"Whoa Daddy"

“Whoa daddy.”

This is not the kind of “whoa daddy” you throw around in regular conversation. It’s not the kind you say after your drinking buddy informs you he has successfully chugged two beers while strapping his flip-flops to his golden retriever puppy - with help of course. Nor the kind you utter when you see tank tops are 50% off at Guess. No. Let me put this into perspective.

From the Coen Brothers’ Fargo (1996). Dynamic duo, Carl (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear (Peter Stormare) drive through North Dakota in their stolen tan Ciera, the moaning wife of Jerry Lundegaard bound and gagged in the backseat. All’s well until a police officer pulls them over to deliver retribution on their untagged car. Things get out of hang quickly. The unfortunate trooper falls victim to silent and violent Gaear, who pulls him into the car and shoots him in the face. Blood and brains splatter on Carl. He stares, his eyes wider than usual.

“Whoa daddy,” He says. The audience laughs.

What makes humor possible is the build up and release of tension. In this scene of Fargo, the tension is “will these guys get caught or not?”. The release comes from Carl’s sudden vulnerability and ironic understatement. Often, the things that make us laugh speak a painful truth. Carl’s anticlimactic line reminds us that sometimes things so horrible happen that we possess no way of responding to them, not only verbally but mentally and emotionally as well. Though Carl has likely seen his share of trouble, nothing has prepared him to respond to a cop being slaughtered in his lap. He speaks likely without knowing what he is saying, just trying to find some way to calm down and assess the head that has just been popped like a shaken can of Coke.

I have used “Whoa daddy” once in my life. 

My sister, Raeha, and I sauntered through the airy, if not somewhat dry and lysol-y smelling, pathways of the Antelope Valley Mall on what had been a long and arduous shopping trip - we were in no way prepared for what next assaulted our innocent eyes. There, before us, like a rhino in the safari, approached a woman of Titanic proportions. Stretched across her ample and sawing bosom was a rag of a shirt, revealing her stomach, hanging in generous amounts over her tight, semi-transparent leggings. Lime green thong. Needless to say the ensemble was in colors that would make Nikki Minaj seem conservative. 

“Whoa daddy,” escaped my lips after the fashion culprit was lost in the crowd, despite my laudable effort to hold it. Although but a whisper, the sudden phrase spoke volumes, perfectly encapsulating the emotions spurred by sudden shock while buffering our minds against the damage our eyes could not escape.

Being a Coen Bros. fan, Raeha of course found this hilarious. Any why? The tension; we both knew what the other was thinking and wanted to say but couldn’t. The release and truth revealed - sometimes the things people put on their bodies (or rather, don’t put) are horrible enough to compare to the brutal murder of a cop in a frigid, Hell frozen over wasteland. 

This is the America we live in. 

I’m sure you’ll find something to “Whoa daddy” at today, but I fervently pray that you don’t. 

Reverent Regards

“We forget sometimes that there are saints living among us.
When we meet them, we are reminded, not just of the presence
of pure divinity right here on earth, but also of our own potential,
and of the responsibility we have to try to live up to it ~
for our own sakes and for the very future of this planet.”-Deepak Chopra

We each have our own personal saints; angels on earth. I call them friends. Not the acquaintance friends kept in stock to share a good laugh with, but the ones you feel an instant attraction to;the ones whose kindred divinity is recognized before two words are shared. When I meet these people I instantly understand that they have something I need(in a non-creepy fashion); some lesson or quality that I lack and must acknowledge, admire, acquire. Its a gut feeling. It never disappoints. The universe works in mysterious ways; never have I become vehemently interested in someone who I have not at some later point, been thrown together with in some situation, whether it be a class or club, and which to me is testament to the potential influence their presence can render on my life, if the opportunity is plucked up promptly.

 I know they are not saints in the purest sense of the word; vice is a perpetual issue and to each his own, yet my friends have some quality I find so prepossessing, so magnetic, the compulsion to bask in it, like a lizard invigorated by the suns penetrating rays, fills my soul to overflow. Despite the shadow side particular to every man, woman and child, ‘angel’ is the most applicable word that comes to mind because I feel not one drop of poisonous envy; rather I am filled with a sense of awe and pious reverence. “This is what I aspire to be, more like you.” 

Going beyond that, I know that even if I am not able to glean their qualities, despite daily instruction via observation, I would be perfectly content to concede; to go on watching, in submission to a better being, because it is beautiful to watch, like an effortless dance. Divine qualities are too pure, too inherently natural to these people for me to wish them to not have it, or even to wish that it were me in their stead. It is like being an innocent child who, having entered a cathedral from putrid streets, gazes with eyes glazed over by admiring tears. Chest heaving, it fills with holy air which he sheepishly, secretly hopes will stay with him, relieve him of his burdensome, more shameful attributes. Can a breath dissolve years of greed, of judgments, of self doubt, of fear? I am resolved to be that child kneeling before the altar, but only hope I can offer something in return.

Aut Timeo...Aut Amo (Don Miguel Ruiz)

       Every second of everyday we are making decisions. You are deciding to read this post, to judge it or not judge it, to comment constructively or maliciously, or not at all. Every moment presents a new opportunity to change our situation with decisions and the build up of these choices over time are bound up into the stories of our lives. Some stories may be neatly put together, leather bound with gilded pages, whereas others may be shabby little things, uneven pages sticking out with mud stains. When we come to a fork in the road how can we be sure we take the right path? 

It seems like every which way we turn there are irresolute faces; puckered lips, squinted eyes, drawn brows; all reflections of the hesitancy we feel inside. High school is the high time of life altering decisions that can be made by no one but ourselves and yet, there are so many forces pushing and pulling; counselors want us in certain classes, mom and dad want master’s degrees, and, on top of that, colleges are bombarding our mailboxes, virtual and physical! It’s like Hogwarts recruiting Harry; before we know it, large hairy men are going to show up at our doors and haul us off into the world! I exaggerate but the point is made. So before we sign away our souls or end up in jobs that don’t play to our passions(for they feel like pulling teeth and just may be pulling teeth), let’s ask ourselves, “Are my motivations based on fear or love?” The difference is, “Fear is full of obligations. In the track of fear, whatever we do is because we have to do it...We have the obligation, and as soon as we have to, we resist it...On the other hand, love has no resistance. Whatever we do is because we want to do it. It becomes a pleasure; it’s like a game and we have fun with it”(Don Miguel Ruiz).

In a sense, this is an expansion of my last post about perspective; whether we act out of fear or love changes the whole situation drastically. Unfortunately, we are mostly raised o respond to fear. How many times did our parents say, “Hold my hand or a car will hit you. Don’t talk to strangers, they’ll snatch you! etc.” As we aged it became, “Do your work or you’ll fail!” This is essentially the fork in the road between average and successful students. Average kids continue to respond to fear until they become teens and rebel. The fear of repercussions has worn off; work no longer holds their attention. Contrastingly, the successful students adapt; they evolve to acting out of love. They may dislike the work load but its the love of success driving them; the pride a job well done affords and the doors it opens!

Applying the concept of fear and love based motivation to school is only a very minuscule example in the scope of the world. I challenge you to try it, if only for a day. Every decision, ask yourself if you act because you’re afraid of what others think, or of rejection, failure etc. Or do you act because of a true desire that will benefit yourself and others, that will bring happiness? As we near the end of our teen years and embark on the journey to new lives, we can use this simple tool to discover the right destination, the right college or career. I’d rather be the poor artist who paints his heart on street walls that the affluent doctor who has left his all but forsaken.

A Perspective On Perspective (Marcus Aurelius)

How does one find perfect words to express imperfect thoughts? What I see is not what you see. I see a world of people fraught with distress, with strife, envy, anger, hatred, apathy, grief. From dawn til dusk life is all worry, worry, worry. They are like logs rushing down a torrent, fighting the current, crashing into each other and losing splinters-pieces of themselves-along the way. They don’t know they’re in a river, with an already cut course that, would they only stop contesting the current, will carry them all to the end; one ultimate destination that has always been beckoning since birth. And in that end they will recover all the splinters lost; every poisonous word, every kind smile. None of it was really gone, only borrowed out. There is still a connection between us and our actions. They are fastened to us and the recipients by tiny, sheer threads that, throughout life expand, thickening into webs woven around our worlds; relationships. I say ‘our worlds’ because each individual lives in his own sphere, isolated  but simultaneously overlapping with all other spheres. We are the center of our own universe. The only permanent inhabitant is the creator, the nucleus. All people we know are merely visitors. Once they enter the dominion of our mind(for our minds, our thoughts create the sphere), they must adhere to its rules which are all the judgments imposed upon them. Thus we create characters for the actors in all scenes of life. They may be contemptuous, unsavory things on whom we project the worst aspects of ourselves. Contrastingly, we may imagine others to be the magnum opus of human beings; people that “have it all figured out.” How many times have you envied others for what they appear to have? Or admired the qualities that seem to define them? We all experience it too; people telling us who we are; how funny, sad, smart, simple. But here’s the rub: “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth”(Marcus Aurelius).

Its a funny, fictitious world we inhabit, where we make up unique stories and play the central role. At the same time, though, its stranger than fiction because, despite what Marcus Aurelius observed, its all 100% true...well for the observer. All the opinions we profess, the judgments cast, are true for ourselves but only ourselves. Life IS perspective and thus we can change our life, our story, by shifting perspective. Are you sunburnt or sun-kissed? Does the wind howl or sing? We don’t need to write stories to imagine a different life. Few realize we can visualize, and fish those quixotic desires from the realm of possibility into a manifested existence.

I also see a world of people exuberant with joy, with laughter, innocence, kindness, compassion, love, peace. Harmony seems to be a hymn hummed with each breath they take. Whether it be from a place of pessimism or optimism, my perspective on life seems to change with each fleeting moment. Suddenly the world is this confusing, cesspool of good and bad, love and war and I wonder how my eyes can possibly be clear; what is the truth? ‘Fact’ seems to be something created by rational beings as an attempt to wrap this world into one concrete truth, with a big, fat bow on top. Its pursuit has both pushed us beyond ourselves-sent us to the depths of dark seas and to the summits of lofty mountains-and caused us to deny what we perceive as ‘not fact’. We have rejected incomparably more than ever accepted; a society of nay sayers is what we are. But no view is universally accepted. Your view and mine will never seamlessly mesh; so is what I see true? Or is your truth The Truth? Perhaps it is none and all. I know what I know; The joys that arrest my heart and grip the hearts of others-which I have seen in open eyes that are truly windows to the soul-are so poignant, I know them to be real. Likewise the sorrows that pierce, that sting those same eyes-so recently blistered by the brightness of life-with bitter tears, have reduced myself and others to such blubbering states that their existence cannot be denied.

The world is a large, luscious gem wrought of facets and cuts. Each of our perspectives, individually, reveals only one facet. At times it appears cold, slippery, closed off to our feelings. But if we could see all the facets, we would realize the world is a perfectly imperfect jewel. We would see this privileged planet glisten with every color of the rising sun.