COMMITTED

When my life took a dramatic turn in April 2009, I started thinking long and hard about what I wanted out of marriage. I started thinking about marriage as an institution... a lot... as opposed to just "the next step" in a relationship. I also read a perspective-altering book called Eat, Pray, Love that linked me forever to the work of author Elizabeth Gilbert and the author of a blog that quoted it a lot with things like this:

"Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lazy about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it."

- Elizabeth Gilbert, EAT PRAY LOVE

I identified a lot with Elizabeth Gilbert's story and was moved by the timing of finding and reading this book about finding happiness after divorce at a point in my life where I was unhappy with my marriage. 

 

Marriage institutionally though now, I believe, is in a new frontier... almost in an identity crisis... as I felt I was. Who am I if my marraiage doesn't work? As the days of the arranged marriages, the patriarical marriages of the 50's and 60's with the bread-winning husbands and housewife wives, and even the marriages I've seen as transitions between those keep progressing, I feel marriage is moving towards a simply being the purely legal union of two people choosing to live their lives together for love -- not necessity, upward mobility or political gain. And with that tilt into love comes the natural difficulties of... love.

Anyway, when I heard that Elizabeth Gilbert had a new book out about her coming to remarry with a historical perspective of the institution and everyhing. I knew I wanted to read it. Lo and behold, I get it in the mail today from my aunt as a present -- because she knew I liked Eat Pray Love (because I gave it to her as a gift for Christmas).

I don't know... it's the timing that strikes me. Marriage. A new baby. Divorce. The expectations of it all. And I'm thinking about this new frontier. Who am I if my marriage hasn't worked out? What is marriage? And what is it now... today? And what it all means and here comes this book from a family member... from Mrs. Gilbert right around the time I'm ready for a perspective-altering exploration of the subject from a voice I trust and with which I identify.

I obviously haven't read it yet, but I wonder if it's a coicidence that it's called Committed.

CONVERGENCE

"Let us turn our thoughts today
To Martin Luther King
And recognize that there are ties between us
All men and women
Living on the earth
Ties of hope and love
Sister and brotherhood"

 - James Taylor, "Shed A Little Light"

I've never really given too much thought to Martin Luther King Jr. Day or read any of the books written about him. I've enjoyed the day off from work or school, I've studied him in classes and I've probably heard a couple of minutes of the famous "I Have A Dream" speech in DC.

Today though, there's a baby on the way. There's devastation in Haiti that was shown on 60 Minutes last night where corpses are being bulldozed into mass graves. There are friends of mine who aren't allowed to get legally married to the person they love. Today there are recalls of Tylenol because of indifference, there are billion dollar bonuses and wars that don't end. Today I'm not so sure capitalism is the best way to organize our society. It's becoming increasingly amazing to me how much life gets wasted as a consequence of politics, competition, profit and ultimately indifference. Our lives are just filled with waste -- wasted hopes, wasted resources, wasted lives.

"...There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist
There is a hunger in the center of the chest
There is a passage through the darkness and the mist
And though the body sleeps the heart will never rest..."

 - James Taylor, "Shed A Little Light"

But I believe we are living through it for a reason -- and in that sense it is not a waste. As we begin to see our government go further and further into debt for all the wars and bailouts and mismanagement, I believe that in our lifetime, we will see a tipping point: leading to a massive shift in how we all live together.

Today, there is still inequality and injustice in the world and I think about Vineyard Theatre's production of The Scottsboro Boys -- a true tragic story that inspires us to face these inequalities. It's  stories of grave injustices like this that help garner attention and attract the necessary energy needed to slowly, but steadily bring about needed change.

Rosa Parks cited the Scottsboro case as a major influence in her life and may have been the reason she did not get up from her seat on the bus that day in Montgomery, AL -- arguably lauching officially the American Civil Rights movement. Looking at The Scottsboro Boys story, Rosa Parks’ story, and the many stories of grave injustices that came out of that civil rights movement of the 60’s that are now a part of our textbooks, plays, movies, etc… many people have found hope that while change happens slowly, it will eventually happen. We can see that progress over time gets made.

Today, I'm having a major appreciation for the fact that Martin Luther King was a visionary and leader who saw that.

In this way, there's a convergence for me of everything I've learned up to this point meshing perfectly with the books, movies and life changes I've experienced over the last year. There's a reason I'm drawn to superheroes, true love... there's a reason I'm having a child... there's a reason I'm rethinking life right now... a reason why I'm the marketing director in charge of getting people to come see The Scottsboro Boys right now. There's a reason I'm thinking about Martin Luther King today more than I've ever thought about him before. I think convergences like these, people like MLK and stories like the Scottsboro boys make us believe that what’s right will ultimately triumph and what’s good will one day persevere – a very relevant and a crucial reminder that there’s no reason tomorrow should not be filled with hope no matter how bleak today is.

And when things converge for me, there's usually a West Wing episode that comes to mind to help tie it all together:

"Let us turn our thoughts today
To Martin Luther King..."

UNTHINK

It's interesting to think about how at the end of the week, I will have a baby. I was imagining someone asking me "Hey man, what do you have coming up this week" casually and me answering, "Well, I'm going to have a kid." Blows my mind a little.

With the last 9 months about to reach it's climactic resolution, I've been thinking a lot about -- and enjoying thinking about -- how to raise a child. What's the best school to send her... what's the best school that you can afford to send her? Who's the best pediatrician? Should you raise her with any particular religion? What are you going to teach her about money and budgets? What will you teach her about love? On and on and on...

My partner and I have immensely enjoyed thinking about these things -- and it's not surprising that we enjoy thinking about them together. I love that too.

In that spirit, on this three day weekend, we decided to watch a movie that I had seen before, but that she hadn't, called Zeitgeist and its sequel Zeitgeist Addendum. I'll probably blog about it more specifically in the near future, but I've noticed lately that I've been re-thinking a lot about life:

What I should eat.
How I should think.
How we should live.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about "how" and "why" we do a lot of things. How and why I do a lot of things. I've come to the conclusion that happiness is the most important part of anything. I want happiness for myself. I want whatever I do to bring me happiness because if I'm happy, I can make others happy. I want happiness in what I eat, how I think and how I live. I want happiness for my friends. My colleagues. My ex-es. I want happiness for my family. And I want happiness for my daughter arriving this week.

I'm like KFC. They wanted to unthink the wing and make it better. I want to unthink life and do the same thing in the name of happiness -- for me... and Grace.

NEGATIVITY

We all get to a point sometimes where all we seem to be able to do is complain. A lot of times, it's how we best bond with our peers. We grab a drink after a tough day and bitch about the job or the girlfriend or the boyfriend or the lack of boyfriend or girlfriend. We complain about the weather or the parents or how much something costs. We complain about the democrats or the republicans. The way someone in a competing company is doing their job. The way someone in another department is doing their job. The acting, the story, the lyrics the music, the directing... We can find reasons and occasion to be negative about just about everything.

And yes, we bond over it because we identify with it in other people. And it's contagious.

A friend today was riled up over something that her boss said. She felt attacked, got defensive and began ripping into this boss to a few of us. A couple of the people related similar stories and added points as to why this boss was an idiot for doing what the boss had done. Suddenly everyone's adding stories about how much the world sucks until it dies down and everyone takes a breath. The thought in this situation always seems to be "Man, life sucks..." before we go back to what we were doing.

I would say that I am a positive person outwardly and deep down, I am an optimist, but I have a negative streak. Just like everyone. I have a very healthy skepticism of things. But what I'm finding is that more and more, I don't want to chime into the contagious negative bonding time. I've become acutely aware of it. How a normal conversation is pacing along and then 'wham', we get going on something we all hate together and the energy gets higher, the pace gets quicker, the postures change. And it's great, because we're identifying with each other, but I'm noticing now that for me, it's like getting a sugar high. It's like drinking a cup of coffee, realizing how much energy you have, how much focus you have now, and then drinking 3 more cups. So that by the end of that last drop you're like, "wow, this feels horrible."

I'm happy that I'm noticing things like this. I think awareness is the first step. Maybe I can live a negative-free life. I don't know. I have a healthy skepticism about it. I know that being positive is also contagious. I've been in creative brainstorming meetings where an idea gets going and then someone else takes it the next step and then someone else and someone else until everyone leaves feeling like they have been a part of something. Until everyone feels constructive, excited and most importantly happy.

I want to live in that world as much as I can and I think it's possible. Awareness is the first step. Maybe, the more I'm aware of being negative, the less I will be. Maybe that negativity will be replaced with genuine positivity and instead of getting sugar highs for the rest of my life, I'll eat full, nourishing meals.