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

Random Thoughts

Reason, Season, Lifetime- Do You Believe

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REASON, SEASON, LIFETIME!!!

People always come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.

When you figure out which it is, you know exactly what to do.

When someone is in your life for a REASON,

it is usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or inwardly.

They have come to assist you through a difficulty,

or to provide you with guidance and support,

to aid you physically, emotionally, or even spiritually.

They may seem like a godsend to you, and they are.

They are there for the reason you need them to be.

Then, without any wrong doing on your part or at an inconvenient time,

this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.

Sometimes they die. Sometimes they just walk away.

Sometimes they act up or out and force you to take a stand.

What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done.

The prayer you sent up has been answered and it is now time to move on.

When people come into your life for a SEASON,

it is because your turn has come to share, grow, or learn.

They may bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh.

They may teach you something you have never done.

They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy.

Believe it! It is real! But, only for a season.

And like Spring turns to Summer and Summer to Fall,

the season eventually ends.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons;

those things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation.

Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person anyway;

and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas in your life.

It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.

Thank you for being part of my life.

Everyone hears what you say.

Friends listen to what you say.

Best friends listen to what you don’t say.

I go back and forth about these sorts of statements. People want to believe that there is a purpose in everything, some sort of hidden meaning that they can sniff out.

I am no different. During hard times it is comforting to say that everything happens for a reason. When you are heartbroken you want to say that person xyz came into your life so that you would learn some profound lesson.

It is not easy for me to buy into all of that. I want to. I love the sentiment and I want to believe, but sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I latch on and have complete faith and other times I shrug my shoulders and just roll my eyes.

On the other hand there are people that I share too many coincidences with. They have come into my life and turned it upside down. So in the end I find myself waffling on whether I believe or disbelieve. I am not a fan of sitting on the fence, but in this case…

What do you think?

Do Men Have Feelings

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Age is a funny thing. Until recently most of my experience with it had been waiting to get older. There were a million things that I wanted to do, but I wasn’t old enough. Slowly but surely I hit those marks and gained the ability to do whatever it was that I wanted to at that point in time.

But until recently I never really felt old or felt the pressure that age can bring with it. Maybe it is all in my head, but with the end of my thirties rapidly approaching I no longer feel like I have eternity to fall back upon. Now I feel the weight of time and it makes me wonder.

You can blame some of this upon certain life experiences. Almost all of my friends are married, most for quite some time. Virtually all of us have children. And now we have reached that time when a number of the marriages are ending. As these relationships end or evolve I have noticed that some conversations that I had thought had been left in the past have resurfaced.

Four years I wrote a short post called Do Men Have Emotions? It wasn’t anything special, but it is one that comes up in keyword searches on a regular basis. It is suddenly relevant to me again because lately the discussions about whether men have feelings have become more prevalent, and not just among the women, but the men.

I suppose that you can attribute the increased discussion to age and maturity. The boys don’t really have that need to be tough, at least not among each other. Now there is far more support for sharing our tales with each other. It is far easier to talk about the girl that broke your heart in the past or the present as the case may be.

The other thing that I have found to be sort of funny is that I have heard a number of women complain about this show of emotion from the men. The cynic in me would accuse them of double standards. You want men to talk about their feelings, but when they do you complain that they are less manly. It is a catch-22 that not even Major Major could get out of.

I am not a social worker. I am not a therapist or some sort of shrink whose job it is to make sense of all this. That is not what I do. Men are men, women are women and we can only do what we can to try and figure it all out.

But I can guarantee that there will be a few women who end up on this post and ask for answers. All I can tell you is that we do have feelings. We fall in love and our happy. Relationships end and our hearts break. We are happy, we are sad and everything in between. We’re humans just like you.

The biggest difference is that we’re logical and you aren’t. 😉 And now if you’ll excuse me I am going to employ the duck and cover technique while I sneak out of here.

Do You Follow Your Own Advice

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Sometimes I am plagued by doubt. Sometimes I look in the mirror and stare at the face and wonder how that guy is going to get through the day because I am not convinced that he is up for the job. I stare and wonder if everyone else can see that he is just really good at faking it.

And then sometimes I feel the exact opposite of that. There are moments that I can only describe as being triumphant. Moments in which I am completely confident that everything I desire will come to me because I can make it happen.

The real trick is to not live in either extreme but to try and stay centered. Most of the time I feel like I do a pretty good job of it. Most of the time I feel like I have a realistic view of what is going on and a solid idea about how to keep things afloat.

But the moments of doubt do come. There are those times when I feel like have the most tenuous grasp on it all, when I feel like everyone else gets what they want, but I don’t.

When that happens I take a deep breath and take a general accounting of what I have. I look around and remind myself of all that I have achieved and accept that it is possible that I could lose it all. Everything could go away. All that I love and hold dear could be taken from me.

I know this. Been to enough funerals to see the truth and the possibility of it all.

But I also know that it is highly unlikely that it will happen. Life is always going to be a bit of a roller coaster. There are going to be the good moments and the bad. So all I need to do is try to steer that middle course and remind myself that nothing lasts forever. The good times may come and go, but so do the bad times.

The hardest part for me is taking my own advice. I’ll be damned if sometimes the hard times don’t seem to have taken up permanent residence. I suppose that part of why I like blogging is that it makes it easier for me to see the evidence of all sides.

Anyway, I am working hard on taking one piece of advice more seriously, and that is getting more rest. So if you’ll excuse me I am off to catch some shut eye.

Rules For Life

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Looking north up Broadway from 43d Street with...
Looking north up Broadway from 43d Street with people using the green beach chairs distributed by the local BID. Replaced, in the Times Square article, File:TSq Bwy pedestrianized jeh.jpg. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I remember a day from a time not so far past. I was walking down 42nd Street towards Times Square. It was the middle of July and the day was relatively warm. For a kid from L.A. the heat wouldn’t have been noticeable but I was dressed in a suit and carrying a laptop. There was business to conduct.

The sky was blue and relatively free of clouds. The usual noises of the city surrounded me. Cars, taxis, buses and people all moving in every direction, semi organized chaos. I was lost in thought about someone who had offered to pepper my pike. I’ll let you wonder what that means, it doesn’t really matter.

As I walked someone stopped me on the street to ask directions. I laughed and told them that I was just another tourist wandering the streets. She looked at me and said that I looked so intent she assumed that I knew exactly where I was going and that I had to be a native. I smiled and told her that home was across the country and that I could answer any questions she might have about L.A.

Can’t tell you what happened after that, I just don’t remember. What I do remember was feeling like life was about to change, and I was right because my life did change.

Six years later I am standing outside of my house. Beneath blue skies peppered with clouds a boy with my hands is attempting to push me. For almost ten minutes he has tried every trick he can think of to cause me to give ground. I haven’t told him, but these moments are getting harder for me.

He has grown bigger and stronger. More importantly he has grown more confident in himself and he knows that if he keeps trying he will eventually succeed. He knows this because I have drilled it into his head. Persevere, persist, keep trying, keep searching for the thing that works and you’ll find a way. Practice, practice, practice and it gets easier.

I want him to win. I want him to beat me at this game and I hate the idea that one day he might. I don’t let him beat me at everything. I don’t let him win all the time. I want him to lose so that he learns how to deal with it. I want to force him to think about different ways of approaching the situation so that he might come up with a solution.

My feet are burning. The driveway is hot and I am beginning to notice the flames dancing from between my toes. Another moment and I am going to have to decide whether to let him win or if I should scoop him up like a sack of potatoes and go running.

Ego wins and he ends up thrown over my shoulder, but it takes a moment to get him up there. He has anticipated this move and attempted to counter it. For the moment size and strength are things that he can’t compensate for and I win.

Laughing I launch us up the road at a sprint. A short time later I am hunched over, his old man is huffing and puffing a bit. Sprawled on the lawn we share a cold drink and talk. He wants to know what sort of rules for life there are. That is not exactly the question he asks, but it is close enough.

I tell him that the rules are simple. Try to be a good person and do what you can to be happy. He tells me that he wants more details and I smile and say that the rest is commentary. He doesn’t catch the reference but he understands the part about happiness.

We talk more and share a few secrets. A moment later we are lying on our back staring at the sky and my mind wanders off. Within the last ten years or so I have stared at that same blue sky in Jerusalem, Toronto, London, New York, Chicago, Dallas and LA. And in each of those cities I have made a point of looking up at the night filled sky too.

Changes are coming. I feel it. Those moonlit nights and clear blue skies spoke to me. I think that I have known about these changes for a long time. Can’t say exactly what is going to happen or how, I just know that change is coming and this time I think that I just might be ready for it.

Those rules for life I gave work when you let them, so that is what I am trying to do. Don’t know if that makes much sense to anyone, but that’s ok with me.

Time to try and get some shut eye, an old man like me needs more than three hours. See you in the AM. 😉

Taxday Tea Party Protest

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Is it just coincidence that as I began to write this post Fortunate Son started playing on iTunes. It fits my mood because I am angry at the finger pointers from both parties.

Some folks are born made to wave the flag,
Ooh, they’re red, white and blue.
And when the band plays hail to the chief,
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, lord,

It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no senators son, son.
It ain’t me, it ain’t me; I ain’t no fortunate one, no,

Yeah!
Some folks are born silver spoon in hand,
Lord, dont they help themselves, oh.
But when the taxman comes to the door,
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yes,

I have a long list of things that make me angry. I am angry about government waste. I am angry about the bailout, but let me be clear about my anger. I am angry at all parties. I am angry about the deregulation and lack of oversight that led to this place. I am angry about the cost of covering the huge mistakes and mismanagement of others.

I am angry about the idiotic remarks of those who take advantage of the rights/privileges they are afforded by living here and do not give back. I am angry because the finger pointers waste my time, my energy and my tax dollars by spewing out rhetoric about how bad the other side is.

Listen you ignorant monkeys, you are part of something bigger and greater than yourself. We pay taxes because it provides a government that helps to see that we have a functional infrastructure.

It pays for the roads that are used by truck drivers to deliver food to the groceries stores.
It pays for research for science that is used to find cures for cancer, for Parkinsons and other terminal illnesses.
It pays for a military that protects us from those who would harm us, be they pirates or others.
It pays so that our children can receive an education.

Damn, it wears me out reading so much garbage across the net. The blithering idiots who tell us that socialism is bad. Do you even understand what it is. Do you know what you are talking about or are you just repeating the crap that someone else spoon fed you.

The buffoons who are naive enough to believe that all people will be nice. George Will provides a good example in his latest column in Newsweek.

“The current president’s U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice, was on Sunday television recently explaining why she thinks Iran, now several decades into its pursuit of nuclear weapons and close to consummation, might succumb to the siren song of sweet reason and retreat from success. Doing so, she said, would enable Iran “to be a responsible member of the international community”—perhaps not the highest priority for a regime that denies the Holocaust happened, and vows to complete it—and “enter the community of nations.” Otherwise Iran will face “the full force of the international community.”

Rice really thinks there is a community out there. To believe that is to believe, as liberals do, that harmony is humanity’s natural condition, so discord is a remediable defect in arrangements.”

I became an independent because I grew disenchanted with the labels and the “restrictions” that came with them. My issue is not with liberals or conservatives. My issue is with those that are so partisan they are unable to work with the other side. Their sole goal is to do whatever they can to thwart the other.

That is detrimental to all of us. So you’ll understand if I am less than enamored by the tea party protests. All that noise, we’ll see if they actually manage to do more than shout out cute slogans.

Running a Background Check on People

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Earlier today I was reading through the latest edition of Haveil Havalim when a link on the side of the page caught my eye and I clicked over.

I found myself reading a review of a service that anyone can hire to conduct background checks on people. It never ceases to amaze me just how much information is readily available to people who wish to find it and I can’t say that I am happy about it.

It is not that I am trying to hide deep secrets. If someone from my past wants to find me it is really not that hard to do. I am accessible. But there is something disconcerting about just anyone being able to acquire so much information about me.

Call me paranoid, but I am concerned about identity theft and it bothers me to see that it is so easy to acquire this data without having to provide any sort of cause/justification for it.

What do you think? Does it bother you to know that your personal information is accessible to anyone with DSL and a credit card?