source: Alessia Caiazzo, courtesy of CrossFit.com

You exist in the subconscious without opposition. It’s but a quick trip to the tongue, where you roll off with ease. And with no real impediment, you penetrate the minds of those within earshot. But the utterance of you is not even necessary. You seep from the pores of those who let you live in them. You hang in the air like a foul stench. A simple waving of the hand in front of our nose doesn’t always rid you. You are resilient. You are very convincing. So much “evidence” proves you right. And before any of us know it, we are a slave to you.

To jump, to run, to improve, to love, to live, to earn, to forgive, to forget, to change. You will convince us none of this is within our grasp. To be intelligent, to recover, to heal, to be strong, to let ourselves cry, to take risk, to be happy, to be extraordinary. You will keep us from a life fulfilled if we allow you.

But the Universe is beautiful and if we listen closely will reveal the truth. You have no power over us. The evidence you have given us is false. At least the evidence we have allowed ourselves to see. But the reality is there are those of us who prove you wrong everyday. Some of them are doing mind boggling things with the same abilities we all have. Some are doing extraordinary things with every “ability” taken away from them. Sometimes we surprise ourselves and the little eternal light that lives within us all, allows us to see the possibilities and not be buried by the doubts. And it is from these sources the rest of us will be inspired to accomplish all it is you’ve convinced us we could not.

So here’s an emphatic double middle finger up to you. You have no power over us. We can. I can.

F*ck you, “Can’t”!

The first time I visited his office, I asked had he read all those books. Without hesitation he said, “Yes.” I don’t know why but it struck me as one of the best things I’d ever heard. The pursuit of knowledge in and of itself just appealed to me. I thought to myself, “I want to know all there is to know about a bunch of stuff. I’m going to have a library like this too.” Over the next twenty years (sigh!), I’ve accumulated a hodgepodge collection of books, newspapers and magazines. And yes, I’ve read most of these items in whole and all at least in part.

A partial glimpse of my library

As was my goal, over the years I’ve accumulated a lot of knowledge over a modest array of topics. However, as I’ve gotten older and perhaps a natural byproduct of doing so, I’ve become less interested in learning about a wide range of topics. I haven’t thought about that change too deeply, but every now and again the thought pops in my head as to why this might be so. I’ve brushed it off as simply being in a reading slump or being occupied with other things. But I’m also filled with the thought it’s more to it.

Recently I watched (re-watched) the movie “The Edge” starring Sir Anthony Hopkins (Charles) and Alec Baldwin (Robert). Charles was a well read and broadly knowledgeable billionaire. In one scene he speaks about skills applicable to survival in the northern wilderness with an innkeeper, while visiting Alaska. The innkeeper asks if Charles has a lot of experience in the wilderness and Charles explains, with some self-disappointed, his knowledge is theoretical. In an earlier scene, when Charles was complemented by Robert for this broad knowledge, Charles explained he had no practical use for his knowledge. Clearly, Charles despite being well accomplished, was less impressed with himself than others were with him having failed, in his mind, to accomplish the “unequivocal” act in his life. (Like becoming a billionaire wasn’t enough.)

As the movie progresses Charles, Robert and Robert’s aide (played by Harold Perrineau of Lost and Oz fame) are put in a situation where Charles’ theoretical knowledge is put to the test. Without giving the movie away (it has several other sub-plots and is definitely worth a Netflix), Charles experiences some success in converting the theoretical to the practical. When it’s all said and done, it’s only after he’s put to these tests that he feels any sense of real accomplishment.

When I saw this movie in its theatrical release I failed to fully understand the nuances of what Charles was going through. His feeling of defeat despite being extraordinarily accomplished simply wasn’t fulfilling. He needed to test the knowledge he had in the real world. In a swift rush of “Ah-ha!”, I identified the couldn’t-put-my-finger-on-it feeling I was having. I have a bunch of knowledge but I have failed to practically apply much of it. Thus there is this bubbling need in me to DO instead of just KNOW. Basically,

Books is for reading, life is for doin’.

As I approach a milestone age for me and with the next decade on the horizon, my life will become a grand lab experiment. I have the knowledge, I know what to do, now it’s time, it’s past time, to do it.

I am not saying I want you to know me so well that we have to be BFFs or anything. But I think when you read you should offered the context of me. Of course you will not get it all in one sitting. I can’t go that deep. I can give you a little something. In terms of subject matter, there are three places I can start. Things I’d really rather not tell but would rather it be me than someone else, things you should know about me and things I’d like you know about me. So I put together this quick, preliminary list.

I absolutely, positively and wholeheartedly love these two ladies with all my heart and soul.

The Babies

I am not foolhardy enough to think my relationship with each of them will always be happy-go-lucky. I know plenty of grown women who are estranged from their fathers for one reason or another. I hope The Babies and I are spared this fate. 

I won’t always understand them and they will not always understand me. They will not always like me. I hope they will each forgive my past, present and future f’ups and foibles. One thing is for certain, I’m going to work my rear end off to always let them know I love them and would do anything for each of them no matter if we’re together or apart or wherever else our lives lead each of us.

I smoked marijuana when I was 17 years old and never touched it again. I didn’t get what the big deal was. I have never done any other illegal drugs, I don’t smoke and I rarely drink alcohol. I have to admit though I think smoking and drinking are kinda cool looking. I defy anyone to tell me Humphrey Bogart wasn’t smooth as silk in every movie he ever did. He was chain-smoking and binge-drinking in every one of those movies. Legend has it he was smoking and drinking like it was going out of style in his personal life too. Apparently, it’s what contributed to his death. He was probably smooth as silk in the coffin too. Yeah, I think I’ll continue to stay away from the drugs, cigarettes and alcohol.

I have been arrested twice for unpaid parking tickets. I have worn the orange jump suit and everything. It was horrible. It was my own dang fault. There is no overnight parking on the streets in my town. But laziness and defiance got me locked up for a night (the first instance was just a few hours). I won’t go into details but a battle of attrition ensued over a long period between my ex and myself over who was going to move the cars off the street. She won most of the time as my car was usually the one getting the ticket.

I am a bibliophile. I own at least 1,000 books, have read most of them in their entirety and the others partially. Half are on the subjects of investing and personal finance.

I am afraid of moths and only slightly more afraid of lions. I’m the first one to admit some of my fears aren’t rational. Moths freak me out. They’re furry and they fly erratically. If one gets on you and you brush it off they leave like this crazy moth dust. I have no idea what that stuff is but it’s disgusting. Once i saw a microscopic picture of one. Moths are without argument the ugliest creatures on earth. I hate moths.

Lions though are a different story. They scare me for different reasons. I have had several dreams over the years featuring lions. Don’t ask. I have never had the dreams analyzed. Maybe I should. In each dream though, the lions were always one step from having me for dinner. For some reason, in the dreams, my fear seems only slightly more pronounced with the lions than it is with moths. Go figure.

I’m a ride-or-die-guy. I am extremely loyal and value this trait in others. Have my back and I will definitely have yours. You don’t have wonder if I’ll be there for you. I will. Some have said to a fault. If it’s a fault, I’ll live with it. I like this about me.

That’s enough for now.

Update (June 1, 2009):

In the quest to strike the correct balance of being open, telling too much and protecting others I’ve decided to delete one of the above items (formerly shown). There was a turn for the better in a personal relationship of mine that I do not want to undermine by what I published here. I struggled with this and actually sat on this decision for a month. My decision to remove the piece of information was not necessarily to protect me. There wasn’t much more damage that could have been caused from the “public” knowing. In the end my decision to remove it was more about protecting someone else. Many of you have already read this post in the original form, so you have that one bit of information. Can’t take that back. But going forward it’s simply better to keep that one close to the vest.

However, when I really think about it, my regard for privacy has not served me the way I expected or wanted. In some ways it has hurt me. To exercise privacy requires the active withholding of some information. The upside is you prevent people from judging your every nook and cranny. Get out of there! This is why diaries used to have locks. But there is a downside to being private. Inevitably, the private person allows room for others to implant or supplement a false reality about you, your feelings, your abilities and your intentions where there is a lack of information. While many times this may have no consequence on your life, in many ways I’ve found it to be detrimental in my life. Especially in my personal relationships.

I’ve been called mysterious, sneaky, someone with an agenda, up to something and the like just because I did not wish to disclose every aspect of my life. This couldn’t be further from the truth. I am not mysterious or sneaky or anything else. I’m just private. My thoughts are mine, my ideas are mine, my feelings are mine. Mine! Mine! Mine! I do not wish to share it all. What I do share I feel is enough of a representation of me that you can get to know the “who” of who I am. With the things that I don’t share, I am just simply more comfortable having an internal dialogue with myself about those things. I don’t want you to know. Mind your business!

But here’s the thing. I know I’m fighting a losing battle. Privacy in this world is becoming elusive if not yet non-existent. We are living in a world moving toward being an open-book society.  Diaries don’t have locks anymore. People blog about their kids and their personal lives online (eh-hem). I know the intimate details of Paris Hilton’s sex life because reality-TV is so big. You’re seen as particularly suspicious if you don’t have a Facebook page. God forbid you don’t answer your cell phone within the first Jonas Brothers ringtone. People expect access to you at all times. Not to mention the government has established laws that allow them (and you) to rifle through my cyber garbage to find out who I texted, who I called, who I emailed, what I bought, what I viewed, where I traveled, who I was with and what that thing really was that was growing on my back from my formerly private medical records. With two, sometimes just one piece of information you can, sometimes for a small fee, find out almost everything you need to know about a person. Some of it true, some of it not.

Privacy as we once knew it is dead!

Today, I went back and reread part of Thomas Friedman’s book, The World Is Flat 3.0. Friedman writes in a section called “Flattener #9: In-Forming”,

“There is another side to in-forming that people are going to have to get used to, and that is other people’s ability to in-form themselves about you from a very early age. Search engines flatten the world by eliminating all the valleys and peaks, all the walls and rocks, that people used to hide inside of, atop, behind, or under in order to mask their reputations or parts of their past. In a flat world, you can’t run, you can’t hide, and smaller and smaller rocks are turned over. Live your life honestly, because whatever you do, whatever mistakes you make, will be searchable one day.”

This new reality that Friedman speaks of plus the fact that I have had enough situations where being private allowed people to draw false conclusions about me are two of the reasons that have lead me to start Big Piece of Chicken. In a searchable world, I’d rather promote the truth about me and reveal my own skeletons than to have someone else do it for me. Or worse yet, get my facts wrong. Really, I am still that private person wanting to tell you to mind your business. But I realize I live in an open-book world and privacy is met with suspicion.

But since the blog launched I have struggled with how un-private I can and should be. I have contemplated this question with myself. I was also affected by an unfortunate event that recently turned ugly in a personal relationship due to the blog. I have solicited the advice of E.Payne on the subject. I have read and contemplated Heather B. Armstrong’s views on revealing personal information. And I have reread Friedman’s book today. With all, I have come up with the following. Below is a doodle I did in my local ‘Bucks.

The Iceberg of Me

Basically it’s like this.

If I just give you tip of the iceberg stuff, you’ll be bored and I’ll be bored. Who cares. So what. Who cares what kind of toothpaste I used today. (Crest Pro-Health) I can give you more than that, just under the surface stuff, like my views on life. But you’ll get bored eventually and I’ll run out of things to say. I’m not going to tell you the things I wouldn’t tell my therapist. And I’m definitely not going to tell you the things that materialize from the Abyss of My Soul. That’s a place I want to pretend doesn’t exist.

But I think there is this middle space where I can be open-book and not feel like I’m giving away the farm. Although I am not comfortable in this area and still don’t know quite how to do it, I will try to operate there and at least in the other two top tiers of the “Iceberg of Me” both on this blog and in my personal life.

Don’t worry. If you’re reading this and I hold some dark secret of yours, I won’t be telling. But I may reveal some of my own. Let’s see if this more revealing me serves me better than the one who is so private.