What have you done lately, or at all, that will stand the test of time?

I have been told many times in my life that I am a dork, but I think I have finally proven it.  I sat here and watched Mythbusters Co-Host Adam Savage talk for almost sixteen minutes about his obsession with sculpting an exact replica of the Maltese Falcon.  I really didn’t even know what it was about or why I was watching, but when it was finished, I was happy I did.

So, hold that thought for a moment and consider this other piece of dork-hood.

The day after Christmas, I read ‘The Giving Tree‘ by Shel Silverstein to my sons, which I was not previously familiar with.  In fact, when I bought the book, I thought it was another compilation of poetry.  It was a memorable moment in the sense that we really did not sit down to read it.  Instead, both of my youngest sons were running about the house playing with their new Christmas toys, and I just stood and spontaneously began to read the story out loud.  I became so engrossed in the story and its beautiful simplicity, that either my kids thought I was finally losing my mind, or they were as inspired as I was, stopping in their tracks and giving ‘The Giving Tree’ their full attention.

I could not help but think that this was exactly the type of emotion Silverstein hoped to pull from his readers - and here we were, the anonymous family from St. Louis, nine years after his death, having a memorable moment because of his storytelling genius.  My wife, who was apparently listening while putting on her makeup in the bathroom, came out wiping tears from her eyes, and said, “That was sad.”  She then turned back around to go and fix the mascara job that Silverstein had just wrecked.

Later that day, we were at my father-in-law’s house and I was telling him the story of our memorable moment from the morning and he said, “I have that book!”  Sure enough, within a few seconds, he had pulled it from his library in the den and began to pass it around the room for others to read, and it became a good memory for even more of us.

A little later, my father-in-law grabbed yet another Silverstein book, titled, ‘The Missing Piece.’  Being a big fan of Silverstein’s poetry as a child, and now as a father, I was pleasantly surprised that I was going to read two of his books that only hours before I did not even know existed.  He whispered, “Here.  This one is just as good, but a little weirder.”

So, I read it and liked it, but I did not really understand it.  The story was about an almost complete circle that had a missing piece, which it searches for and later finds.  (I hope I didn’t ruin it for you.)  But, the story ends without the circle being very happy with its newly found piece, and the two parts eventually go on their own way.

To many, the moral of the story was really pretty obvious, but it was not so for me…at least, not until I saw the following, seemingly unrelated, video lecture from Adam Savage:  (If you plan on watching the video, now is the time to do it before reading further.)

The point that Adam Savage makes in the story about his journey to develop an exact replica of the Maltese Falcon was that in the end, it was not about the end product all, but the journey that he would take to get him there.  It was the journey that contained all of the fun, as was the case for Silverstein’s circle with a missing piece.  It turned out for the circle that it was not finding the missing piece that brought it the most joy.  It was simply the journey, or the many experiences it had along the way that brought it the most happiness.

But that is not the end of this story, because it was not until the circle found its missing piece that it realized what really made it happy was playing with the butterflies and rolling in the tall grass.  Fortunately, for the circle, it had realized early enough in its ‘existence’ that it still had time to go back out and experience more of what really made it happy before it was too late.

Of course, if the circle did not have the goal of finding its missing piece to begin with, and if Adam Savage did not have the goal of replicating the Maltese Falcon, they would not have had the journey that helped them identify the source of their happiness to begin with.  So, perhaps the real moral to the two stories should be that while it is not the attainment of goals that ultimately leads to happiness, the journey would not happen without them.  Or, at the very least, knowing that in the end, all that is left of us is our legacy, or our journey, we should spend more time evaluating our goals in life with the an emphasis on the journey that we will take to get there.

And finally, in the case of Shel Silverstein and his gift of ‘The Giving Tree,’ we know that some journeys never end at all.  As long as there are new people to read and listen to ‘The Giving Tree’ for the first time, Silverstein’s various adventures, cunning insights, and quest for meaning will continue to stand the test of time.

What have you done lately that will do the same?

The Brane - Poetry of Ta Ke Reese

The Brane - By: Ta Ke Reese

What will happen as we move along
On this plane of continuous time
Exposing itself like an eruption of song.
Together we move forward in rhyme
Our lives seem forever, but not very long

We rise out of nothing and disappear just the same
Like sprouts in the spring all over the place
The continuous revolution of wealth and the lame
For some the sun shines, for others no trace
When the wood disappears, so does the flame.

What have we reaped that tomorrow will sow
Unveiling life’s harvest for all sprouts to see
Purpose or pointless we may never know
But the four forces are perfectly free
Pushing existence forward from an eternity ago.

William McKinley vs. Barack Obama

I was Stumbling through some pages of interest when I crossed an article about L. Frank Baum and his book, The Wizard of Oz. The article delves in to the idea that Baum’s book was a parable of sorts on populism at the turn of the 19th century.  It’s an interesting look into the idea in and of itself.

One thing that struck me though was Baum’s optimism (shown in the poem below) for what McKinley’s election would mean to the country and the world.  In a strange way, that tempered my excitement for Barack Obama a little bit.  Not that I am not a strong advocate for Obama’s leadership, but because when someone delves into history, the excitement for candidates is there regardless of the situation.  Regardless of what candidate you hope wins, for many people, it is either the end of the country as you know it or the rebirth of the country as you know it.

That being said, there is something significantly special about the election of Barack Obama, and that is the obvious, his race.  It means that this nation has matured socially in a way that many people never thought possible.  Regardless, read the poem and see if you get me on this one:

Oz Populism Theory

When McKinley gets the chair, boys,
There’ll be a jollification
Throughout our happy nation
And contentment everywhere!
Great will be our satisfaction
When the “honest money” faction
Seats McKinley in the chair!

No more the ample crops of grain
That in our granaries have lain
Will seek a purchaser in vain
Or be at mercy of the “bull” or “bear”;
Our merchants won’t be trembling
At the silverites’ dissembling
When McKinley gets the chair!

When McKinley gets the chair, boys,
The magic word “protection”
Will banish all dejection
And free the workingman from every care;
We will gain the world’s respect
When it knows our coin’s “correct”
And McKinley’s in the chair!

Also, I sent this to a good friend of mine, and my wife’s uncle, Phil Gounis, and he had this interesting tidbit to share:

Interesting now that’to get the chair’ has the connotation of executing by electrocution…