Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Aunt Lillie

I probably owe a large portion of who I am today to my great great Aunt Lillie. She babysat me every day from basically birth to age 13 when she died. I can remember bits of wisdom she taught me about life and about morality. I know she wasn't perfect, and I know she had some issues with other people in our family, but she was instrumental in my upbringing. Every once in a while, I see myself doing something I remember that she did, and it makes me smile a bit. Twelve years later, it's odd because she seems so distant, but I still remember so much as well.

Lately, I've been thinking about Aunt Lillie, and I wish she could've been here when I was a bit older so I could've known the person she was a bit better. I could've asked about what her life was like before my sister and I came along. I could've had a drink with her. I could thank her for everything she did for me. It's not really a regret; I was just too young to have that sort of relationship with her. I remember sitting at the side of her bed as she was dying in hospice, and I was too young to process what was going on. I never cried for her. I was just too young, which in a way was a gift I guess, as it would've been much harder to lose her later on in life.

All of these thoughts about Aunt Lillie lately come as a result of several friends recently losing people they love, of losing Brad Zandstra, of reflection on mortality and the way I live my life. Relationships become more meaningful when you realize how much they mean in your life and how much you take them for granted. Only recently have I found my parents and I expressing love verbally. Only recently have I become at all comfortable with hearing or saying, "I love you." I don't quite know why that's the case, but I have a guess that it's an admission of vulnerability. If you admit love freely, you open yourself to the inevitability of loss. It's simultaneously one of the scariest and most beautiful things humans can do, to express in some way that you're putting someone else above yourself.

I've been trying to be more open in relationships. I've been trying to have deeper and more meaningful conversations. I've been trying to be more careful than ever before in considering other peoples' feelings. I feel a considerable amount more guilt when I slip up and am a jerk. If I die tomorrow, that person who I wronged will go on thinking I'm a jerk. It's a cliche to say, "live every day like it's your last," and quite frankly, I'm tired of hearing it put that way. An acute understanding of your mortality takes more than a greeting card. It takes action.

This realization was one of the scariest parts of giving up religion for me. If there's no afterlife, the world is here and now. It's scary, but it forces you to live your life with the understanding that all that lives on after you're gone is the effect you have on the world while you're here. It makes my relationships mean more. It makes my efforts to be a good person mean more. I'm not trying to be a good person because of something after I die; I'm trying to be a good person because this life is all I have. I'm not knocking those who believe in an afterlife. If it makes you a good person, I'm all for it, but my realization that this life is all I have has made me considerably more introspective and self-critical (in a good way).

I wonder what Aunt Lillie would think of me now. I like to think she'd be proud. I like to think we'd enjoy a brandy together from time to time and sit in her sunroom and talk about life. I'd go over to check on her, and maybe I could pay back a bit of the taking care of me that she did in my youth. I don't remember ever telling her I loved her. I'd do that for starters.

Losing people is never easy. Brad was like a second father to me. I think about him every day. I never think about the bad times though, and every time I think about him, I end up with a smile on my face. I hope that someday when I die (hoping later rather than sooner), people will smile when they think of me. That's the afterlife I live in anticipation of. That's what I hope for any of my friends going through tough times, that as wounds heal, the good times prevail as the memories flood in.

It's been a while since I've written, but not for lack of thoughts that have intrigued me. I'm between terms now, and it's crazy how time flies. It's happening more and more as I get older. I'm trying to take the days one at a time and soak in as much as I can. Thanks for reading, and have a great holiday season.


Monday, August 28, 2017

Selfish

As these posts often go, I've been reflecting on something for a while now, and it's time to write it down. Lately, I've been thinking about what it means to be selfish.

Well, for starters, you can't get more of a negative connotation. The dictionary says: "(of a person, action, or motive) lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure."

I disagree pretty strongly with some words in that definition based on the thinking I've done over the last few weeks, and the main word is "chiefly."

This thinking all started with a conversation with my coworkers on my last night in Rome. The question came up about whether we felt selfish for taking two years in Rome. I think everyone but me said they felt selfish in regards to their friends and family, or even that they were made to feel selfish by friends and family.

My first reaction was "no, I don't feel selfish at all," but then I kind of felt like a jerk since everyone else said they did, and I thought about why I didn't feel that way.

I find that when we describe people, there's hardly an in-between for the extremes of selfishness and selflessness. We're taught that there's one or the other. That's why that word "chiefly" irks me so much, I think. It's like if you do any actions focusing on yourself, and tip the scale in that direction, you're selfish. End of story.

I don't agree with that. I think there's plenty of in between, and I don't think selfishness has to have a negative connotation.

The last few weeks have given me some pause. When I first saw all my friends in Chicago, I was pretty taken aback at how much envy I felt for their lives. They get together to watch Game of Thrones every Sunday. They watch football. They go out to eat together. They see each other around. I felt a bit left out of some inside jokes. It was weird and jarring.

So, I thought long and hard about that, and I realized that despite that twinge of envy, the feeling of how great it was to see everyone was what I really walked away with. In so many ways, it was like nothing had ever changed. Which brings me to my point:

My lifestyle isn't selfish because it makes me happy and I do it for me. Sure, I miss my family, and I miss my friends, and I hope that they miss me, but true friendships and family ties don't ask for one party to sacrifice their happiness. I know my mom wishes I was home. I know how fun it would be to be with all of my friends. That said, they don't think I'm a selfish jerk. They know I'm happy, and we make it work in the relationships that are lasting.

I was in Colorado this weekend, and my good buddy Mike Lempko invited me on a lake trip with his crew of friends. As I met people, I realized that their friendships were mostly forged in Colorado despite being from all over, and that they too had moved away from home in pursuit of something. It gave me some peace to see a great group of people like that who may have done what some people perceive as selfish, but they were really welcoming to me and really selfless in general. You don't have to sacrifice your own happiness to be selfless.

To truly be selfish, that ugly negative word we all know, I think you have to put your own interests ahead of the well being of other people. Your happiness has to come at the expense of someone else's, and furthermore I think that detriment to another's happiness has to be intentional. If I truly felt that my absence was ruining the well being of my friends and family (talk about arrogance), then I might be able to apply selfishness to myself. I might not live how I live. If you are willing to tear someone else down to build yourself up, you're selfish. If you prioritize yourself somewhere in the long line of priorities you have towards others, you're a healthy human in my opinion.

So, maybe this whole post is a big justification in a time of uncertainty for me. But what it boils down to in my brain is really a reassuring feeling that just because I go off in pursuit of my own interests doesn't mean I sacrifice true friendships with some of the best humans on the planet. This is going to come out worse than I intend it to, but people's lives go on. They probably hardly notice that I'm gone, but I hope they're happy when I'm back.

Quit feeling guilty for doing stuff for yourself. Sometimes, your happiness will be difficult for others. Sometimes, it will be difficult for you. But to be selfless requires you to be a bit selfish first I think. Thanks for reading.

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

About Love

The single millennial battle cry of recent seems to be “every time I get on Facebook, someone else is getting engaged or married!” We say it almost scornfully. I’ve spent a lot of time in recent months making major life decisions, and my brain keeps wandering back to where love fits in. I’ve been utterly preoccupied with the hope of one day finding “the one,” the person who I’ll settle down and have kids with. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t come with its fair share of considering the other side of the coin; I might never find that person.

It does seem that a lot of people my age are rushing to find someone, which is pretty on par with the stereotype that we’re a generation of instant gratification. We like things to happen quickly, and they often do. That’s not to say it’s a bad thing necessarily, but love is a tricky thing. I think that desire for moving things along has given rise to Tinder and things like it. Our youth was dictated by the rise of the Internet and the smart phone; of course it’s infiltrated the most intimate corners of our lives.

I think I’ve been in love a few times. The older I get, the more that I realize the quest for love probably isn’t about finding “the one.” The more I analyze it (which is admittedly a silly thing to do with love), the more I think that falling in love probably has a lot to do with circumstance. We load our dating app profiles with tidbits about ourselves, cheesy pickup lines, and bad puns, but if it isn’t the right place and the right time, it doesn’t matter how much someone suits you. That’s the end of the line.

I used to think I needed to find someone to complete me, someone with whom I couldn’t live without. That’s the stuff of fairytales after all. I don’t think I believe that anymore. Dependency isn’t love. Independent congruency is more like what I want. I don’t want someone who needs me in order to be whole. I want to contribute a new, meaningful part to their whole, and I want them to contribute a piece to mine. That’s not to say there’s no void if they’re gone, but it’s not filling some gap that you’ve had your whole life that could only be filled by that person.

I’ve been caught up for a long time in the practicality of love, often using that as an excuse for why I don’t currently have it. “I live abroad! I’m just kind of doing me right now.” While that’s true, I also miss companionship in that way. I use my isolation and self-interest as an excuse for the real reasons I probably haven’t met anyone. Those reasons I find are probably numerous, but I’ve always lived under the guise that someone should love me for who I am. While that’s also true, I think I’ve let myself get away internally and externally because that’s what I believed. I want to be loved for who I am, but ironically, I think I let who I was get away because I thought that meant I could do whatever I wanted.

So, yes, everyone is getting married and engaged, and it stings a bit. I won’t act like some alternative lifestyle cool dude who just isn’t into love right now. I think everyone who’s single at my age is asking themselves the same question even if they don’t know they are. “Why am I so far behind these people? Why do they have it figured out?” I think all of us should probably take a good look at why we’re single before we blame it on the folks who have it figured out. I know I’ve got a lot of work to do on myself before someone else finds me to be an attractive investment of their heart and their time. I’m not talking about dates and hooking up; I’m talking about that long-term stuff. If I’m emotionally unavailable, crass, letting my appearance go, and being generally non-committal, of-fucking-course I haven’t found someone who’s interested in the long game. I can’t fault anyone for that, and I shouldn’t rain on the parade of the people who are a bit more mature than I am.

I’m constantly trying to improve myself, and it’s a slow process. After years and probably several failed relationships of thinking “you should love me for who I am” meant “you should love me no matter what,” I’m realizing that it’s not that way at all. You have to offer yourself in full, but you have to continue being your best if you really love someone. I’ve done my fair share of taking people for granted, and I probably owe some apologies.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on enough. Someday, I’ll probably find someone with whom I’ll have figured it out. All of those mistakes will have led me to a circumstance where love works. I’m not looking for someone specific, just someone who sparks my heart at the right place at the right time, and I spark hers. If not, I’ve taken the time to realize that that’s on me. It’s not, “what’s wrong with me?” It would be, “you didn’t put in the work, Ryan.” Here’s to putting in the work to be our best selves.

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

I Don't Know

I've been trying to write this for weeks, and I've been relatively unable to accurately articulate my thoughts, so bear with some scatter brain!

What happens if you mix uranium and helium? Is that even possible? I don't know.

How much weight can the Golden Gate Bridge bear? I don't know.

Are my mind and body separate, or are my personality and disposition merely the chemical reactions going on in my brain? I don't know.

I think all too often in our society, we look down on people who admit not knowing. We sell certainty! "Invest with us, and watch your money grow!" "Act this way, and you'll go to heaven!"

We live in constant fear of not knowing. Whether it's not knowing what the future holds or not knowing when asked a simple question, not having an answer sends us into anxious fits, myself included a lot of the time.

Sometimes, "I don't know" isn't an acceptable answer, and I get that. If you ask the doctor how to listen for a heartbeat, they should be able to tell you. Sometimes though, admitting you don't know something and then working to know the answer is the most noble course of action. The amount of people trying to bullshit their way through life is astounding. It's not embarrassing to not know; it's embarrassing to act like you know with certainty when you really don't.

The more that I critically think about my life, the more I realize just how often I've been guilty of being unable to admit uncertainty and embarrassing myself. It's something I've worked on in the last few years. It's something I really respect in other people. Admitting to being unsure is so much better than messing something up because you thought you were sure. In the office and in my personal life, I've tried to become more comfortable with not knowing, asking for help, or simply taking more time to do the research I need to in order to be certain.

"I preach the gospel of 'I don't know.'" I love that phrase. Relative degrees of certainty are so important in today's world, and being able to distinguish between what you know for sure and what you don't is a valuable skill.

I think it's an important time to rely upon evidence. We talk about fake news, alternative facts, and we calculate the percentage that politicians are truthful in their debates. As I encounter students at work, I waiver between hopelessness and hopefulness as I wonder if they're learning to think critically and analyze the information in front of them then make a decision. If there's not enough evidence, it's okay to not know. I wonder where we'll be in twenty years though if hyper-dependency on parents and inability to use Google without guidance become the norm.

I don't think that's a digression. I think critical thinking, self-sufficiency, and the ability to admit when you don't know something are all intwined. It takes intelligence, work, and practice to admit to not knowing. That sounds silly, but I think as humans, when we don't know something, our instinct is to grasp at straws, to try to put together a satisfactory answer even if it's not the right one. I think we gravitate towards simpler explanations, even if they're incorrect, because it's more comfortable than not knowing.

Sometimes, an explanation begins by conceding lack of an answer. How was the earth formed? I don't know, but there's a lot of relevant theories with evidence and research to back them up. The older and perhaps more cynical I get, the more that complete certainty scares me. Donald Trump is certain all the time, and he rarely gets anything right. I think taking someone's certainty based on their word requires trust and extensive background. As they say, you can't believe everything you hear.

As I said, I'm often guilty of the fear of uncertainty, and sometimes, I bullshit an answer as much as the next guy. I do think it's important to work yourself away from that, though. The world doesn't need certainty right now; it needs healthy and productive skepticism. Ask questions. Do research.