Slapped by Reality

I can't find the brakes, most of the time, but I occasionally can take foo off the gas. Two are my favorite ways to do this are playing in the ocean, and watching movies. I am happy to say that I have passed my love of the ocean down to my daughters, and I guess in return most of the movies I have seen in theaters in recent years have been under a Disney or Pixar banner. I will accept that trade. My daughters are growing up faster everyday, another reason to find the brakes, so I have learned to enjoy their movies. The fact that the people at Disney put in the occasional adult humor helps deaden the blow somewhat. Anyway to reel this back in, movies especially those in a theatre are a good escape from reality. I can't imagine going to see a movie with my daughters and watching a tragedy unfold like that in Coloroda. An attack on the symbol of American capitalism is hard to grasp, but I understand the target. This movie attack is harder to wrap my head around. These were just people there to enjoy an escape from reality, instead they get slapped in the face with the cruelest reality of all. On a bus trip with my family, my oldest daughter found a copy of the last Batman movie on my IPod. She watched it to past the time. I had told her there was another Batman movie coming out soon, maybe we could go see it. She quoted the Joker a couple times. I thought I had a new movie buddy. So this could have been me and my daughter at some random theatre. I asked her over the weekend whether she wanted to see it, to gauge her opinion, she said no she was good. I decided not to push the issue, and take my foot off the gas. I am passionate about a lot of things, but being a father is at the top of the list. I wouldn't want to do something to jeopardize that, just like anyone sitting in that theatre didn't expect to either.

Bursting with Ambition

I guess if you don't have goals to work toward, and nowhere to get in life then life will go pretty slow. Then you would just be floating on the lake with no direction at all. That would be like riding a moped through life, going slow and in the way of people trying to get somewhere. Going too slow seems worse than going to fast. Ad hard as it is to find the brakes and slow down, people don't usually find a burst of ambition and speed up. The moped only goes so fast. Somewhere along the way in my management training, we had a class on balancing the wheel of life. If you keep all your priorities in balance the wheel will roll a lot smoother, if not it becomes lopsided and the ride is rough. I become too focused on one thing or set of things and let others suffer. Sometimes we have to find the brakes, slow down enjoy the moment and recharge.

Asterisk Voyage

Maybe all this perceived speed comes from being driven toward goals. I have to put this analogy down to get past it. You are on a lake in a boat, there is a rope stretched from side to side. The only way you can get across is to pull hand over hand. This goal becomes your passion. The more you pull, the more momementum you gain, and the faster you go. If you become focused on a goal and and put all your energy into achieving it, time will go by rather quickly. The problem is life is full of such goals, goals at home, with the kids, etc. So instead of it being a linear vitage across the lake, a more accurate image may be a spider web or asterik. As deadlines and goals approach, time moves at the same rate. The more atcipation around a goal, the more energy around a deadline, the more the clock moves as well. The more we focus on getting across the lake, the more we loose along the way. You can't enjoy the lake, if you are focused on getting across it. When I was out of work post surgery, I couldn't do a lot of pulling on the rope. I was pretty much dead in the water. But I got to slow down and enjoy the view for a moment anyway. I also started this project. Even though, it just rambles along, I am able to get these ideas out of my head. When I was a small child, Christmas was the crossing of the lake, everything revolved around Christmas. It always seemed so far away, so far across the lake. Now I work retail, and Christmas arrives in August. Everyday now has deadlines, and I end up like a waterbug, bouncing across the lake from point to point.

The Horizon

I am still obsessed with the preceived speed of life, and how to slow it down. Like driving a car, the gas pedal is the skinny one, but easy to find. The brake pedal is the wide one, big enough to jump on with both feet. But yet it is still hard to find the brakes. We have deadline after deadline to meet, so we keep our eye on the next hurdle. There is a long straight stretch on my way to work. If you focus on a spot on the horizon, movement doesn't really register. You pick another spot closer in, and you start to notice a faster change. You look at the road in front of you and the dotted line goes flying by you. In all three cases you are traveling the same speed, but with three totally different perceptions. If we are engaged with life's tug of war match, and constanly pulling on the rope, then of course the next hurdle is going to come at you faster. If the hurdle comes faster, then life moves faster. I recently spent week out of work recovering from surgery. During that week, I had to let go of the rope. The hurdles stop coming. I could look up at the horizon, at least for a moment. At that time I didn't find the brakes, they found me. Ever so often, they have a tendency to that.