a Prison of Glass

Often, when people ask me how I’m doing, I’m not really sure how to answer this.

That sentence probably sounds really heavy. Is Aaron depressed? you’re wondering. Is he facing some tragedy I don’t know about?

Not at all, actually. I’m feeling rather content about things these days, more or less.

But for some reason, I’ve noticed that sometimes I feel ashamed to admit that I’m in a good mood.

…yes, that sounds as weird for me to write as it probably sounds for you to read.

It's true, though. Sometimes when I’m at work texting Emily, she’ll ask how I’m doing. Sometimes I want to tell her that I’m happy or in a good mood or that my shift is going well, or any number of things along these lines.

Instead, though, I usually settle on telling her that I’m “fine” or “okay.” Or, worse yet, I try to think of a negative spin to put on it: “I’m okay. Tired, though.” “Meh. I’m alright. Work is pretty busy.”

It’s not that these things aren’t true. I’m tired a lot. And if I tell her that work is busy, this is because work is busy.

If my dominant mood is happy or content, though, why don’t I just say this? Why won’t I let myself simply tell her – or other people – that I’m in a good mood?

I freely admit: it’s a very curious thing. Why should I feel ashamed of saying something positive?

Thinking about this reminds me of something I wrote years ago. I’ll re-explain it here:

One night I had a terrible dream. When I woke up in the morning, I was in a rather foul mood. This happens to all of us, I think. I kept dwelling on the events and the negativity of the dream all morning, and it kept me in that funk.

Later that afternoon, I started feeling better/happier. As soon as I “caught” myself feeling better, though, I literally remember “reminding” myself that I was having a bad day.

For a minute there, I let myself sink again. I soon became conscious of this fact, too, and asked myself, Why am I preventing myself from being happy?

Why do I sometimes seek out different moods that I imagine I’m “supposed” to be in, rather than just let myself be in whatever mood I am actually, naturally in?

This makes sense if I’m in a bad mood, seeking out the good. It’s worth pursuing happiness in that circumstance. But why do I seek out the negative when I’m feeling positive?

These are great questions. Unfortunately, if there are great answers, I don’t know what they are.

Perhaps I am not so happy as I suppose. I have found that this is true of many people. For at least myself, though, what I hope is more likely is that perhaps I am not so unhappy as I portray.

For now, though, I will just try to work on letting myself feel what I feel, and on letting myself express positivity without justifying it or toning it down.

People grieve and bemoan themselves, but it is not half so bad with them as they say. There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that here, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of truth. But it turns out to be scene-painting and counterfeit. The only thing grief has taught me, is to know how shallow it is. That, like all the rest, plays about the surface, and never introduces me into the reality …

Temperament also enters fully into the system of illusions, and shuts us in a prison of glass which we cannot see. There is an optical illusion about every person we meet.

from Experience by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Kamikaze

No matter who you are, what you look like, what you believe, or how you behave, someone out there will judge you. There will always be someone who doesn’t agree with you, doesn’t like you, wants to prove you wrong or shut you down, who finds you offensive or stupid or ugly or worthless.

Don’t listen to those people.

The fact is that their judgment of you says more about their character than it says about yours.

But why do people judge each other anyway? Why do people insult each other, feel the need to prove each other wrong? Why do people actually want to hurt each other?

When I was younger, I dealt with my share of bullies. And my mom would tell me the same thing that I’m sure you’ve heard: It’s because they’re jealous of you.

I’m not so sure this is correct.

Rather, I’ll tell you what I’ve discovered on the matter, of why people actually want to hurt each other. First, a small anecdote:

My friend B has some people whom she is close to. Lately, these people have all been making drastically different life choices than they used to. For better or worse, these choices have had an impact on their personality and on their level of happiness. B, on the other hand, has stayed more or less consistent with the types of choices she’s been making.

This fact alone doesn’t make any of them right or wrong, per se. B’s consistency might mean that she’s staying true to herself and to her character. It also could mean that she’s stubborn or stuck in the past.

These other peoples’ changes might mean that they’re evolving, that they have learned better ideas about how to handle life. It also might mean that they’re screwing up their lives.

Change itself is neither inherently good nor bad. It depends on the results of the change that help us figure out whether it is ideal or unideal.

Here’s the sad fact: B’s friends are all obviously, clearly, any way you look at it, less happy than they were before these changes and choices.

What we might assume from this fact, then, is that these changes and choices may not be ideal for them, right?

You’ve changed. You’re less happy. Therefore, the change is probably not good.

Okay then.

One day, B was at dinner with some of these people. And at this dinner, they were trying to give her advice. “You know, it’s really not so bad if you…” or “You should try this thing that I’ve been trying…”

This is ironic though, isn’t it?

Here is B who has, more or less, stayed grounded in her choices, in her attitudes, in how she handles herself. And, all throughout, she has remained at a basically-consistent level of happiness – if not getting happier.

Here are these friends of hers who have been making different choices. Those choices have made these people less happy.

And yet, they are the ones trying to give her advice? They are trying to suggest to her that she makes the same choices they are making? How on earth does that make sense?

But that’s a trick question. Of course it doesn’t make sense.

Now then.

I mentioned already that something you’ve always been told is wrong: He doesn’t like you because he’s jealous of you.

Now I’m going to dispel another myth for you. Hopefully the pieces I’m setting up here will start connecting:

There’s this idea out there of people “self-destructing.” People are going downhill; they’re backsliding; they’re hurting themselves; whatever. They’re “self-destructing,” we say. We might say that B’s friends I’ve been describing are “self-destructing.”

But that’s not entirely accurate.

People don’t self-destruct. In fact, there is no such thing as self-destructing. There is only kamikaze.

“Kamikaze,” you’ll recall, is what the Japanese called their suicide pilots in World War II. Kamikaze pilots were people who tried to destroy themselves and everyone around them.

The fact is that people do not self-destruct. They kamikaze.

People do not simply go downhill quietly, in a vacuum, in isolation. No. People go down, and they want to bring you with them.

They say that Misery loves company. (I actually agree with this phrase!) When people start to become unhappy, they want you to become unhappy with them.

When that person tried to hurt you on the school yard – or when they try to hurt you now at work or at home or in church or anywhere else you go –it’s because they are sinking. And they want you to sink with them.

Because people do not self-destruct. They kamikaze.

And when people are kamikaze-ing in your sphere, that says more about their character than it says about yours.

People will judge you and insult you and try to make you feel ugly or worthless. It’s all just a form of kamikaze.

People will try to hurt you – verbally, physically, sexually, emotionally. Kamikaze.

So please: get out of that sphere. Get away from the people that are trying to bring you down. Decide for yourself that you are beautiful and worthwhile. Decide for yourself that you are compassionate and worth the world’s time – and, for that matter, worth your own time.

Because you are. You are worth every second of yourself. If anything, it’s the world that should be in awe of you.

Yes, you. Whoever you are.

You are worth every second of yourself.

Please, please, start thinking so. 

Halfway Between Europe and Emily (or, “On Turning 30”)

When I was in my teens and early 20's, I would often say that “I knew for sure” that I wasn't going to die until I was at least 30. Somehow I just knew, I would say.

As of about five hours ago, it turns out that I was right.

I've done plenty of reckless things; this “for sure” was always my justification. Of course, now that I've actually reached 30, I see how silly the whole thing was. Surviving isn't always easy. It isn't always optional. Some people make it to 30. Many people don't.

I'm one of the lucky ones.

There was a day in my early 20's when I was having what felt like the worst day of my life. Everything was going wrong. It felt like a few of my closest friends were all betraying me simultaneously. I was being accused of a few things that were hurtful and untrue (nothing illegal or anything like that; just a few curious things that were enough to make me feel victimized and down on myself).

I was going to CNM at the time, and, that particular day, I had some business to take care of at their main campus. Some of those aforementioned things kept unraveling for me throughout the day until, at last, when it was time for me to leave the campus, I honestly hoped that I wouldn't survive the 30-minute car ride home.

 

I wasn't going to do anything dangerous myself—fundamentally, I've never considered suicide to be a viable “option”—but I remember very distinctly just hoping some other driver on the road would happen to be not paying enough attention, or driving selfishly, or just plain stupidly.

 

That drive home, of course, went by without incident. And, perhaps it's needless to say now, I'm happy that it did.

 

This day was about a month or two after my trip to Europe. You'd think that someone who just got back from—what should have been, but wasn't really—my “dream trip” wouldn't have had so much to complain about or be upset about. I went halfway around the world. What was there to be so unhappy about?

 

But, of course, that's not how life works, it's not how hurt works, and it's not how our hearts work.

 

Part of me wants to look back to that day now and think the whole thing was just plain silly. So what if some of my friends were being ridiculous? So what if people were being hurtful or selfish or un-understanding? It's how people are; this shouldn't be a surprise, and it shouldn't hurt us more than we can allow it.

 

We're so critical of our own pasts, though. It's easy to look back and think of how wrong or dumb we were at various moments or times in our lives. And sure, of course we do some wrong and some dumb things. But, when we judge our pasts like this, we belittle ourselves. We act like we should have known better, when the reality is that, at the time, we were trying to do the best we could with the pieces we had. We act ashamed of those moments, even though the fact is that they were all part of the grand narrative that brought us to where we are today.

 

We do not live in a vacuum. There is very little way to know how things will all turn out. We have to live momentarily, and I think it's unfair of us to look back on ourselves as if we knew then what we know now.

 

Who's to say on July 31, 2025, I won't be looking back on this moment, this time of my life—maybe even this very blog—and thinking how silly I was being today?

 

So please, let us not be so critical of our pasts. And let us not be so critical of people younger than us who are “just being silly” or who “just don't get it yet.” They have their own pieces they're sorting out, their own narratives that they're working through, and we have ours. “Let no one despise your youth,” and all that.

 

I said that this terrible, no good, very bad day I was describing was about a month or two after my trip to Europe.

 

It was also about a month or two before I met Emily.

 

It turns out that beauty is where you make it; it's not only in any other corner of the world besides the one you're in. And it turns out that life is always more worthwhile than our heart lets us believe sometimes.

 

When I was in my teens and early 20's, I would often say that “I knew for sure” that I wasn't going to die until I was at least 30. Somehow I just knew, I would say.

 

I was right, but this is coincidence.

 

I'm one of the lucky ones.

 

And you—whoever you are who has stumbled into this longer-than-I-intended-blog-post—please do everything you can to be one of the lucky ones, too.

 

It's worth it.

 

The Answer

Often, you hear people say things about looking for – or finding – “the answer.” What they mean, I suppose, is that they are looking for – or believe they have found – the answer to life.

Christians, for example, like to say that Jesus is “The Answer” – with a capital ‘T’ and a capital ‘A’, of course.

This is fine, I guess. Many people believe they have found “the answer” – whatever it is to them – and I don’t really want to take that away from them.

But, at the same time, when people talk about looking for or finding “the answer,” I can’t help but wonder:

What, precisely, is the question?

Again, what they want is the answer to life, I guess. And yet, life isn’t a question, is it? It doesn't start with a "what" or a "why" or a "how," and it doesn't end with a question mark.

Rather, it seems to me that life is an experience.

The problem, then, is that if we treat life as though it were a question, we are taking something away from it. We are turning life into something semantical, trying to turn it into something more knowable than it really is.

Joseph Campbell once said, “God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying ‘Ah!’”

There is no tree, of course. And, according to Joseph Campbell, there may or may not be a god, either. Rather, what he means is that “God” is something that is meant to be experienced.

Life is the same, I think. If we spend our time assuming that life is a question, then we can’t help but try to understand it. That’s what you do with a question, right? – you try to know it, try to find out its answer.

But maybe the point is to spend less time trying to understand life, and more time just doing life.

Certainly life has many mysteries that are worth unraveling. But it seems to me that – most probably – the only way to really unravel life is to just experience it. It’s not that we shouldn’t wish to understand life. But of all things, life certainly is something that you can’t know until you try.

So try it.

 

 

In Response to a Query on “Blessings”

A friend of mine recently asked (on Facebook), “Christians (though non-Christians are welcome to be friendly contributors): Do we have any hope while living in this world? That is, does God promise any good while we're here? I understand 'in this world you'll have trouble,' but can we expect God's tangible goodness in the present?”

By the time I got around to this post, he’d already received several responses from some of his friends.

In response to one of those replies, my friend further commented, in part, “I mean, we're here now--we aren't later yet. And God has a plan in the present. Does His present plan include understandable blessings, or are all of His blessings retrospective (i.e. we only recognize them as blessings later)?”

Here, then, is my answer (which, characteristically for me, is MUCH too long for a Facebook comment):

* * *

If you're only looking for blessings in the past, you will find them. But that is all you will find: history. A nice story. Something you can read about and say "Isn't that nice" or “How special.”

Conversely, if you're looking for blessings in the future, you will never find them. This is because blessings aren't there. When you look to the future for blessings, you can't do this without having already decided what those blessings will be. "If I get a raise, that will be a blessing." "Wouldn't it be nice if I started dating a wonderful person." “All I need is that new car…”

Sure, a raise would be nice. And dating a wonderful person is a pretty great thing too. But these are blessings that you've pre-defined.

Isn't the point—at least, the point from a Christian perspective—to let God do the defining?

Since blessings, then, don’t have much to do with the past or with the future, they must be momentary. They must be here and now, now or never.

According to Luke’s writings, Jesus said, "The Kingdom of God is within you." He didn't say it was in us (past tense). He didn't say it will be in us someday (future tense). He used the present tense.

The kingdom of God is within us. Right now. As you read these words, the kingdom of God is within you.

Perhaps blessings are the same way. Perhaps all of the blessings of God are already within you right now.

What I mean is that, it seems to me, you choose what is a blessing and what is not.

Is having food on the table a “blessing”? – It is if you look at it that way.

Are having a loving family, a good job, or a roof over your head “blessings”? – They are if you look at them that way.

They say “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and I’m quite certain that blessings are precisely the same.

In a letter to Revd. Dr. Trusler, dated August 23, 1799, William Blake said, "The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity … and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself."

Similarly, some people see a sunset and think about how lovely it is that God put it there for us.

Other people see a sunset and think about how marvelous it is that all of the elements of the universe have coincidentally come together just precisely so, leading up to this moment where a rational human being with a seeing eye is able to be sitting here at all, contemplating this beautiful, happy accident.

Still others can’t be bothered to look at the sunset at all.

Who amongst these is the most blessed?

Feel free to answer differently if you’d like, but my answer is both persons 1 and 2, equally. And it has nothing to do with if one, either, or neither of them is a Christian. It only has to do with that person’s perception.

To take this a step further though—and an important step at that:

I said we “choose what is a blessing and what is not.”

But then again, maybe things are blessings not only if we choose to see them that way, but also perhaps they are only blessings if we treat them like they are.

Is having a wonderful spouse a “blessing”? – It is if you look at it that way, and if you treat him/her that way.

I will give you an example:

I used to very often pick fights with people in my mind. It's no surprise, then, that sometimes I would have tense moments with those people in reality. Of course I did. That’s how it goes. This was true of all my ex-girlfriends as well. You will not be surprised to hear that I used to fight with them constantly (yes, in reality).

When it comes to my wife, however, I make it a very conscious point to NEVER pick fights with her in my head. Never. We have been married for six years, together a total of almost eight. And we've been in maybe five fights. Ever.

I've had girlfriends that I've literally fought with more times in one day, than I've fought with my wife in eight years of a relationship.

Unmistakably, my wife is a blessing. But she is a blessing because I look at her like a blessing, and because I treat her like a blessing.

Does it matter, then, where the blessing came from? Does it matter if God played matchmaker and intentionally put Emily and I in a room together so that our sparks would fly, so that we would fall in love and create our beautiful little family?

How could that possibly be relevant?

For whatever reason—God or not—we were in that room together. For whatever reason—God or not—we started talking. For whatever reason—God or not—we started dating. Then we got married. Then we had our son Emerson.

And now, today—right here, right now—I am blessed.

So it is that no matter how these circumstances came about in the first place, I am blessed.

But remember that we choose what we see as a blessing. And remember that things are only blessings if we treat them that way.

And so, inevitably, the most important thing that’s left to say is this: no matter what is a “blessing” and what isn’t, no matter where—if anywhere—“blessings” come from, it is our job to keep the blessing going.

The Things We Deserve

On the one hand, I suppose it would be appropriate to have a blog about Thanksgiving, with it just having happened and all.

On the other hand, I feel like that could be a bit trite.

Hmm…

…oh well. Appropriate, trite, or otherwise, read if you dare.

My mom showed me a meme the other day that said “What if you woke up today with only the things you thanked God for yesterday?”

And, quite regardless of one’s thoughts on God (i.e. revolving around the possibility of His/Her/Its/Their/Whatever/??? existence), I think it’s still a very interesting point:

In short: Perhaps we only deserve the things that we are grateful for.

Hmm.

We only deserve the things that we are grateful for.

It’s a very different mindset than we’re used to here in the West. The more typical idea around here is that you either work hard for what you have, or else you just get lucky. And either way, that’s just how it is.

If you just get lucky, then the universe/fate/God/karma/coincidence/??? must have good designs for you, and that’s worth being grateful for, isn’t it?

And if you work hard for what you have, then all the more so; perhaps there is even more room to be grateful: In this case, no, there may not be a specific person or entity that you need to explicitly “thank,” per se, but…I wonder if gratitude is something more than just a simple Thank-you and a smile and a handshake.

Rather, I tend to think that thankfulness is more about acknowledging the journey. People often say things along the lines of “It’s not the destination that matters; it’s the journey.” Most people, I suppose, would say that they agree with this, at least passively. Really though, I think that this idea is all about thankfulness, just as much as it may be about embracing the moment and learning from experience and all the other ideals that people more typically draw out of it.

What I mean is, perhaps we could say: Being thankful is how you make the journey matter more than the destination.

Or else maybe: Being thankful is how you continue to make the journey matter more than the destination, even after you’ve reached the destination.

Maybe this topic is trite to discuss, but I think – at least, I very much hope – that being thankful in our lives will never become cliché.

So then, I have to ask: What if you woke up today with only the things you expressed gratitude for yesterday?

Because maybe those are the only things you deserve.

Thoughts?

Cheers,
Aaron

Seagulls Only Die Until 5pm

The moment you step outside of my office, you are immediately confronted by the sound of a thousand seagulls dying. They’re not seagulls, of course—we’re about 800 miles from the sea, give or take a handful. But still, there they are: the sound of the seagulls, cawing, flapping their wings amidst screeches as they plummet to the earth or to the water. At least this is how I picture them dying, falling out of the sky, still struggling all throughout their descent. I’ve never seen it happen. And I’m certainly not going to around here, 800 miles from the sea.

You can only hear them until 5pm, when the lights are turned off, when it’s time to go home from the factory.

I hear them if I happen to go outside on my lunch break, or on the days I go home early. Other days—the days when I don’t leave the building until 5 o’clock—I don’t hear the seagulls. I presume they’re still there throughout the day, dying, though there’s no way of knowing for certain. If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around…but how absurd. Of course seagulls die even when we’re not looking.

My son cries when I’m not looking, though his crying is not so clockwork as the sound of the seagulls. Here and there, now and again throughout the day he’ll cry, but of course that’s normal for a three-month-old boy.

But sometimes he smiles, and that’s when I remember that it’s all worth it. I don’t mean to say that it’s only worth it when he smiles—certainly it’s all worth it when he’s crying and frowning too. I just mean that it’s easier to see that it’s worth it when he’s happy.

And of course smiling doesn’t make a sound. Perhaps happiness is a quiet emotion, because we don’t necessarily feel the need to share it. I am happy, and that is enough. But when we decide to share our happiness, when we show someone else our smile, we realize that happiness should not be a private affair, that others need our happiness just as much as we ourselves need it.

Sometimes when I awaken, I see that my son is already awake, looking around in awe, smiling at anything and everything, and even at me. I wonder: how often does he smile, even when I’m not looking?

I think that one of the saddest things in life, rather than seeing tragedy, is not seeing happiness. Surely happiness is happening all around us, even when we’re not looking. It makes me sad to think about all of the smiles that I miss from my son or from my wife when I’m not around, all the symphonic laughter that I’m not a part of and that I’ll never know, because I’m asleep or at work or in the other room or somehow otherwise just away.

The seagulls have their beginning and their end. They are from 8 to 5, and they are a distraction. But happiness doesn’t have a clock. It is forever—or at least, it should be. And I hope that I always do my part to let it be.