALL are experiencing side-by-side as a result of these events.

It is a significant honor to have been selected to represent your peers in the coming senior year, a fact which carries a good deal of responsibility… so Nina, I am proud and ecstatic in-sync with you. At the same time, it is painful to realize that all of one’s great efforts and the real creativity poured into campaigning and everything you touched did not produce the desired and hoped for results… so Emily, I am saddened in-sync with you.

That is the way things work-out sometimes; neither all good nor all bad… winning or losing by itself does not define the truly amazing women you two are, only your individual minds, hearts and actions can do so. We all are what we manifest; what we believe, accept and action for ourselves.

Only what each of you thinks and does matters…. no one else’s opinion or event makes any difference.

Your grandfather once told me that gracefulness – the key to being graceful – is determined by how we choose the “start” and “end” everything we engage with and do. Of the two, that the style and quality of how we choose to “end” something far outweighs all other conditions or circumstances. Becoming the very essence of what others – and more importantly – ourselves takeaway and remember deep within.

How you both transition and move forward from the positive and painful events you’ve experienced on this day, is what will become etched in your minds as noteworthy and memorable… so, it is my hope that you will choose what is true and right; by continuing to be that which “speaks” of the beautiful, intelligent and loving people you two truly are.

I am proud of and blessed by you both equally. I celebrate your victory and cry in your pain with equal passion.

More than anything else, I am thankful and overjoyed by your example and smile because no matter what, I have seen and know that you two are amazing limitless people who – enriched by this experienced – will continue to always do your very best.
That is what you both are and what you both know and do… all that is required. Everything else pales by the beauty and power of this.

I love you both immensely.

Filed under On Design, On Education, On Life Tagged with , , , ,

Much ado about balance…

March 16, 2012 3 Comments


People often refer to “balance” in life or in work as if it was something pre-determined and concrete; a line-in-the-sand or a clearly defined goal that once reached, would produce such imagined “balanced” state of well-being.

The problem I have with this is that to me, the concept of “balance” isn’t fixed; rather, it is an ever changing “living” component of our individual lives whose definition is as diverse as we humans are and thus, any discourse about this “balance” – like with art –really is a highly subjective matter.

Who is to say that someone’s hectic and seemingly exhausting life isn’t really perfectly balanced… for them? Or that someone else’s highly organized seemingly moderated and diverse lifestyle isn’t really a nightmare of control and blandness to be avoided at all cost… for others?

In the past few years as “work-life balance” vision, objectives and words found their way into corporate statements and our own wistful vernacular, I have come to consider such as “unbalanced”; superficial “flannel”, which does little more than add noise and possible dissent into our corporate and private lives.

It is a relatively modern trend to view “work” as something singular and different from an individual’s “life”, but I’m reminded and offer that there should not be such a clear distinction between the two; that they are in-fact interdependent, each an integral part of the other and each – at times – requiring that more focus be given to one over the other.

For I can’t imagine living possible; in balanced ways or otherwise, without actually working at producing something in real-time; be it the pollen a flower produces for dissemination by bees and wind, to everyday necessities we acquire by the application and exchange of our life skills, to the contribution we make as we guide our babies to hopefully grow into the “next generation” of productive people.

All subject to daily external influences which impact and alter our lives and how we may have to modify our reactions to engage and deal with such influences moment by moment.

The idea that these and all other evergreen “productive life” components which together contribute to an overall life-on-the-planet balance of sorts, should each have and follow some form of prescribed self-balance – even if we could actually come to agree on what that “balance” should be for us as a species – is flawed and unreachable me thinks.

Have we – in our relative affluence – grown softer and more demanding of what is “due to us”?

Do airline pilots, typically regulated to fly about 40 hours per month, have more “balance” in their lives than the average Western individual working 60 hours per week… or a person working 18+ hours per day in an Asian factory? Which amount of work vs. “work-free” time, and/or “level” of balance within ourselves should we be striving for?

What about our poorer and distant neighbors… the folk elsewhere in Africa and India for example, scouring nearly around the clock for the means of basic survival such as finding relative safety, drinkable water and food of any kind that we, with our self-induced complicated lives, take for granted as a basic given? Do they need or even think about “work-life balance”… or is having the gift of actually waking-up breathing yet another day, hopeful of being able to make it all the way through to the evening with – perchance – some improvement, balance enough?

Perhaps our search for “balance” is a distracting cause; the wrong value to use when assessing ways to enhance our human existence holistically and in a sustainable productive manner. For all of us still breathing – in all of our wondrous diversity – manages to achieve our own reality based version of a “balanced life” if not on a daily basis, certainly over a period of time.

Remarkably, I believe our existential needs remain largely unchanged over the thousands of years our animal species has been around… regardless of gender and varying levels of modern day complexity, we are basically a “caves & commons” species; requiring security and solitude for self-reflection, healing and survival, as well as, communal engagement and interaction to give & take, lead & support, fight & love, reproduce & evolve to live another day.

The fact we may believe this ought to happen more gracefully or in a more even manner, albeit interesting, does not determine the overall worthiness; the blended achievement occurring in our current everyday lives… as “imperfect” as we may think such to be.

* Published in the Good Men Project: “Much Ado About Balance“

Filed under On Design, On Education, On Life, On Work Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Manhood…

March 6, 2012 4 Comments


I clearly recall how throughout my childhood, my father would introduce me to his friends as his son… the experiences and how he did this always making me feel I belonged with them; in my mind as tall and every bit the man he and his friends were. Thus, I weighted and agonized over Father Antonio’s vivid lectures on eternal damnation, just before deciding to risk it all in a darkened church abbey, to share my first kiss and experience what a female breast actually felt like. We were 15, had been practicing all afternoon for a play our church was producing and after such mutual exploration; as I walked my friend home that early evening, there was adventure and joy in my spirit, as well as a lingering erection, all reinforcing the dizzying weight of such early manhood event.

Roughly one year later, below that same abbey, I stood an all-night-vigil over the body of another friend who drowned whilst we were all body-surfing on the beach a few days earlier. My friend with the nice boobs sat with the women and mourned on one side of the open coffin whilst silently, I had my rightful place with the men on the opposite side; where every now and then, one would come by to pat me on the shoulder, reminding me to “be strong” and I – a 16 year old “man” – forced myself to say nothing, to not cry as a hurting little boy would.

Soon after everything in my life begun to reinforce such presumed manhood; hunting with my father and his man-friends, working in a gas-station after school to save for my first car, informing my sexuality as I continued discovering the diversity and intricacies of women’s bodies, getting high and having wild sex under black-lights to Jimmy Hendrix’ licks, saying hell-yeah; when my country told me I was going to be a fighting man… my voice deepened with purpose as did my mind and bravado.

In my 20’s, I was the first man on the line carrying my father’s casket into another church’s nave and stood erect by its side with my left hand on the lid, listening to our favorite Schubert’s “Ave Maria”; for the first time in a long while feeling very alone and unprepared; a child’s soul in a man’s body, carrying the responsibility this first son of the first son now had as the head of our family. Something within me wanting to get the heck out of there and shout – this isn’t right… I’m just a big kid… I’m not ready to bury my father! Yet I stood frozen, said nothing and kept placing one foot in-front of the other, to get through that immensely hurtful day and most of my 30’s.

I continued to do the best I could and grew professionally, learning to fly with and without an airplane. Everything around me relentlessly reinforcing such growing manhood status; better cars, bigger risks, adventures in new exotic places, different women always exciting and quirky, social status and finally; just before crossing into my 40’s, standing once again in another church’s altar and saying “I do”… feeling sure enough about the “sense” of it all to wonder; “why not?”.

Why not? Again I thought as I held my tiny 3.25 pound twin daughters in my arms… why not girls as the first son of the first son; up to now unprecedented in our family? With expanding professional and personal responsibilities I learned to love, care for and watch them grow from far-away places; swooping-in to hug, enjoy and introduce them to my friends as “my daughters”… the thought of succession or manhood never once crossing my mind then or as they grew into the amazing beautiful women they are becoming.

Through my 50’s, I wrestled for the first time with the concept of my own mortality; internal conflicts over being older than my father ever lived to be… and also for the first time, found myself exploring and contemplating what THIS man truly is and how he fits within MY greater concept of manhood. The 60’s loomed on as my daughters reached 16; the circular aspects of my evolving manhood as related by this piece evident, crystal clear and in its rightful place as I realize and embrace all that I and my daughters are today without reservation or regret… sure enough to share with you all here the crux of my self-discoveries thus far as a man…

That manhood isn’t time, age, society or gender defined. That beyond real biological, chemical and cultural differences, manhood simply is another word for what we believe, choose for ourselves and take the responsibility to action… by this, what we attract and choose to accept as who we are. I am now – as a man – every bit the relatively happy little boy I was when my father “showed me off” to his friends. Every bit as sexually curious as when I first groped my friend’s memorable breasts… I still move forward one step in front of the other, not always comfortable but filled with expectation and hope nonetheless.

None of us know how long we will be around or what will happen when it is time to move-on. But I am at-peace and immensely hopeful as I imagine a future impacted by my daughter’s lives… I for one will not tire learning from them and encouraging these amazing girls into experimenting and being all that they were created to be; not as societally directed “women” or “men” but as limitless human beings – the true essence of what I believe Manhood or Womanhood is about. I’ve no doubts I will not be disappointed and, when the time comes, will die with a smile on my face knowing that; because they “are”, all will be well with the world.

* Published in the Good Men Project: “Limitless People“

Filed under On Education, On Life Tagged with , , , , , ,

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