Embracing Eccentricity

When was the last time you thought about your life? Not when it started, or will be over, but what you're doing with it in the present? So often I overhear people speaking of themselves in past tense with shiny adjectives like amazing, super, player, lover, sportsman, poet, friend, and the all-too-used rockstar. "You've never witnessed a man so good at picking up the ladies than this rockstar in his prime," explains one; "On the football field I was a beast, a certifiable wrecking ball," exclaims another. What about now? What about right now? Where are you my beast? Where are you my rockstar? What happened to all the bravado? Did time take it from you like a wild flame melts the wax off an antique candle? Maybe those moments of fondness come less with age, as we are pushed into more adult roles, gone are the beasts and poets, in come the parents and minivan pilots.

On a muggy Florida afternoon some years ago I briskly walked through an Aldi grocery store. It was oddly arranged in a manner that required visitors to navigate aisle-by-aisle each section, rather than that of an open market where visitors could quickly find what they sought and go. Beyond the layout, for the life of me I couldn't find a brand I recognized, all the food was from a different universe, one that had yet to buy an ad on TV to tell me how good it was. I cursed Aldi for this, this euro-quirk wasn't charming, I needed Boars Head ham, and I needed it now, enough with the walk-through-the-gift-shop on the way out stuff.

Five months ago I returned to Aldi with my girlfriend. This Aldi was in South Carolina, not Florida, but for all intensive purposes it had the same odd layout, same quarter-to-use shopping carts, and same white label brands. This trip was different though, from the start the place looked promising, maybe I'm more calm, or maybe my companion has me more calm. As we walked the aisles chock full of discounted knock offs of everything from Nutella to Fage, the world of Aldi started to make sense. With my girlfriend's enthusiasm in full tilt, we found deal after deal. She calmly walked the awkward aisles, pointing out a mix of delicious foods and good deals in a whispery tone meant for just us two. "Those are so good, and man did you see the price of those cheese crackers, what a deal," she'd enthuse. Her energy attracted others, even begging a fellow Aldian to smile and compliment her dress. We bagged, or rather boxed, our groceries into the quarter cart, and were on our way with a total savings somewhere north of 60%.

Later in the evening my girlfriend unpacked the boxes and made dinner from our Aldi bounty. She was quick to point out that the food we bought today would last weeks before needing replenishment. Her enthusiasm was contagious as I nodded in wholehearted agreement. I'm a believer, let's shop to save! Not that long ago I'd vowed to never shop Aldi again, and now I was swearing off my organic market pension in the name of all things Aldi.

We all have eccentricities, and what fun it can be to embrace them. My girlfriend loves budget shopping, you should see her at a dollar store by the way, and there is nothing wrong with her. In fact, it's what makes her interesting. I love obscenely expensive coffee from places that start their name with plantation and end with limited. I also like indie electronic music, crowdsourcing, new media, and all kinds of other things that don't have much in common with each other. What it means to me, and what it means to you are two different things, and my suppression of any of these passions, outside of taking away from time with family and work, is no longer cool. Rather, a thoughtful approach to those things I love in life is warranted, one where I do more to embrace them foolishly, rather than with the normal adultsy caution of a thirtysomething trying to exude the confidence that matches their rising age.

Maybe there is something you've been suppressing, something random to most but utterly detailed to you that you'd love to do more with? Or maybe you've come to terms with existing within the status quo because that's what adults do? Don't be afraid to bust out your most random hobbies and interests with those that love you, and don't be surprised when they love you that much more for doing so.





Pictured below a shot from my old garage, an ode to my undeniable eccentricity.

Beyond 9/11

On the anniversary of September 11th we all stop to give thanks for life, and remember the dead. I'm more concerned with what everyone will do on September 12th and beyond. If we want to honor those that past we must look at a way to build ourselves into better people, to give more and take less, and maybe just maybe we'll see them on the other side one day.

Rest in peace all those that past that day, my commitment is to remember you not just now, but forever.

The architecture of viral (why I love the internet)

Not long ago I watched a man named Daym Drops perform a hilarious video review of the famous Five Guys double cheeseburger thanks to curator of all-things-awesome Shira Lazar for pointing it out.

Not a day later my Facebook feed started bubbling up with a "songified" version of the hit.

From that catchy tune came this, this, this, and this.

A guy in his car talking about a cheeseburger leads to uncountable laughs, views, remixes, and quite possibly fortune. SNL would be lucky to have any of these people on stage for their upcoming season.

I've been spending some time lately creating, cultivating, and reading about experimental online video. It's frothy mixes of talent and humor like the above that make me happy, and more importantly devoted to continuing the journey down the path of netified media. 

Hope for the Hapless

A black pistol rested atop a milk colored Formica countertop, its shape caught my attention as soon as I entered the room. Have you ever noticed fake guns are always thinner than real ones? Real guns have girth; a thickness metal provides that separates them from their plastic brethren you see in toyshops and at the movies.

Was it a Glock? A .22 caliber maybe? Is that thing street legal? I wondered if it was loaded as I sat down, even closer to the matte black weapon. I eyed the trigger, with one pull someone could die I thought as my palms began perspiring.

A paper plate holding a still-smoking hamburger patty replaced the weapon on the counter as my host casually went about serving dinner. A thought dashed through my mind, I’m not complaining about this meal, that’s for certain.

I once heard someone describe Southerners (read rednecks) as militia-ready, armed to the teeth, good ole boys that took matters into their own hands a bit more than the law would like. Any impulse I had to trespass dissipated at that point, and has yet to return. No empirical data to back this claim up, but shootings from trespassing incidents rarely end up being prosecuted in this neck of the woods if you know what I mean.

In life, even at a casual cookout, dangerous situations arise without warning. When you watch as many Dateline and 48 Hours episodes as I, you realize the absolute unpredictableness of crime. Things rarely go from orderly to murder in a liner way. It’s more like drawing a line on a piece of paper on a train ride, where the intention and the result differ greatly. Life is just as unpredictable if not more so than those televised weekend mysteries, just not always made so public.

On the day of a great musician’s death he gets sued, an election-year president goes on record with a firm position on a polarizing issue, a CEO with no need to lie does, and every need to properly apologize doesn’t, and a once credible news organization facilitates a Q&A with Snooki of Jersey Shore fame, and this is all just from the past week. We live in such an unpredictable world that the only thing we can really count on is unpredictability. If life is going to toss us around like a salad at Olive Garden, why aren’t we ready, prepared, and helping others as they go through the seasickness of life’s constant turbulence. Why do we pretend that everyone should be self reliant, oft in brazen casualness, when the vestige of once well mannered lives stand in plain view? Now there’s a question for Snooki.

Helping others, even dying for them, we’re taught is the ultimate expression of love, and adds a layer to meaning of our lives that virtually no other act can bestow. The good book offers John 15:13, Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (NIV). Even the box office record-breaking Avengers movie utilizes this dramatic arc in a pivotal scene in the film in which Iron Man takes a nuclear missile into a space seemingly sacrificing his life for mankind, yet (spoiler alert) returns safely to earth just before being vanished into the ether. Whether from God or Stan Lee, the point remains that giving, even at a fatal cost, is the most honorable thing we can do as humans. Yet we struggle to keep this at the forefront of our priorities, don’t we? If we didn’t there wouldn’t be 2,000 thread count sheets, because we would’ve spent all that money on insecticide treated bed nets to end Malaria.

Marxist theories aside, why are we dispositioned to constantly struggle for our own gain in a world where we are taught the ultimate gain comes from helping others? If you look at those that have all the financial wherewithal in the world like Putin or Bloomberg, what you see today are people at their core that in some fashion are trying to help others, or at least utilize such provincial power to be perceived as doing such.

Recently a group of do-gooders decided to tone down the Broadway version of Mary Poppins enough for Autistic children to enjoy it. The result? A weekend sellout and lives changed in a profound way for the better. Are we always losing if we’re helping others? Can’t we all win from the art of assisting those in need? I think so.

I rarely write about my own business ventures, because frankly they’re boring. Unless I’m talking to someone sleep deprived looking for something dull enough to doze her off, I try to steer clear of the topic. Today however I think a nugget about my business experience might help, and here it is; when thinking of a business don’t think about how to make money, think about how to profoundly help fix a problem that many people encounter. Help is the operative word here, you might not be able to fix the problem, but you might help the fixing of it. Big difference here. I can’t help all self published authors reach the levels of exposure big imprints do, but I can help contribute, maybe even shine some light on an idea or two that gets remixed into something bigger, bolder, and you guessed it, helpful for others in a profound way.

The times I’ve thought about making money as the primary objective with a business they always seem to end with the floor filled with pools of blood worthy of a dead ox, conversely when I’ve thought of sincerely and earnestly solving a big problem things worked out pretty good, at least well enough to keep me riding the roller coaster they call entrepreneurship.

There’s hope for the hapless if we intend for such. How much do we really need, and how much can we really give are questions I think about a lot. Maybe now you will too.