American Urban Landcapes - 020207

Houston, Texas, USA

Writings on A Wall...

Photographed at Disney World
Orlando , Florida
In EPCOT at The Land Pavilion
December 2006

Picking and Choosing... To Veg Out or Not To Veg Out?

I grew up during the nineteen-fifties and sixties. Television was was in it's infancy and we had 3 channels from which to choose. At midnight, after a last recap of the news, an American flag would appear, waving in the wind, and the stirring strains of the National Anthem of the USA would stream from our tv set. Alternatively, a montage of landscape photos from across our country appeared at the end of the day and the music was America the Beautiful. Like us, the television station shut down for the night.

Entertaining myself meant going to the movies or reading a book. It might mean spending time with friends or my family. Or traveling somewhere by train or by car. I lived about two hundred miles south of Chicago, and I loved to go into the big city to visit family and see the sights and the museums.

Life in the fifties was simpler and in the small town where I lived, the pace of our lives was slower, managable and relaxed. When I was a kid, I was afforded the luxury of having some time to grow up, before I had to become "grown-up". Like all kids my age, I had problems and issues, but none which could compare to those problems with which my own kids had to contend. I had fewer choices in my life than a kid has today. But at least, the world hadn't yet started to change at an ever accelerating pace. Some basic things still remained true and valid from one year to the next. My life was maybe a little easier to live, than is my life now.

Tonight, I have drifted into these nostalgic reminiscences, because I found what I was watching on television sort of irritating. I had watched Men in Trees and Grey's Anatomy. I found both shows sort of short on substance and entertainment value. Like a lot of things in our world, television programming has evolved and changed over time.

I really am not sure why so many of the television programs today put me off so these days. I guess as the world has changed, so have I. I find many of these changes in our day to day life less than thrilling and sometimes very disturbing. Given that what we see on television is a reflection of these changes, that may explain why the shows on tv no longer have so great an appeal to me. Or maybe, it is because I have see it too many times before. There is nothing new or good or fresh being presented to me. But I know that there is a problem when there are times that I cannot find a show I really want to watch from over 100 channels.

That is not to say that I cannot find things to do with my time. The upside of having so many choices of how I might entertain myself is that I can opt to simply do something else. So I do.

I do a variety of things to entertain myself. I spend time surfing the internet and posting to my blog. I have fallen into the habit of doing at least one Sudoku puzzle a day, to keep my analytical skills sharp. I have rediscovered the pleasure of reading books, in their original format, on paper. Occasionally Marilyn and I will go out to a movie, if one looks particularly interesting or entertaining. Recently, we took in Night at the Museum at an IMAX theater. I chill out, listening to my favorite genres of music... mostly Broadway albums and easy listening. And among my favorite of things to do is to spend time with my best friend sharing a nice bottle of wine, when we can carve some time out of our busy lives to do that. And of course, I treasure the time that I can spend with my wife, my kids and my granddaughter.

There is a thread that runs through all these activities. I want to do more than just veg out in front of the boob tube. I want experiences that are richer, more mentally stimulating and more meaningful. The time I spend with friends and family are the best of times, because I can be with the people who mean the most to me. In short, if I am going to devote time to being entertained, I want a return on my investment. I want to put myself into situations in which I am doing more than just zoning out to escape the stress and the issues in my life.

In the US in the twenty-first century, we have no dearth of ways to entertain ourselves. There are a thousand ways to do that. Beyond computers and television, there are video games and spectator sports and clubbing and a long list of other ways as well. In fact, if I allowed myself to do it, I could entertain myself into mental oblivion. I don't want to do that.

There are only so many hours in a day. As Robert Frost wrote, each dayI have "...miles to go before I sleep and miles to go before I sleep." With so little time left in any given day to just relax and enjoy myself, I have figured out that there are a lot better ways to do that than to get addicted to forms of entertainment which are fairly empty of content or real value for me. Simply put, I have more important things to do with my time and my life.

Another Piece of the Puzzle Falls into Place

Especially in the down times of our lives, when we have a little time on our hands, we can put that time to very excellent use. As we are works in progress throughout our lives, we are always looking for the clues as to what makes us tick, as to the person, deep down, that we are.

Today, I was using an on-line tutorial to learn how to do Sudoku puzzles. There are strategies of logic one can use to solve these intriguing puzzles. And I marveled at the ingenuity of each of these different approaches.

It was then that I had one of those "aha" moments. I love to unravel a problem and to find the solution. Actually, I was reminding myself of something I had forgotten. I love to analyze things... situations, accounting problems, a technical problem with the computer or a Sudoku problem. I knew that about myself. It was just something that had just slipped my mind.

Whether it is a moment of discovery of something about ourselves or a moment of rediscovery of something forgotten, something very valuable has happened. For me, it was and is important right now because I can continue my job search with a clearer focus on what I want in a job and hopefully I will have improves my chances of landing one that will be a better fit for me.

My life is very much of a jigsaw puzzle. When I was younger, my parents would assist me in placing in the first pieces in the proper position. When I got a little older, I used these pieces to build on, as I moved on in my life. At every stage of the journey, I was able to recognize the available pieces of the puzzle that I could set in place to fill an empty space in the grid. I am still doing that... discovering or rediscovering something about myself, that I use to better understand who I and what I want in my life.

I build my life, one piece at a time. And for good measure, some parts of me require several puzzle pieces that I will discover each one at different points in time, just in case I forget that particular aspect about myself. That is exactly what happened to me today.

Something Borrowed - 012907

A Question.

When was the last time something you read made you wonder?

Reprinted from a special advertising section in The New York Times, Sunday, January 21, 2001.

Gazing Into The Crystal Ball

The road ahead... what lay ahead for me in my life, that is very unclear. Fog shrouds the road ahead, shutting out the sun and the sky and the horizon just beyond where I am.

I truly wish there were such things as functioning crystal balls. Or at least one that could even just give me a hint of what was the right thing for me to do next. Surely, some computer programming guru could harness the powers of probability and statistics, and write the code for the program to predict the future, within an acceptable range of error. Then all that guru would have to do is to embed the software into a crystal ball with an lcd screen. Right! No... very wrong. Ain't going to happen. Like magic wands, for now, crystal balls just don't exist. Can't pop down to Circuit City or the local computer emporium and buy one just yet.

A voice inside of me is admonishing me to be more proactive in my own behalf. Get out there and interview more actively for jobs. I am being reminded that getting a job is like selling anything... it is simply a numbers game. After a certain number of no's, there is eventually going to be a yes. And I should work smart, network... yaddi, yaddi, yaddi. Keep my eyes on the prize. Sometimes, I feel like I am just feeding myself a lot of time worn cliches, and they are starting not to work very well as motivators.

There are a lot of factors at play here. My age and other things. So I will do that "put one foot in front of the other and move on" thing. Not thrilling or inspiring, but at least I will keep moving in hopefully the right direction.

Until I see things more clearly, I will just have to do the best I can for now. I will have to settle for muddling through each day until my options and, ergo, my best possible choices become a little clearer. Meanwhile, I have to deal with present realities. I still have to survive in the moment... to pay the bills, to take out the trash, etc. So I have to really do something proactive in the immediate short-term.

Reality biting me, you see. For now, I will just deal with things as they come and hope for the best outcome.