On desire

"He who binds himself to a joy
Does the winged life destroy."

- William Blake

---

Ginny asked me, simply, "What more could you want?"

If only the answer were as easy as the question, because lately I've been thinking a lot about the things I want. Out of life, out of myself, out of a relationship.

Desire is not an occupation, but it's a helluva way to pass the time; a search for some grail that will have us - not immortal - but keenly wishing for something else.

And that's where it gets us: the wishing. The "what-ifs." The damned desire.

It never seems to spawn anything worthwhile (except for, rarely, love). Look at the poor, doomed Angels of the Old Testament. They saw the Women of Earth, prostrate, and desired them completely. God doesn't allow his first-born the benefits of sex in Heaven, so they fall to Earth, have their way, and get banished for their efforts.

The result? Giants who terrorize the ancient world.

Recently I've experienced my own misgivings with what I want. I think about how much time I spend thinking about some sort of "plan" for my life, and what would make me happy, and it all feels like such a waste of effort. What good can all that thinking do for me? Can I really run my life through my thoughts?

Mr. Keillor put it pretty well a few weeks ago, speaking about the sneakiness of desire, and how simple it can be:

I am an American in headlong pursuit of happiness and here was a lady expressing an older and earthier philosophy that my aunts would not have disagreed with: Better than happiness is acceptance, a gift of God. You wake up every morning and pull on your jeans and make coffee and look at the newspaper and pour bran flakes and milk in the bowl, and as time goes by you realize that this is preferable to what you once imagined would make you happy.

Madame Larina was quite pleased with the line "Instead of happiness, heaven sends us habit." And she sang it several times. I put my hand on my wife's knee. She was sitting next to me in the dark. It was snowing in Minnesota, a gray blustery Russian sort of day, and when we walked into the theater, a multiplex in the suburbs, we were in the mood to see "Eugene Onegin" live on high-definition TV from the Met, starring soprano RenÈe Fleming and baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky.

Keillor notices that, surely, our sense of want and need for plans change over time, like everything else. Simple is usually better, he finds. But his advice is lacking for a twenty-something guy who feels like he's on the edge of...something. Teetering, just waiting to fall, or land safely. Especially when he tells the story of the play he's watching:

It simply was the most moving thing I've seen at the movies in a very long time. Mr. Hvorostovsky is tall, cool, handsome and everything that Elvis was hoping to be, and Miss Fleming's bare left shoulder is more erotic than Madonna naked and when she puts her hand to her bodice, she makes my nostrils twitch. She plays Tatiana, who goes crazy for Onegin and writes him a letter and agonizes over it and plucks at her bodice and finally sends it to him.

He coolly rejects her. He doesn't believe in marriage. He is in search of happiness, not the life of habit and dailiness. The chorus gets to sing and dance, and he shoots and kills the tenor, which I suppose we've all wanted to do now and then, and years later he meets her again -- she is married, and now he is wild for her, and after a passionate duet, him on his knees, tugging at her, pleading, sobbing, pulling her down on the floor, she decides to be faithful to her husband and walks away, leaving Onegin tortured with regret.

...For three hours on a Saturday afternoon, everything that had been on our minds faded to black and we lived as in a dream with a handsome man in search of happiness and a beautiful woman who found satisfaction, and then we walked out into the snow and started our cars.

The search for happiness. The torture of regret. It seems like those raw emotions make life what it is. But to experience them firsthand, in the now, makes you long for something else. There's that desire creeping up again.

What is desire? Imagine there's a hole in your spirit. Now imagine you want to do something to fill the whole. What do you do? What do you fill it with?

For Christians, they say it's a God-shaped hole. Fill it with Jesus, and you're set. Buddhists say the hole is self-shaped. Be content with your self (or yourself), and your desire will end. After all, we have limited control over our environment, so why not settle our mind and emotions - the few things in life we can control?

But what happens when you try to fill the hole with other things, like alcohol, or drugs, or sex, or relationships, or material things, or money, or power, or knowledge? Most say it's folly. Stuff can never fill our hole, but we try anyway.

And maybe that stuff does make us happy, at least some of the time. I know nothing in this world makes life come into sharp focus more than a hot cup of coffee.

But suffering comes from the realization that those moments are fleeting. What can last forever? What shape is your hole? William Blake knew what he was talking about: enjoy the fleeting moments of joy (since, really, who can fault you for it?), but try to chain the joy to desire, and it's not going to be much fun at all. No sir.

Just letting things happen. Ever try that? It seems like a sure-fire way to beat the big D, but it's harder in practice. I'm learning, though. There's little in this world I - or you, or anyone - can actually control.

Why not focus on those things you can control, and let the rest...just happen. Shit, why not?

It sure beats the tortured regret and all that nonsense.

Dave Lawrence, award-winning graphic designer

So today I got good news.

I won a credit union industry graphic design award, first place. I won $1,000 toward the trip to pick the award up. And I get to head to Orlando for a four-day weekend on the company.

Yes friends, things are looking up today.


It all started back in July of last year, when we kicked off our Visa Gold campaign. We spent a lot of time preparing for the launch, and I thought I did a decent job of preparing all the promotional materials: posters, postcards, web site, newsletter articles, etc.

Every year we head to a Visa conference in Florida, where we learn about all the latest and greatest. When my boss, Kristi, and I received info on this year's conference, they included information about a marketing award. All you had to do was submit your recent Visa campaign, so I gathered all the materials and bought a nice binder (I learned a lot about award entries in college, when I entered all the journalism categories during my College World days), and sent everything off. Kristi and I had a good feeling about the whole thing: she felt the campaign was a successful one, and I felt good about all the pieces I had designed.

Today, when I got the mail, I saw the envelope from CSCU, the company that held the contest.

And you know that feeling you got when you opened your college admissions letter and found out whether they had accepted you or not?

That's what I felt today.

I climbed the stairs back to our office, tearing at the envelope, and lifted the letter out far enough so I could see the results.

And I screamed.

I showed the letter to my co-worker, Liz, and she gave me a big hug. It must have been good timing, because our president walked out of his office, and I showed him too. Handshakes and hugs all around.

Tears in my eyes, I called Kristi to tell her the good news.

"So do you want to go to Orlando to accept the award?" she asked me.




With the award, CSCU sends you $1,000 toward the trip - registration, airfare, the whole thing.

I hesitated, because the trip is April 12-15, which means I'd miss the Tragically Hip concert I've been looking forward to since 2004, and I'd miss a big event at work. Plus I'd for sure miss Founder's Day.

But you know what? It's $1,000 and a trip to Florida for a long weekend. How the heck could I say no?

I remember a story about Harry Truman, when he won his re-election bid for Senate after a hard-fought campaign. When he returned to Washington the following January, he received a standing ovation from all of Congress on his accomplishment. When an interviewer asked him about it later, the former president started crying.

That's kind of the feeling I have about this whole thing. It's like my hard work, after almost four years of being at American 1, has finally paid off.

The things I've learned and the friendships I've made their are worth their weight in gold, but to have something that I can call my own, something that I've earned...

Well, let's just say I was a wreck at work today.

I have two big things I've always held up as my big accomplishments in life. One is winning the student body president election sophomore year at Adrian after a helluva campaign. Two was winning the Outstanding Senior award a month before graduation, and Dr. Renner giving a speech about my college academic career.

This can be number three.

Turn off your TV and live

Ask any service club, bowling league, church social committee, or Greek organization what their number one problem is, and chances are they'll all answer the same:

Membership.

Declining numbers in organized activities is a serious crisis in areas as diverse as the civic square to the college campus. Fewer people are joining, and many groups face extinction is they don't increase their membership numbers.

My own Rotary club, and Rotary in general, has dealt with fewer members for years. In a weird twist of the phenomenon, the number of Rotary clubs is increasing, while the membership of each club is decreasing, by as much as 20 percent. Our breakfast club used to have as many as 45 members. Today, we can barely keep 30 coming to meetings.

Robert Putnam, in his book "Bowling Alone," helps to answer the "why" question, as well as the "how much." According to Putnam, the decline in inolvement in civic groups, politics, church attendence, family dinners, participatory sports clubs - in other words, everything that makes America what it is - is an epidemic that has been taking place since the 1960s. Group after group, study after study, survey after survey shows Americans participated in life as we know it in record numbers after World War II.

And then something happened. It all went away.

What's to blame? Putnam says it's several things: commuting, urban sprawl, women entering the work force, generational differences, and - probably most of all - television.

All this disengagement has come at a price. Studies show that people who are rich in "social capital" (those bonds that tie families, towns, neighborhoods, and groups together) live better, happier, healthier, safer lives. If you're a homebody, you're twice as likely to be depressed. On the other hand, if you're active in your community, you reduce your chances of having a serious medical issue.

A lot of this might seem like common sense. After all, if you're well connected in the community, or even if you have a big family, you increase your chances of getting a ride to the hospital if you need one.

But what Putnam shows that, to me, is so remarkable is why all this is going on. The "Greatest Generation" were a hearty, active bunch. Their kids? Less so. THEIR kids? Even less so, and so on. That's the generational difference (even though Putnam never says exactly why Baby Boomers are less active than their parents).

With the invention of TV and electronic entertainment, Americans are more likely to sit at home, alone, in front of a glowing box than they are to invite friends over, go to a city hall meeting, or attend a church social.

And because we're spending more time in our car, traveling to work and across town to the strip mall, we have less time to devote to the public good.

Putnam shows the steady decline in involvement since the '60s, despite all that's happened historically in the meantime, but I can't help wonder about 9/11's effect on the country. For instance, other things being equal, Putnam shows our generation is more likely to volunteer. Did 9/11 do anything to increase that further? And we all heard stories about how church attendence grew after the attacks, but how has it fared since then?

Also, Putnam can only hint at the Internet's involvement in our gradual disengagement. The Web was pretty new when he wrote "Bowling Alone," and - like TV - it may take awhile to study the long-term effects of AIM, eBay, and Amazon.com.

I've been reading a lot about these "The Sky is Falling" scenarios lately - the financial crisis, Peak Oil, global warming, the rise of polarized political voices - and it really makes me wonder what this country is going to look like when my kids are my age. If America is all about a participatory democracy, what happens when we stop participating?

The image of an America where everyone is locked inside their home, afraid to go out and play, cynical and suspicious of their neighbors is a frightening one. And all we can really do is do our little part to make sure we're active in the social sphere, whether it's family or church or work or whatever.

To sit in front of the TV is no way to live individually, let alone as an entire country.

As KMFDM would say - "Turn off your MTV and live."


[a big thanks to Cassandra for letting me borrow the book!]

Last one to leave Jackson, turn out the lights

Ask anyone what they've heard about Jackson, MI, and the answer is the same.

The prison. The largest in the U.S. That's what we're known for.

Soa big surprise came this morning when we all learned that the prison is closing.

Almost 500 jobs lost. Poof. Just like that.

And it's not the only bad news to hit Jackson in the past year or so. Plant after plant, company after company, shutting its doors and hundreds of people left out in the cold.

Welcome to the Rust Belt, folks. Hope you like service jobs.

There used to be a time when Jackson was a bustling place, a kind of mini-Detroit as far as auto manufacturing went. Because we were nestled along the old Sauk Trail, where now sits the main highway between Motown and Chicago, I-94, we were in a prime spot to make all the parts that helped to make vehicles.

Starting in the '80s, however, with the closing of the big Goodyear plant (one of the founding companies of the place I work), the manufacturing base of the community has steadily declined. Today, our biggest employer is Foote Hospital.

The second used to be the prison.

My grandma keeps telling me that Jackson has been a dying town since the Progress Place movement ruined the downtown, and she may be right. While the downtown has seen a bit of a pickup, the constant closings of major industries is crippling growth. Where do we go from here?

Of course the prison closing is a symptom of the state's budget fiasco, which could be a symptom of the loss of manufacturing jobs, and so on, on down the line of blame. And we're certainly not the only community to face such woes; Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Illinois towns have been showing signs of wear for years.

I've always felt there's nothing spectacular about Jackson - nothing that I could say "that's what keeps me here" - but it's a nice place to live, and I've called it home all my life. My family is here, a lot of my friends are here, and I've found a good job that I enjoy doing. Plus Jackson is close enough to other fun spots, like Ann Arbor, Detroit, Windsor, Kalamazoo, and even Chicago.

But Jackson, and Michigan as a whole, may be going the way of the dinosaur if this kind of job-loss continues. Who wants the only major employer in town to be a hospital? Or Meijer? Or a utility?

If anything, it'll be folks like me, and Suzanne, and Cassandra - if we do stick around - who will have to turn this place into somewhere worth living. Usually kids graduate high school and never look back (which makes me question my own wisdom, now that I think about it). That has to change.

As does Jackson's willingness to change, because it's some of the older folks around here, the ones who high-tail it to Florida every year, who are the most resistant.

So here's to Jackson: home of the coney, the place that almost got the University of Michigan, the Cascades, MIS, a still-functioning train station, and a serious jobs-and-optimism problem.

On being too busy

"Do few things and do them well." - St. Francis

---

Busy people recognize busy-ness. In conversation, we can connect with our compatriots.

"I've got a meeting tonight, and I have to run and do some errands, but later if you want to we could..."

In between all that, a busy person will recognize his or her own situation. "Yeah," they might think, "I know how that goes."

But, like most of a busy person's relationships, that may be all we glean from the encounter. It may be that appointments and engagements takes the other person away, or perhaps your own busy-ness carries you off. For what can be learned of our friends and family if there's no time to learn it?

Thomas de Zengotita, in his book "Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live In It," likens this skimming to the feeling you get when a limb - arm, leg, foot, whichever - falls asleep. "Ever notice," he writes, "how, when your hand is numb, everything feels thin?"

Sure, anyone can relate to that. Zengotita says this can be read as a "guiding metaphor" for the "mediated adult" - being someone who is so "busy" being an adult, with all its activities and responsibilities, that life tends to feel a bit thin. Or maybe we don't feel it at all. We're so used to that thinness that we think life should feel this way.

Only when "the ultimately real descends upon us in the form of tragic accident" does that haze lift - sometimes, only briefly. "And then," Zengotita goes on, "we remark upon how things have been put in perspective."

Like a stone skimming a pond, we merely tread the surface. We tip-toe on only the tip of the iceberg. In both, we never truly get wet.

Unless disaster strikes.

I can certainly relate. I remember there were times, in college, when I would have an entire day's worth of activities and to-dos planned that only at the end of the day could I really sit down, relax, maybe get some homework done. Things haven't improved all that much. I'm still involved in many organizations, have friends in town and out to visit and socialize with, have hobbies to maintain, and somewhere in there I eat and sleep. Then get up and go to work. Over and over again.

Life is fleeting. It's fleeting because I'm so busy doing the flying.

Lately, though, I've been stepping back and taking a look at how I do things. Instead of running all over hell's half acre, I make a point of setting aside a few nights for relaxing, or doing things with friends, or just doing nothing at all. I'm selfish with my time. And why shouldn't I be? It's one of those things you can never get back, no matter how much you multitask.

Multitasking, in fact, can be held accountable for some of our busy-ness. Even on the ride home from work, you can call friends or family, set up your schedule for the rest of the night, maybe do a few errands why you're out and about. So busy. With cell phones, PDAs, etc., technology has its stake in this, too.

We probably never set life on cruise control as we do now. Now, we just let the engine of busy-dom jet along at an ever-faster pace. Meanwhile, our relationship with our actual lives begin to thin at the margins.

Ever notice how life seemed so much slower "back then?" Perhaps it was because there was less to do, but also because people didn't feel the compulsion to cram their day with the day-to-day. Long conversations, extended meals, walks and community events - these are what filled people's time. It was quality, not quantity.

Saint Francis understood this. His words tell us that a person's life can be truly fulfilled only when mastery of a few key ideas, skills, or accomplishments are realized. Today's world is filled with so many choices (think about the cereal aisle at the grocery store) that to land on and master any one thing become difficult. Why do a few things well when you can do all sorts of things half-assed?

But Tom Hodgkinson, in his book "How to be Idle," says that being busy robs us of the very things that make us human: thought and self reflection. How can we get to know ourselves, he argues, when we're too busy to stop and think?

He even quotes Oscar Wilde, from Wilde's essay "The Critic as Artist":

The contemplative life, the life that has for its aim not doing but being, and not being, merely, but becoming - this is what the critical spirit can give us.

In other words, a "to-do" list (which I swear by, I'll admit) keeps us from finding ourselves. It's all a distraction. Amidst so much to do, we have forgotten what matters. And - back to that "thinness" metaphor again - we eventually become superficial beings, instead of the realized versions of a potential self.

While playing video game football hardly helps me realize my potential self (accept, perhaps, when I can beat Don), it helps me settle, helps me use my brain, and helps me relax.

It's also one of the reasons I've found Buddhism so attractive lately. I don't have a religious bone in my body, but something about the practical aspects of mindfulness, and concentration, and just sitting and thinking - it's awfully hard to ignore the benefits. Instead of being so worried about planning, or regretting, or being anxious about things I can't control, I simply let them be. It's a fine art, and a talent, and I hope I can develop it more.

For some, however, being busy is all they know how to do. Running on all six cylinders is the usual - only on vacations or when they're asleep do they know the meaning of "down time." In the meantime, there is this drive to get things done. Perhaps, when the too-busy person looks back at their life, they will feel a sense of accomplishment.

But at what cost?

I think you can have it both ways. You can do lots of things - strike off those items on the to-do list, one by one - but still keep a sense of connectiveness to those you care about. It's about moderation. And (here's a multitasker's buzz-word) time management. Shucks, even a day spent on the couch, watching a movie, being lazy - it can be beneficial. Running on overdrive has to have its cost, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and certainly physically.

And when it does, what will all that running around be worth?

When genius strikes

Every once in a while, a genius idea comes along and strikes, like a bolt of lightning, making the ozone in the air positively hum with creative energy.

That's what happened to me today.



About twice a year, we have an ATM promotion, whereby just using an ATM you could win $50. Get a winning ATM receipt (featured in a different ATM each day), you win $50. All you have to do is come to a branch and collect.

The hard part is stamping the ATM receipts, because you have to do it by hand and at certain intervals. That means you have to unwind the giant receipt roll (above), stamp the winning receipt, and roll the thing back up.



For all those ATM rolls.

Our delivery guy at work, Dick, is a pro, but it's usually an all-day job for him. That, and there's this problem:




That's right. Paper cuts. Slicing, bleeding, screaming paper cuts.

Well, Dick's gone for the month on vacation, which left the ATM roll-stamping up to me. After the first few rolls, I got pretty frustrated.

So I came up with a plan.




My original inspiration came to me in the bathroom, looking at the toilet roll. Roll. Spinning. Unwinding. It all clicked. So I thought I'd make my own ATM receipt roll dispenser.

It took me a few tries, but here's how I did it. First, place a pen on the desk (above).




Then, to weigh the pen down, I placed a blank ATM roll on top of the pen. But that wasn't heavy enough. The counter-weight of the spinning roll set the whole thing off.




So I stacked more on top of the pen (above). Four felt right.





From there it was simple - just slide the ATM roll onto the pen. The pen bent a little, but it's flexible, and I found it actually helped with flexibility and spinning ability.


The trick was to get the spinning receipt roll on the pen just right, so it didn't fall off, but was flush enough with my desk to keep it steady and rolling smoothly.




Eventually I got it just right, and I set up my workstation, opened up iTunes, and began working the afternoon away.





Needless to say, my coworkers were extremely jealous. They asked if they could help stamp ATM rolls, but I denied them - the poor saps.

"Get your own goddamn genius invention," I bellowed.

I was on a roll (pun intended). And hey, this could be the start of something beautiful. Thomas Edison got his start this way you know. Or at least through something similar, I'm sure.

There come moments in life when everything seems in focus, and edges of reality blur just a little bit.

Today held one of those moments.

I'm just glad I was there to light the dynamite.

Straight on 'till morning

With it snowing like crazy outside, I find winter is the best time to plan getaways. It gives you something to work toward when spring comes.

And so this year, I think I know where I'm going. Here it is.

It won't be quite as long as last year's Route 66 trip. Then, I cruised 6,000 miles of American highway. This time it'll only be about 5,000 or so. But really, what's a thousand or two miles?

Seattle's one of those Great American Cities that I've always heard good things about, and - for some weird reason - I thought driving through Montana sounded like the best experience since the Mojave Desert last year.

I did some number-crunching, and I'm looking at about $350-$400 for gas, about $200 for lodging (I'm good at sleeping in my car, it seems - but I haven't really found a place I can't get some shut-eye), probably $300 or so for food, leaving me with a total cost of about $900, with $100 leeway for the Just-In-Cases.

The plan is to high-tail it out west on the interstate (who wants to take their time through North Dakota?), speeding down I-94 and I-90, visiting four new states along the way. Stay in Seattle for three or four days, check out the town, then jog north into Vancouver and British Columbia and take the 1 through Alberta and Calgary east through Saskatchewan, then hit the 16 and 17 through Manitoba and into Ontario, round Lake Superior, and take the southern route home.

My vacation time is set. May 26 through Memorial Day week and on into the next weekend, spending the weekends mostly driving and the week in Washington.

I want to see all four corners of the country, and this will technically be corner number three. I thought about a New England driving trip, but I'll still have vacation time in the fall to do that one - if I still feel ambitious.

Next year will be a train tour through Germany and surrounding countries, and from there who the hell knows.

Now that I've got the skeleton plan set, the rest of the winter and early spring will be filling in details, saving up, and dreaming of the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Northwest.

I'm starting to feel like I should get paid to do this sort of thing. Where is National Geographic or the Travel Channel when I need them? But I'm sure they'd place restrictions on me, and frankly when I leave town I just want to do what pleases me.

What pleases me now is looking forward to another cross-country adventure, seeing vast swaths of barren and isolated Northern Lands, cutting into beloved Canada and seeing it the whole way through, and coming home to crawl into bed, taking a nap, and dreaming of impossible vacations.

That, my friends, is living.