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The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

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Archives for February 2009

When Your World Is Collapsing- A Letter To My Children

February 17, 2009 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

I drank a huge cup of coffee and am not going to find a way to sleep anytime soon so I thought that I’d write a letter to my children. I don’t intend for them to read this for many years. In fact I’ll probably revise it a number of times, but for now this is the edited for the blog version.

Dear children,

It is the middle of February 2009 and am almost 40 years old. Until this year I hadn’t really found any of my birthdays to be difficult, at least not from the perspective of feeling old. I can list a number that I found to be exciting because my age meant that I had gained new privileges or responsibilities that I wanted.

This is different. It is different because I am realizing that my expectation for what my life would be like at 40 is different from what it is now. I can’t tell you exactly what it was that I expected it to be.

When I was 13 I was certain that I was going to be a professional baseball player. I was good, among the best in little league. But for a variety of reasons it didn’t pan out. That is ok. I have no regrets there.

I am trying to remember if I had any specific dreams of what my life was going to be like. For a long time I expected that I was going to make aliyah and live in Israel, or at least spend significant time there. That hasn’t happened yet and I can’t say if it will or won’t.

My career has had its ups and downs. It is not like your grandfather’s career. I grew up with a father who had one job for 38 years. But that was what happened in his generation. Things changed and it became the exception rather than the rule for someone to have just one job. Now it is not unusual for people to have several.

Your great grandparents were born during World War I. Your grandparents were born during World War II and your parents during Vietnam. The Cold War took up the majority of our time in school. The first Gulf War hit during college.

For a while things seemed relatively calm. The Soviet Union collapsed and the stories I heard as a child about whether the US and Russia would nuke each other became more of a fairy tale.

And then 9-11 hit and life changed again.

As I sit here writing we’re a few weeks into President Obama’s first term, who knows if he’ll have a second. We’re still fighting two wars, one in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan. Our economy is in terrible shape and from a certain grim perspective life looks pretty damn bad.

But perspective is what is called for. One day when you are old enough I’ll fill you in on all of the details that I am leaving out of this post. I’ll tell you some things that will help you understand the who, what and whys.

Anyway, the reason that I gave the history lesson is to show that history does repeat itself, the good and the bad. And sometimes the best thing that you can do is take life one day at a time. Break up the crap into smaller bite size pieces and just do the best that you can, because that is all you can do.

And now the circle is complete. I have officially channeled my father and grandfather. That line that drove me so crazy is being passed down, but I have come to believe in it. It doesn’t mean that you cannot or should not shoot for the stars, but that you have to accept your limitations.

But the thing to remember is that accepting your own limitations doesn’t mean that you can’t use your melon to find a way to overcome the challenges that face you.

Before I wrap this up I want to leave you with some of my favorite quotes:

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”- Thomas Edison

“Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.” – Thomas Edison

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”- Thomas Edison

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorius triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”- Teddy Roosevelt

Filed Under: Children

Tales of Brave Ulysses

February 17, 2009 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Tales of Brave Ulysses– Cream

Have you ever read the Odyssey? As a kid it was one of my favorite stories. I loved mythology and reading about Odysseus just fascinated me. A general who was one of those who went to war because of Helen of Troy. A hero who fought for ten years to find his way home and then when he got there still had to undergo more challenges before he could regain his kingdom.

When I find myself feeling overwhelmed with the challenges presented by life I sometimes think about these kinds of stories. I look at the challenges faced by Hercules and the little boy that still lives within imagines what it would be like to be that guy.

Part of what I have always enjoyed about these stories is that the heroes have a tragic flaw. They may be capable of incredible feats, but they are also subject to doing incredibly stupid things. It makes them far more human.

I suppose that is part of why I appreciate Harry Potter or The Lord of The Rings stories. The hero is an ordinary person placed in extraordinary circumstances. To be clear I appreciate that though they may win in the end, they do not avoid tragedy. It is far more real.

Lately I find myself engaged in trying times. It is not all that different from many others. The challenges that I face aren’t unique. Many people face them, but the difference is that they are mine. I am the one that is forced to make the decisions about what sort of action to take or not to take. I am the person who gets to make the hard call about whether to answer the bell with a flurry of kicks and punches or to spend a round getting punched in the mouth.

In the quiet moment of the evening I write down these words and wonder whether the house of cards I live in will sway with the wind or collapse. Intellectually I haven’t any doubt that one day I will look back upon this time as just a memory. It will be like every other experience in my life. Some of it will make me smile and some of it will make me sad.

Emotionally it is challenging. Because the decisions I make will affect all of my family, but as to what the final effect of these decisions will be it is unclear. It is moments like this that I look at my parents and gain a far greater appreciation for what they did.

It reminds me of conversations I used to have with my grandfather. It has been 2.5 years since he died and not a day goes by that I don’t think about him. For that matter it has been a little more than ten since we lost “D.” I think of him often too.

I go back and forth about what my belief about olam habah is or is not. I go back and forth about whether I believe in a heaven. Most of the time I think that there is. But I live my life in the present. I try to do good things now because I think that it is the right thing to do, not because I want some heavenly reward.

Sometimes I think of my grandfather and “D” as being part of the vanguard that gets to check out wherever we go after we die.

Going back to my grandfather I can remember him advising me about life. He’d tell me that all we can do is the best that we can do, advice echoed by my father. Not surprising considering they were father and son.

There were moments that I found it to be infuriating because sometimes I felt that my best wasn’t good enough. But as time has gone by I have found it easier to accept. I may start a new post that covers this.

Filed Under: Things About Jack

Monday Evening Music

February 17, 2009 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Music and assorted lyrics from the evening.

Walk On-U2
“I know it aches
How your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on
Leave it behind
You’ve got to leave it behind”

Let It Rock– Kevin Rudolf
99 Problems-(Grey Album) Jay Z
Latika’s Theme-Slumdog Millionaire Soundtrack
Can’t Get It Out Of My Head– ELO
“And I can’t get it out of my head
No I can’t get it out of my head
Now my old world is gone for dead
Cos I can’t get it out of my head”

Goodbye Stranger– Supertramp
November Rain– GunsNRoses
Somebody To Love– Queen
Princes of The Universe– Queen
Strawberry Fields– The Beatles
While My Guitar Gently Weeps– The Beatles
Lust for Life– Iggy Pop
Space Oddity– David Bowie
Social Distortion– Ball And Chain

Filed Under: Music

Do You Handwrite Letters?

February 16, 2009 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Earlier today I had to fill out some forms by hand and noticed that I no longer seem to have any stamina for writing. After a relatively short time my hand began to ache and I wondered why these forms weren’t online. As I silently cursed the unknown person(s) who was responsible for this I thought about how bad my penmanship is.

Somewhere in the archives is a post that I wrote about this topic, my penmanship that is. I’ll save us both the time of searching for it by summing it up. My penmanship was never great, but it was relatively legible. If I had to choose between cursive and printing I always chose and still prefer to print. It is easier for me and I have fewer concerns about whether people will be able to read my writing.

So dear reader I am curious to learn if you still handwrite letters or does most of your communication take place electronically.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Filed Under: Writing

Field of Dreams

February 16, 2009 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

I loved this scene.

Filed Under: Baseball

Facebook Owns Your Content Forever

February 16, 2009 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Facepalm, the earlier years. #Paris #louvre #facepalm

I was none too pleased to see this story on The Consumerist:

Facebook’s terms of service (TOS) used to say that when you closed an account on their network, any rights they claimed to the original content you uploaded would expire. Not anymore.

Now, anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in any way they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later. Want to close your account? Good for
you, but Facebook still has the right to do whatever it wants with your old content. They can even sublicense it if they want.

Filed Under: Facebook

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